3 ms·

I recently decided on a whim to try an IPv6-only VPS which was something like 70% off at my provider. It being for internal stuff only, I thought it shouldn't b

I recently decided on a whim to try an IPv6-only VPS which was something like 70% off at my provider. It being for internal stuff only, I thought it shouldn't be too much of a problem. As it turns out, not even the Ubuntu repositories are reachable over IPv6. I believe this was the PPA server, which held some package I needed for some workaround for all the other connectivity problems. So let's hope a few important people/companies/institutions start to be slightly inconvenienced. I bet as soon as this rises to the concern of, say, some peoples' Netflix stream stuttering it's a matter of weeks to solve it.

Liquix 7y ago
Forgive my naiveté - how does running out of IPV4 addresses result in Netflix stuttering? I'm viewing it a binary problem (you either have an IP and have internet, or you're fighting to get an IP and have no internet) but that seems incorrect.
- orev 7y ago
  I could imagine if your ISP has some big NAT plant that’s overloaded, it would cause connection problems with traffic getting congested at the NAT devices.
  - Liquix 7y ago
    Makes sense, thanks :)
  - toast0 7y ago
    Not just raw bandwidth, but also NAT relies on session tracking, and the NAT device has a limited amount of memory and therefore sessions available. It's often a lot easier to augment bandwidth than to augment available sessions.
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  Peering policies between networks are protocol dependent. You have ipv4 peering and you have ipv6 peering. When your ipv4 peering sessions have problems, as that accounts for >90% of your traffic, you notice and you notice fast. If you don’t, your customers will notice for you. When your ipv6 peering sessions have problems, you may not notice for days, weeks or even months. Source: it took 3 months before the first customer complaint came in about the entire v6 network being down on a network otherwise passing over 1Tbps at peak daily.
dpedu 7y ago
Ubuntu's ppa domain - ppa.launchpad.net - and the domain their normal repos are hosted on - archive.ubuntu.com and security.ubuntu.com support IPv6. You can test it with this tool: https://ipv6-test.com/validate.php https://ipv6-test.com/validate.php It's common for hosting providers to modify system images to point at a nearer mirror or even a local one they own. Perhaps it wasn't working on your system because of some change you or the host made.
Jonnax 7y ago
Looks like PPA.launchpad.net got IPv6 support 3 days ago haha: https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/776040 https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/776040
zaphoyd 7y ago
I've already experienced some of this.. World of Warcraft had an issue a month or so ago whereby their servers got hit by an IPv4 only DDoS attack that prevented people from playing. My ISP had native IPv6 and I was unaffected as a result.
ATsch 7y ago
This should not usually really be a problem. IPv6-only hosting should usually come with a NAT64 gateway, which allows you to seamlessly connect outwards to any ipv4-only hosts. If not, you can choose to use the ones provided by he.net or google. I don't see any reason why, with incoming shared v4 http load balancers and outgoing NAT64, most standard http applications shouldn't be able to move to ipv6-only. We've been slowly turning off ipv4 for our load-balanced web apps with little issues so far.

Liquix 7y ago

Forgive my naiveté - how does running out of IPV4 addresses result in Netflix stuttering? I'm viewing it a binary problem (you either have an IP and have internet, or you're fighting to get an IP and have no internet) but that seems incorrect.

orev 7y ago
I could imagine if your ISP has some big NAT plant that’s overloaded, it would cause connection problems with traffic getting congested at the NAT devices.
- Liquix 7y ago
  Makes sense, thanks :)
- toast0 7y ago
  Not just raw bandwidth, but also NAT relies on session tracking, and the NAT device has a limited amount of memory and therefore sessions available. It's often a lot easier to augment bandwidth than to augment available sessions.
oarsinsync 7y ago
Peering policies between networks are protocol dependent. You have ipv4 peering and you have ipv6 peering. When your ipv4 peering sessions have problems, as that accounts for >90% of your traffic, you notice and you notice fast. If you don’t, your customers will notice for you. When your ipv6 peering sessions have problems, you may not notice for days, weeks or even months. Source: it took 3 months before the first customer complaint came in about the entire v6 network being down on a network otherwise passing over 1Tbps at peak daily.

dpedu 7y ago

Ubuntu's ppa domain - ppa.launchpad.net - and the domain their normal repos are hosted on - archive.ubuntu.com and security.ubuntu.com support IPv6. You can test it with this tool: https://ipv6-test.com/validate.php https://ipv6-test.com/validate.php It's common for hosting providers to modify system images to point at a nearer mirror or even a local one they own. Perhaps it wasn't working on your system because of some change you or the host made.

Jonnax 7y ago

Looks like PPA.launchpad.net got IPv6 support 3 days ago haha: https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/776040 https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/776040

zaphoyd 7y ago

I've already experienced some of this.. World of Warcraft had an issue a month or so ago whereby their servers got hit by an IPv4 only DDoS attack that prevented people from playing. My ISP had native IPv6 and I was unaffected as a result.

ATsch 7y ago

This should not usually really be a problem. IPv6-only hosting should usually come with a NAT64 gateway, which allows you to seamlessly connect outwards to any ipv4-only hosts. If not, you can choose to use the ones provided by he.net or google. I don't see any reason why, with incoming shared v4 http load balancers and outgoing NAT64, most standard http applications shouldn't be able to move to ipv6-only. We've been slowly turning off ipv4 for our load-balanced web apps with little issues so far.