3 ms·

The issue would be more or less the same. You'd have to buy new hardware and check all software anyway but would drop many of the benefits of the IPv6 we have.

The issue would be more or less the same. You'd have to buy new hardware and check all software anyway but would drop many of the benefits of the IPv6 we have. E.g. in enterprise networks, it is very nice you don't have to think about the size of a subnet for a VLAN anymore, you just give every VLAN /64 and it will suffice. The extra address space is also nice for autoconfiguration and much more we don't even think about yet. I think, IPv6 is ok as it is. A practical protocol is never perfect and will not please everybody but IPv6 stood the test of time, there is considerable traffic over IPv6 and we are slowly, but surely getting there.

api 5y ago
Adding IPv6 support has never really been the issue. It's in every single piece of hardware or software I have. The problem is that people don't want to use it, as evidenced by the fact that people avoid it on overlay or virtual networks and use IPv4 if possible. The very slight convenience you mention is far outweighed by 32+ digit IP addresses. Also please don't bring up DNS. Anyone arguing that DNS is a solution to this problem has never done devops or IT.
- kaliszad 5y ago
  Actually, IPv6 addresses cannot be longer than 32 digits. Some practical ones can be rather short, usually just slightly longer than a comparable IPv4 address. Such addresses would be used where remembering/ recognizing the exact IPv4 or IPv6 is relevant, such as the DNS servers or the network hand-off IP/ floating-IP on a firewall cluster or something like that that are used for the bring-up of other services. I have done my fare share of devops/ IT/ administration and engineering of largish enterprise and campus networks. You would be surprised how much hardware and software doesn't support IPv6 properly. Sometimes it is the basic things, sometimes the more advanced stuff but that just means it takes a second or multiple days to find out. The problem is, it just is a similar but different protocol so you have to be quite diligent and check everything you need for the device/ service to work. People do all kinds of stuff on underlay and overlay networks. E.g. some Dell VxRail hyper-converged appliances use IPv6 for the management network https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Shared-Content_data-Sheets_Documents/en/dellemc-vxrail-networking-guidelines.pdf https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Shared-Content_data-She.... This is basically just link-local addresses for L2 reachability if I remember correctly but they could've gone with IPv4 there as well. It certainly would be more common for enterprise appliances to not rely on IPv6 for anything even when it shouldn't make a difference whether you do.

api 5y ago

Adding IPv6 support has never really been the issue. It's in every single piece of hardware or software I have. The problem is that people don't want to use it, as evidenced by the fact that people avoid it on overlay or virtual networks and use IPv4 if possible. The very slight convenience you mention is far outweighed by 32+ digit IP addresses. Also please don't bring up DNS. Anyone arguing that DNS is a solution to this problem has never done devops or IT.

kaliszad 5y ago
Actually, IPv6 addresses cannot be longer than 32 digits. Some practical ones can be rather short, usually just slightly longer than a comparable IPv4 address. Such addresses would be used where remembering/ recognizing the exact IPv4 or IPv6 is relevant, such as the DNS servers or the network hand-off IP/ floating-IP on a firewall cluster or something like that that are used for the bring-up of other services. I have done my fare share of devops/ IT/ administration and engineering of largish enterprise and campus networks. You would be surprised how much hardware and software doesn't support IPv6 properly. Sometimes it is the basic things, sometimes the more advanced stuff but that just means it takes a second or multiple days to find out. The problem is, it just is a similar but different protocol so you have to be quite diligent and check everything you need for the device/ service to work. People do all kinds of stuff on underlay and overlay networks. E.g. some Dell VxRail hyper-converged appliances use IPv6 for the management network https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Shared-Content_data-Sheets_Documents/en/dellemc-vxrail-networking-guidelines.pdf https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Shared-Content_data-She.... This is basically just link-local addresses for L2 reachability if I remember correctly but they could've gone with IPv4 there as well. It certainly would be more common for enterprise appliances to not rely on IPv6 for anything even when it shouldn't make a difference whether you do.