6 ms·

The industry will not transition to v6 unless: 1) The cost of not doing so is higher than the cost of sticking with v4. Because of all the numerous clever tric

by xnyan 4y ago

The industry will not transition to v6 unless: 1) The cost of not doing so is higher than the cost of sticking with v4. Because of all the numerous clever tricks and products designed to mitigate v4's limitations, the cost argument still favors v4 for most people in most situations. or 2) We admit that v6 needs to be rethought and rethink it. I understand why v6 does not just increase IP address bits from 32 to 128, but at this point I think everyone has admitted that v6 is simply too difficult for most IT departments to implement. In particular, the complexity of the new assignment schemes like prefix delegation and SLAAC needs to be paired back. Offer a minimum set of features and spin off everything else.

anecdotal1 4y ago
That and I have PTSD from IPv6 routing to random places being broken which nobody notices because the fallback to v4 is still working ...
immibis 4y ago
Both prefix delegation and SLAAC are optional. Use DHCPv6 if you like.
- xnyan 4y ago
  If they are not needed for core functionally, why are they part of the standard? It's not just IT departments not able to grok v6 that's the problem, IPv6 implementations are a total crapshoot in terms of quality. Some are great, a small few are terrible or straight up don't work at all, and way too many perform perfectly in common situations but blow up in an uncommon edge case. A significant number of devices (especially in industrial, healthcare and scientific fields) still don't support it at all. This both is caused by and perpetuates lack of adoption on the user side. Reduction in scope and complexity makes it easier to implement high quality IPv6 stacks. We also need more high-quality reference implementations available for newer and underserved platforms, but that's a different subject.
- tempnow987 4y ago
  Some quick questions. SLAAC seems to introduce insane churn in the IPv6 of end user devices. SLAAC (vs DHCPv6) seems to struggle in fully configuring an end user device (think DNS servers etc. As someone who has beat my head on the IPv6 thing for a bit before giving up (I tried to go all IPv6), what is the "proper" way to setup a home IPv6 network with SLAAC and not DHCPv6? If DHCPv6 for some reason is essentially always required, why not let subsume SLAAC for IP address assignments?
  - greyface- 4y ago
    > what is the "proper" way to setup a home IPv6 network with SLAAC and not DHCPv6? RFC 8106 IPv6 Router Advertisement Options for DNS Configuration https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8106 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8106
  - immibis 4y ago
    Any sane home router should make it Just Work. All the router has to do is advertise which address prefix your ISP gave you, and your device just chooses an address under that prefix. It couldn't really be simpler - even DHCP is more complex. However, it only handles your address. Apparently there's an extension to make it also provide DNS addresses and so on. If you don't have that, then I guess you configure DNS manually. Or use 8.8.8.8. It's not like your router is doing some magic DNS auto-discovery, by the way. It just tells devices the addresses that someone typed into its own configuration page.
    - tempnow987 4y ago
      First of all, can you point me in the direction where I can get a static IPv6 block from AT&T easily so it will "just work"? Or maybe google fiber for IPv6? [1] There is currently more of a shortage of IPv6 (!!) in terms of getting a static block then there is with IPv4 in my experience. I'm really tired of hearing it will "Just work" - that's proven to be a lie over and over. But I would love to be shown where these major players do their static blocks for ipv6 (having fought this fight for a while). Are you using comcast? I think they only DYNAMICALLY assign you a 64 - so you can only create ONE subnet on your entire network. Again illustrating the shortage and difficulty in using IPv6. I'd thought /48 would be minimum PD, but that is not the case. Or even a /60? No go. There are workarounds I'm aware of, but this stuff absolutely DOES NOT "just work". [1] - https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/6136162?hl=en&ref_topic=9359263 https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/6136162?hl=en&ref_to...
zajio1am 4y ago
> In particular, the complexity of the new assignment schemes like prefix delegation and SLAAC needs to be paired back. Prefix delegation to customers is necessary if you want to avoid NAT. IPv4 stayed with delegating just one IP address to customer (household) because everyone used NAT in home routers due to IP address conservation. SLAAC was introduced because people wanted a simpler alternative to more complex DHCP. That is why it is mandatory, while DHCP is optional. > but at this point I think everyone has admitted that v6 is simply too difficult for most IT departments to implement. I do not think that IPv6 is too difficult to implement, i rarely heard this argument. The main reason that there is no transition is that there is no economic nor political incentive to do so for individual organizations, so there is a coordination problem.
tempnow987 4y ago
Spot on with part 2. Ignore all the folks saying IPv6 is "simple" or works well. I am absolutely no expert, but could get my head around ipv4, but IPv6 - I always end up running into a fuss. I really wish they'd expanded address space to 64 bits, a few other tweaks, and called it good. Maybe call it IPv5? Is there any chance of doing something like this. So many things that are so trivial or well known in IPv4 are a total nightmare pain with IPv6. Some quick examples: Internet service providers will happily give you a block of static IPv4 addresses for a price. ATT goes up to a 64 ip address block easily, even on residential. Almost impossible to get a static block of IPv6 in the US. Let's say you are SMB, you want WAN failover. With IPv4 this is simple. You can either get two blocks of static for your upstream, and route them directly as appropriate to your servers, or go behind a NAT and do a failover option. Whent the failover happens, your internal network is relatively unaffected. Now try to do this with IPv6? You can't get your static IP's to do direct routing with, and NPT and anything else is a mess, and the latency in having your entire network renumber when the WAN side flaps is stupid and annoying. In many SMB contexts folks are very used to DHCP, they use it to trigger boot scripts TFTP, zero touch phone provisioning and lots more, pass out time servers and other info and more. The set of end user devices (printers, phones, security cameras, intercoms, industrial iOT) that can be configured and supported with IPv6 is so poor and the complexity is so high. Not all ISP's offer prefix delegation to end user sites. Because you have an insane minimum subnet size with ipv6 a lot of things that for example you just need two IPs (think separate network for customer premise equipment) now need a 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 addresses. The GSE debacle means instead of a very large 64 bit address space we got an insane 128 bit address space. Seriously, how about 96 or anything else a bit more reasonable. Even things like ICMPv6 - if you just let it through the firewall you could be asking for trouble, but blocking it also causes IPv6 problems. Ugh. Oh, it's simpler than IPv4 they say.
- rany_ 4y ago
  > Even things like ICMPv6 - if you just let it through the firewall you could be asking for trouble, but blocking it also causes IPv6 problems. Ugh. Oh, it's simpler than IPv4 they say. This causes issues on IPv4 as well, the only difference is that a lot of the dirty hacks and workarounds were removed for IPv6 so that people are forced to deploy it properly.
ignoramous 4y ago
> We admit that v6 needs to be rethought and rethink it... Offer minimum set of features and spin off everything else. NAT is that IPv6.
__turbobrew__ 4y ago
I think we would have been better off if ipv6 just lengthened the address fields and left it at that.

by xnyan 4y ago

anecdotal1 4y ago

That and I have PTSD from IPv6 routing to random places being broken which nobody notices because the fallback to v4 is still working ...

immibis 4y ago

Both prefix delegation and SLAAC are optional. Use DHCPv6 if you like.

xnyan 4y ago
If they are not needed for core functionally, why are they part of the standard? It's not just IT departments not able to grok v6 that's the problem, IPv6 implementations are a total crapshoot in terms of quality. Some are great, a small few are terrible or straight up don't work at all, and way too many perform perfectly in common situations but blow up in an uncommon edge case. A significant number of devices (especially in industrial, healthcare and scientific fields) still don't support it at all. This both is caused by and perpetuates lack of adoption on the user side. Reduction in scope and complexity makes it easier to implement high quality IPv6 stacks. We also need more high-quality reference implementations available for newer and underserved platforms, but that's a different subject.
tempnow987 4y ago
Some quick questions. SLAAC seems to introduce insane churn in the IPv6 of end user devices. SLAAC (vs DHCPv6) seems to struggle in fully configuring an end user device (think DNS servers etc. As someone who has beat my head on the IPv6 thing for a bit before giving up (I tried to go all IPv6), what is the "proper" way to setup a home IPv6 network with SLAAC and not DHCPv6? If DHCPv6 for some reason is essentially always required, why not let subsume SLAAC for IP address assignments?
- greyface- 4y ago
  > what is the "proper" way to setup a home IPv6 network with SLAAC and not DHCPv6? RFC 8106 IPv6 Router Advertisement Options for DNS Configuration https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8106 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8106
- immibis 4y ago
  Any sane home router should make it Just Work. All the router has to do is advertise which address prefix your ISP gave you, and your device just chooses an address under that prefix. It couldn't really be simpler - even DHCP is more complex. However, it only handles your address. Apparently there's an extension to make it also provide DNS addresses and so on. If you don't have that, then I guess you configure DNS manually. Or use 8.8.8.8. It's not like your router is doing some magic DNS auto-discovery, by the way. It just tells devices the addresses that someone typed into its own configuration page.
  - tempnow987 4y ago
    First of all, can you point me in the direction where I can get a static IPv6 block from AT&T easily so it will "just work"? Or maybe google fiber for IPv6? [1] There is currently more of a shortage of IPv6 (!!) in terms of getting a static block then there is with IPv4 in my experience. I'm really tired of hearing it will "Just work" - that's proven to be a lie over and over. But I would love to be shown where these major players do their static blocks for ipv6 (having fought this fight for a while). Are you using comcast? I think they only DYNAMICALLY assign you a 64 - so you can only create ONE subnet on your entire network. Again illustrating the shortage and difficulty in using IPv6. I'd thought /48 would be minimum PD, but that is not the case. Or even a /60? No go. There are workarounds I'm aware of, but this stuff absolutely DOES NOT "just work". [1] - https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/6136162?hl=en&ref_topic=9359263 https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/6136162?hl=en&ref_to...

zajio1am 4y ago

> In particular, the complexity of the new assignment schemes like prefix delegation and SLAAC needs to be paired back. Prefix delegation to customers is necessary if you want to avoid NAT. IPv4 stayed with delegating just one IP address to customer (household) because everyone used NAT in home routers due to IP address conservation. SLAAC was introduced because people wanted a simpler alternative to more complex DHCP. That is why it is mandatory, while DHCP is optional. > but at this point I think everyone has admitted that v6 is simply too difficult for most IT departments to implement. I do not think that IPv6 is too difficult to implement, i rarely heard this argument. The main reason that there is no transition is that there is no economic nor political incentive to do so for individual organizations, so there is a coordination problem.

tempnow987 4y ago

Spot on with part 2. Ignore all the folks saying IPv6 is "simple" or works well. I am absolutely no expert, but could get my head around ipv4, but IPv6 - I always end up running into a fuss. I really wish they'd expanded address space to 64 bits, a few other tweaks, and called it good. Maybe call it IPv5? Is there any chance of doing something like this. So many things that are so trivial or well known in IPv4 are a total nightmare pain with IPv6. Some quick examples: Internet service providers will happily give you a block of static IPv4 addresses for a price. ATT goes up to a 64 ip address block easily, even on residential. Almost impossible to get a static block of IPv6 in the US. Let's say you are SMB, you want WAN failover. With IPv4 this is simple. You can either get two blocks of static for your upstream, and route them directly as appropriate to your servers, or go behind a NAT and do a failover option. Whent the failover happens, your internal network is relatively unaffected. Now try to do this with IPv6? You can't get your static IP's to do direct routing with, and NPT and anything else is a mess, and the latency in having your entire network renumber when the WAN side flaps is stupid and annoying. In many SMB contexts folks are very used to DHCP, they use it to trigger boot scripts TFTP, zero touch phone provisioning and lots more, pass out time servers and other info and more. The set of end user devices (printers, phones, security cameras, intercoms, industrial iOT) that can be configured and supported with IPv6 is so poor and the complexity is so high. Not all ISP's offer prefix delegation to end user sites. Because you have an insane minimum subnet size with ipv6 a lot of things that for example you just need two IPs (think separate network for customer premise equipment) now need a 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 addresses. The GSE debacle means instead of a very large 64 bit address space we got an insane 128 bit address space. Seriously, how about 96 or anything else a bit more reasonable. Even things like ICMPv6 - if you just let it through the firewall you could be asking for trouble, but blocking it also causes IPv6 problems. Ugh. Oh, it's simpler than IPv4 they say.

rany_ 4y ago
> Even things like ICMPv6 - if you just let it through the firewall you could be asking for trouble, but blocking it also causes IPv6 problems. Ugh. Oh, it's simpler than IPv4 they say. This causes issues on IPv4 as well, the only difference is that a lot of the dirty hacks and workarounds were removed for IPv6 so that people are forced to deploy it properly.

ignoramous 4y ago

> We admit that v6 needs to be rethought and rethink it... Offer minimum set of features and spin off everything else. NAT is that IPv6.

__turbobrew__ 4y ago

I think we would have been better off if ipv6 just lengthened the address fields and left it at that.