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Over 99.7% of hosts hitting Google.com are IPv4 only. That's insane! Some estimates say that IPv4 addresses will run out in under a year. And still under 0.3% o

Over 99.7% of hosts hitting Google.com are IPv4 only. That's insane! Some estimates say that IPv4 addresses will run out in under a year. And still under 0.3% of all hosts have IPv6 capability. Long live ISP-side NAT. However, I think the reason for this is obvious. Had IPv6 not been designed as forcefully backwards-incompatible...

cosmicray 16y ago
> Over 99.7% of hosts hitting Google.com are IPv4 only. Is it the hosts, or is it the mid-span links ? I'm sitting here in a fast-food place with a Macbook is certainly IPv6 capable, but I suspect the cable-modem and/or the AP they use here isn't. How many last mile providers are IPv6 capable today ?
- ismarc 16y ago
  Your computer being IPv6 compatible is incidental to the actual transition to IPv6. IPv4 to IPv6 NAT will be used as the circuit that's provided has IPv6 only connectivity in order to support older clients. And then, in order to talk to any hosts that don't have IPv6 support (a large number of them, as in, insanely large number), you'll need an IPv6 to IPv4 bridge (provided by the ISP, transparent to the end user). If done properly, hosts that support IPv6 will start getting traffic as the onsite CPEs and gateways start getting IPv6 addresses rolled out to them (likely to be starting on date X new customers get IPv6 IPs and existing customers maintain IPv4 for the transition period).
IgorPartola 16y ago
Why is that so insane? Does it surprise you that more than 99.7% of cars out there are not hybrids? There is no pressing financial reason to switch yet. As a node on the Internet you can either request an IPv4 address for, say, $0.25/month and make that go as long as possible, or you could drop whatever other work you are doing and replace/upgrade, test and deploy your entire hardware architecture just so that at some point when IPv4 support starts getting dropped (not happening in one year), you can be ready. Once again, everybody relax. IPv6 will happen. As soon as it is cheaper to upgrade your entire infrastructure than getting another batch of IPv4 addresses, everyone will jump on board. In the mean time, just breathe. And lastly, two 16 byte addresses cannot possibly fit into a 20 byte header, so there is no way that IPv6 would have been compatible with IPv4.
- eggnet 16y ago
  It could have been done with software updates only, to routers and hosts. The problem is, you can't just update IOS on your routers, you also have to add IPv6 configuration to the routers. If two 32 bit addresses are talking to each other, use IPv4 packets. If at least one address is 128 bits, use IPv6 packets. It could have been that simple, with software updates (and hardware, in the case of many routers) over the past what, 15 years, we could have been running ipv6 effortlessly.
  - ghshephard 16y ago
    "If two 32 bit addresses are talking to each other, use IPv4 packets. If at least one address is 128 bits, use IPv6 packets. " That, actually is a pretty good description of a dual-stack host. :-)

cosmicray 16y ago

> Over 99.7% of hosts hitting Google.com are IPv4 only. Is it the hosts, or is it the mid-span links ? I'm sitting here in a fast-food place with a Macbook is certainly IPv6 capable, but I suspect the cable-modem and/or the AP they use here isn't. How many last mile providers are IPv6 capable today ?

ismarc 16y ago
Your computer being IPv6 compatible is incidental to the actual transition to IPv6. IPv4 to IPv6 NAT will be used as the circuit that's provided has IPv6 only connectivity in order to support older clients. And then, in order to talk to any hosts that don't have IPv6 support (a large number of them, as in, insanely large number), you'll need an IPv6 to IPv4 bridge (provided by the ISP, transparent to the end user). If done properly, hosts that support IPv6 will start getting traffic as the onsite CPEs and gateways start getting IPv6 addresses rolled out to them (likely to be starting on date X new customers get IPv6 IPs and existing customers maintain IPv4 for the transition period).

IgorPartola 16y ago

Why is that so insane? Does it surprise you that more than 99.7% of cars out there are not hybrids? There is no pressing financial reason to switch yet. As a node on the Internet you can either request an IPv4 address for, say, $0.25/month and make that go as long as possible, or you could drop whatever other work you are doing and replace/upgrade, test and deploy your entire hardware architecture just so that at some point when IPv4 support starts getting dropped (not happening in one year), you can be ready. Once again, everybody relax. IPv6 will happen. As soon as it is cheaper to upgrade your entire infrastructure than getting another batch of IPv4 addresses, everyone will jump on board. In the mean time, just breathe. And lastly, two 16 byte addresses cannot possibly fit into a 20 byte header, so there is no way that IPv6 would have been compatible with IPv4.

eggnet 16y ago
It could have been done with software updates only, to routers and hosts. The problem is, you can't just update IOS on your routers, you also have to add IPv6 configuration to the routers. If two 32 bit addresses are talking to each other, use IPv4 packets. If at least one address is 128 bits, use IPv6 packets. It could have been that simple, with software updates (and hardware, in the case of many routers) over the past what, 15 years, we could have been running ipv6 effortlessly.
- ghshephard 16y ago
  "If two 32 bit addresses are talking to each other, use IPv4 packets. If at least one address is 128 bits, use IPv6 packets. " That, actually is a pretty good description of a dual-stack host. :-)