3 ms·

Just like me and many other sysadmins. What amazes me is that the people who designed IPv6 still don't get it and seem surprised why it hasn't took over the Int

Just like me and many other sysadmins. What amazes me is that the people who designed IPv6 still don't get it and seem surprised why it hasn't took over the Internet yet.

ben0x539 8y ago
A lot of mobile phones access the internet via IPv6 by default, and IPv4-only sites that want to reach them require non-trivial compatibility infrastructure like carrier-grade NAT or more complicated shenanigans. It seems like some sites are starting to identify these shims as a huge stumbling block in their continuous work to improve latency/quality-of-service. I think Facebook in particular made a bunch of noise in that direction and celebrates how prioritizing IPv6 has let them make huge improvements in load times etc, but at this point you're as likely to find good information about that on Google as I am so I'll spare you any links. So while IPv6 might not have taken over the Internet in any particularly observable manner so far, I think it's fair to say it has huge momentum at this point and has buy-in way beyond some IETF nerds and protocol fetishists.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  > It seems like some sites are starting to identify these shims as a huge stumbling block in their continuous work to improve latency/quality-of-service. I'd be curious to know how much time you can actually save because really, honestly, in the case of Facebook this particular aspect should be the last of their concerns as far as page load times are concerned.
  - zlynx 8y ago
    Hundreds of milliseconds per TCP (or UDP) session. The CGNAT boxes are handling hundreds of thousands of flows. And they're part of failover clusters so each flow has to be shipped to the other cluster members and acknowledged before starting the flow. And these things are often overloaded and adding tens of milliseconds delay to each packet passing through. Because whoever heard of an ISP spending more than "just enough" on hardware?
    - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
      You see, my point is that these milliseconds are negligible in the case of a website like Facebook that takes 20 second to fully load on a reasonably modern machine.
      - zlynx 8y ago
        You may already be behind an overloaded CGNAT then. Over IPv6 on Comcast cable, with the Edge browser, Facebook is fully loaded for me in 3 seconds. Surface tablet in power-save mode so this isn't some overpowered desktop monster.
        dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
        That's very interesting. I've just measured it in private mode, all plugins off, from the moment of clicking login till the time the page load indicator stopped running. 13 full seconds.
        zlynx 8y ago
        For fairness I just did that myself. 4 seconds.
      - ben0x539 8y ago
        I mean, we're probably not talking about a dozen milliseconds out of 20 seconds total, we're talking about extra milliseconds for every request or roundtrip or w/e constituting those 20 seconds. It's an extra cost that scales with the bloat you're decrying, it doesn't become insignificant next to it!
        zlynx 8y ago
        Indeed. When I use Firefox dev tools to open Facebook I see over 300 requests. 300! Many of those are loaded over the same HTTP/2 connection. And a lot of those are cached. But that's still a lot of TCP connections to multiple servers opening up and every bit of added latency slows it all down.
protomyth 8y ago
I honestly think the creators of IPv6 thought their customer was all the folks buying devices and forgot their real customers were all the sysadmins. They totally failed at making it an easy and rewarding jump from IPv4 to IPv6. Enthusiastic sysadmins would have got the conversion done years ago.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
  ... which is what all those people say over and over who don't have the slightest clue how one could possibly build a system that has an "easier or more rewarding jump". It's always just a completely unsubstantiated "it should have been easier" (when nothing about it is actually difficult) and "it should simply have been backwards compatible" (with no word about how this inherent impossibility should have been accomplished).
  - protomyth 8y ago
    Every criticism of IPv6 is downvoted into oblivion, but it doesn't change the fact that great technology is adopted by the target audience quickly if there is this much effort behind it. Where IPv6 hasn't been because it is painful and doesn't make things easier for the folks who have to implement it. It is difficult, and it is different, and they did a poor job of dealing with the conversion from how IPv4 is used (NAT). Sun spent money on Java and got a huge adoption because it solved some serious problems for C++. The amount of broken IPv6 code should have been a clue.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
      So, you are doing exactly what I said: You say it should have been easier and (more) backwards compatible. With absolutely no word about how that could possibly have been done, nor really even about what the supposed problems actually are, other than a vague "difficult and different". Absolutely nothing of substance. Also, what broken IPv6 code?
      - protomyth 8y ago
noinsight 8y ago
> why it hasn't took over the Internet yet. Yeah - only 21% of all traffic handled by Google is over IPv6... https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

Just like me and many other sysadmins. What amazes me is that the people who designed IPv6 still don't get it and seem surprised why it hasn't took over the Internet yet.

ben0x539 8y ago

A lot of mobile phones access the internet via IPv6 by default, and IPv4-only sites that want to reach them require non-trivial compatibility infrastructure like carrier-grade NAT or more complicated shenanigans. It seems like some sites are starting to identify these shims as a huge stumbling block in their continuous work to improve latency/quality-of-service. I think Facebook in particular made a bunch of noise in that direction and celebrates how prioritizing IPv6 has let them make huge improvements in load times etc, but at this point you're as likely to find good information about that on Google as I am so I'll spare you any links. So while IPv6 might not have taken over the Internet in any particularly observable manner so far, I think it's fair to say it has huge momentum at this point and has buy-in way beyond some IETF nerds and protocol fetishists.

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
> It seems like some sites are starting to identify these shims as a huge stumbling block in their continuous work to improve latency/quality-of-service. I'd be curious to know how much time you can actually save because really, honestly, in the case of Facebook this particular aspect should be the last of their concerns as far as page load times are concerned.
- zlynx 8y ago
  Hundreds of milliseconds per TCP (or UDP) session. The CGNAT boxes are handling hundreds of thousands of flows. And they're part of failover clusters so each flow has to be shipped to the other cluster members and acknowledged before starting the flow. And these things are often overloaded and adding tens of milliseconds delay to each packet passing through. Because whoever heard of an ISP spending more than "just enough" on hardware?
  - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
    You see, my point is that these milliseconds are negligible in the case of a website like Facebook that takes 20 second to fully load on a reasonably modern machine.
    - zlynx 8y ago
      You may already be behind an overloaded CGNAT then. Over IPv6 on Comcast cable, with the Edge browser, Facebook is fully loaded for me in 3 seconds. Surface tablet in power-save mode so this isn't some overpowered desktop monster.
      - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
        That's very interesting. I've just measured it in private mode, all plugins off, from the moment of clicking login till the time the page load indicator stopped running. 13 full seconds.
        zlynx 8y ago
        For fairness I just did that myself. 4 seconds.
    - ben0x539 8y ago
      I mean, we're probably not talking about a dozen milliseconds out of 20 seconds total, we're talking about extra milliseconds for every request or roundtrip or w/e constituting those 20 seconds. It's an extra cost that scales with the bloat you're decrying, it doesn't become insignificant next to it!
      - zlynx 8y ago
        Indeed. When I use Firefox dev tools to open Facebook I see over 300 requests. 300! Many of those are loaded over the same HTTP/2 connection. And a lot of those are cached. But that's still a lot of TCP connections to multiple servers opening up and every bit of added latency slows it all down.

protomyth 8y ago

I honestly think the creators of IPv6 thought their customer was all the folks buying devices and forgot their real customers were all the sysadmins. They totally failed at making it an easy and rewarding jump from IPv4 to IPv6. Enthusiastic sysadmins would have got the conversion done years ago.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
... which is what all those people say over and over who don't have the slightest clue how one could possibly build a system that has an "easier or more rewarding jump". It's always just a completely unsubstantiated "it should have been easier" (when nothing about it is actually difficult) and "it should simply have been backwards compatible" (with no word about how this inherent impossibility should have been accomplished).
- protomyth 8y ago
  Every criticism of IPv6 is downvoted into oblivion, but it doesn't change the fact that great technology is adopted by the target audience quickly if there is this much effort behind it. Where IPv6 hasn't been because it is painful and doesn't make things easier for the folks who have to implement it. It is difficult, and it is different, and they did a poor job of dealing with the conversion from how IPv4 is used (NAT). Sun spent money on Java and got a huge adoption because it solved some serious problems for C++. The amount of broken IPv6 code should have been a clue.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
    So, you are doing exactly what I said: You say it should have been easier and (more) backwards compatible. With absolutely no word about how that could possibly have been done, nor really even about what the supposed problems actually are, other than a vague "difficult and different". Absolutely nothing of substance. Also, what broken IPv6 code?
    - protomyth 8y ago

noinsight 8y ago

> why it hasn't took over the Internet yet. Yeah - only 21% of all traffic handled by Google is over IPv6... https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html