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IPv6 adoption is approaching a big wall. Maybe the industry will finally start reconsidering it and doing honest research into something that can actually get w

IPv6 adoption is approaching a big wall. Maybe the industry will finally start reconsidering it and doing honest research into something that can actually get wide spread adoption.

throwaway2048 8y ago
There is no magical ipv4 compatible protocol that is possible at scale that is simply being denied to the masses by the Ivory Tower IETF. IPv6 is the future of IP connectivity, that is not going to change.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  How so? There is unlimited amount of compatible protocols that can be made to run on top of IPv4.
  - wmf 8y ago
    And they all suck in various (usually non-obvious) ways.
    - zzzcpan 8y ago
      That's the thing. Any idea done in software on top of existing ones sucks infinitely less, than any incompatible idea backed by hardware.
      - vertex-four 8y ago
        Here’s the thing - all the hardware supports it now. Has done for the last couple of decades. Your home router almost definitely does, your carrier’s switches and routers almost definitely do, there’s ipv6 support all the way to Google and Amazon and Netflix and whoever else you want to connect to. It’s a pile of people refusing to implement software (mostly proprietary software - again, open-source systems have supported IPv6 for a very long time) and administrative support for it that’s the issue. If you want an IPv6 address over your existing IPv4 connectivity, you can get one in a number of ways - that’s an overlay network that is already supported by a massive amount of hardware and free software.
      - jkaplowitz 8y ago
        IPv6 is software in almost all implementations, just like IPv4.
        dcow 8y ago
        Not actually true. There are plenty of hardware L3/4 switching/routing/flow acceleration chips. IP4 is fast on 32bit machines but IP6 is 4 times the word size there. Hardware does matter.
        jkaplowitz 8y ago
        Yeah, it exists in hardware implementations too, but most devices that have IP stacks (of either IP version) do it in software because they're general-purpose computing devices. And it's the general-purpose computing devices that are lagging in IPv6 support, not the networking-centric hardware implementations. It's been quite a while since business-quality networking devices shipped without IPv6 support. For those home / small-business routers which still lack support, that is probably going to be a software implementation either way, and at the very least the software nature of any IPv6 implementation added through a "firmware" update (really just an OS update) won't be a performance bottleneck for those devices. In some of those cases a firmware update has even been released by the manufacturer, just not applied. In many more, IPv6 is supported by the networking device and the software/firmware but simply disabled, or not supported by one or both of the ISP and the end-user device.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    How does that solve anything? If you still need an IPv4 address, what's the point?
    - zzzcpan 8y ago
      You don't need a routable IPv4 address, only your ISP needs it. Think overlay networks.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        So, NAT? We already have that, no need for new protocols.
        zzzcpan 8y ago
        Imagine an overlay network that consists of nodes running directly on end users' computers. It has its own routing system and it can establish connections to other nodes via local network, via internet, punching holes through NAT, etc. If popular things like web browsers implement support for that overlay network, ISPs don't even have to provide NAT or routable IP addresses to customers that want to access the web, they can just run some nodes themselves that have internet connectivity and expect end users' nodes to find those nodes over local network and get web connectivity over that overlay network. Of course there are no limits of how integrated overlay networks can become. But notice how little change overlay networks can be made to impose on everyone and to support effortless gradual transition.
        kiallmacinnes 8y ago
        Except educating users on how to install their overlay network of choice. And how many will they need to install? Will everyone install a generic one that all software just works with? Kinda sounds like IPv6, just with the added network in network overheads, and a competitor (IPv6) that's years ahead in terms of real world deployment. And then there's the suggestion ISPs could run these popular overlay network nodes, that customers don't even need IP. I'll pass on slicing up the internet into walled gardens that's ISPs get to choose which overlay networks you can access!

IPv6 adoption is approaching a big wall. Maybe the industry will finally start reconsidering it and doing honest research into something that can actually get wide spread adoption.

throwaway2048 8y ago

There is no magical ipv4 compatible protocol that is possible at scale that is simply being denied to the masses by the Ivory Tower IETF. IPv6 is the future of IP connectivity, that is not going to change.

zzzcpan 8y ago
How so? There is unlimited amount of compatible protocols that can be made to run on top of IPv4.
- wmf 8y ago
  And they all suck in various (usually non-obvious) ways.
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    That's the thing. Any idea done in software on top of existing ones sucks infinitely less, than any incompatible idea backed by hardware.
    - vertex-four 8y ago
      Here’s the thing - all the hardware supports it now. Has done for the last couple of decades. Your home router almost definitely does, your carrier’s switches and routers almost definitely do, there’s ipv6 support all the way to Google and Amazon and Netflix and whoever else you want to connect to. It’s a pile of people refusing to implement software (mostly proprietary software - again, open-source systems have supported IPv6 for a very long time) and administrative support for it that’s the issue. If you want an IPv6 address over your existing IPv4 connectivity, you can get one in a number of ways - that’s an overlay network that is already supported by a massive amount of hardware and free software.
    - jkaplowitz 8y ago
      IPv6 is software in almost all implementations, just like IPv4.
      - dcow 8y ago
        Not actually true. There are plenty of hardware L3/4 switching/routing/flow acceleration chips. IP4 is fast on 32bit machines but IP6 is 4 times the word size there. Hardware does matter.
        jkaplowitz 8y ago
        Yeah, it exists in hardware implementations too, but most devices that have IP stacks (of either IP version) do it in software because they're general-purpose computing devices. And it's the general-purpose computing devices that are lagging in IPv6 support, not the networking-centric hardware implementations. It's been quite a while since business-quality networking devices shipped without IPv6 support. For those home / small-business routers which still lack support, that is probably going to be a software implementation either way, and at the very least the software nature of any IPv6 implementation added through a "firmware" update (really just an OS update) won't be a performance bottleneck for those devices. In some of those cases a firmware update has even been released by the manufacturer, just not applied. In many more, IPv6 is supported by the networking device and the software/firmware but simply disabled, or not supported by one or both of the ISP and the end-user device.
- icebraining 8y ago
  How does that solve anything? If you still need an IPv4 address, what's the point?
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    You don't need a routable IPv4 address, only your ISP needs it. Think overlay networks.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      So, NAT? We already have that, no need for new protocols.
      - zzzcpan 8y ago
        Imagine an overlay network that consists of nodes running directly on end users' computers. It has its own routing system and it can establish connections to other nodes via local network, via internet, punching holes through NAT, etc. If popular things like web browsers implement support for that overlay network, ISPs don't even have to provide NAT or routable IP addresses to customers that want to access the web, they can just run some nodes themselves that have internet connectivity and expect end users' nodes to find those nodes over local network and get web connectivity over that overlay network. Of course there are no limits of how integrated overlay networks can become. But notice how little change overlay networks can be made to impose on everyone and to support effortless gradual transition.
        kiallmacinnes 8y ago
        Except educating users on how to install their overlay network of choice. And how many will they need to install? Will everyone install a generic one that all software just works with? Kinda sounds like IPv6, just with the added network in network overheads, and a competitor (IPv6) that's years ahead in terms of real world deployment. And then there's the suggestion ISPs could run these popular overlay network nodes, that customers don't even need IP. I'll pass on slicing up the internet into walled gardens that's ISPs get to choose which overlay networks you can access!