4 ms·

Hey all... unquietwiki from r/ipv6; been lead-mod there for a while now (though the rest of the folks are really amazing on the mod-side). IPv6 has saved my ba

Hey all... unquietwiki from r/ipv6; been lead-mod there for a while now (though the rest of the folks are really amazing on the mod-side). IPv6 has saved my bacon more times in the past 15 years, than IPv4 has fought with me. No clashing of IPv4 ranges. No fighting with NAT. Ability to easily have concurrent networks, for different purposes. Ability to assign multiple network addresses. Internally, it "just works" on basically anything not an older licensing server, or LAN game. Microsoft is using it internally. Apple has been mandating MacOS and iOS apps to support it for several years now. Usage over the Internet is exceeding 50% in major countries. Where it falls short... a lot of ISPs use equipment that don't handle it well, and/or don't have the staff to implement it properly; and the ISP buyouts and mergers here in the US of the past 15-20 years REALLY messed up the timeline on adoption. Cloud services, a lot of the stuff Google & Microsoft built up their public offerings on, they were designed largely on older virtualization setups that precluded how IPv6 works, until recently; same goes for Docker & Kubernetes. A lot of VPS hosts support it just fine; but a lot of businesses aren't leveraging those, as they could be. And lastly... a lot of IT guys still don't care for IPv6; as those biases show up in these & on Reddit; so that perpetuates the cycle.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
So the largest expansion of general availability compute (and associated addressing needs) occurs and it ignores ipv6. Re: 50% ... Your ipv6 numbers are very likely mobile, are they not? And those all CGNAT to ipv4 land? So the entire ipv6 mobile space (the biggest victory of the ipv6 war) is basically behind the #1 thing that ipv6 hate more than anything: a NAT. If you can't get ISPs to support it............ ............... ............... ISPs! The central access points to the internet for consumers! THE MAIN PEOPLE THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE CORRALLED. If you didn't get these people on IPv6 within a decade of the protocol, well I don't know what to say. I can't explain the massive degree of failure. Well, I don't have to, look at this thread. I just hear excuses. Blah blah ISPs Blah blah VMs blah blah kubernetes. If the ISPs don't support ipv6, then the software applications CANNOT be upgraded. If it is 2022 and there are major failures in ipv6 support (and there are) in places like comcast and the like, then whose fault is that? It is the fault of the ipv6 organizations, designers, ratifiers, etc. To underline, in America we have MASSIVE monopolies on consumer ISP access, and have for decades. That means in order to wrangle these organizations, you, what, get 10 people in the room and the FCC and get it hammered out? IPV6 isn't just a failure of protocol design. It is a massive failure of organization and outreach. The attitude, rife throughout all ipv6 conversations, is the protocol designers forced it on the internet and said "take it or leave it". The issue is ipv4 has ALWAYS been easier for a programmer. ipv6 always makes for more headaches. This is a massive massive failure. IPV4 networking sucks! NAT! bridges! Gateways! Prozies! port forwarding! CGNAT! It's still all easier than ipv6. Think about that. The issue here is that ipv6 has no hammer. It didn't have the FCC on board or some ultra-powerful group that could deliver the hammer. This is like IE6 (what is it about the number 6? don't answer that), that required a grassroots rebellion in silicon valley to dislodge. Well, and Google Chrome. GET A HAMMER. Idea: GOOGLE IS THE HAMMER.
- unquietwiki 4y ago
  Windows Vista came out in 2007, and it explicitly had a dual-stack IPv4+IPv6 implementation. Around that same time, the BSDs were finishing up KAME, and Linux support was decently mature. That was 15 years ago. Software and OS-wise; with the exception of some features of Mikrotik routers + managed Meraki & Ubiquiti stuff just now getting onboard; the support is there. Node's using it properly now. I was able to update Pidgin to use it 10+ years ago. So I think we've got the software-side long figured out; we just needed to get the damn vendors on-board. I'm glad we agree on NAT sucking. Though given a lot of ISPs are doing DHCPv6 without fixed net-ranges to clients; a work environment does benefit from having ULAs still; sometimes even with NAT66. Performance & security-wise, IPv6 still wins that battle: most routers disable automatic inbound traffic, and you can pinhole traffic directly between hosts.
  - BizarroLand 4y ago
    I'm willing to bet that every ISP in America has IPV6 capabilities but the ones that have not activated it have done so out of corporate lethargy. The bosses aren't yelling, "TURN ON IPV6 AND MAKE IT WORK" so the peons have no reason to flip the switches. The bosses have no reason to push for IPV6 as it will increase support costs and add work hours but it will not increase income or improve profits. We need a mandate from the FCC that says that any ISP that has accepted federal funds to build or deploy internet access systems must turn on IPV6 to the consumer or face penalties. Short of that, it's not going to happen.
mike_d 4y ago
> And lastly... a lot of IT guys still don't care for IPv6; as those biases show up in these & on Reddit; so that perpetuates the cycle You know the 3rd and 7th largest networks on the internet still can't reach each other over IPv6, right? It is super awesome that it "just works" for you, but recognize you might just not have the perspective of one of the people who has to make it "just work" for you.
- s3000 4y ago
  >You know the 3rd and 7th largest networks on the internet still can't reach each other over IPv6 Who is responsible? Which networks are those?
  - mike_d 4y ago
    Cogent and Hurricane Electric, the upstream providers of 31% and 17% of networks on the internet respectfully. The reason as an end user you can access both sides of the spit is because network engineers for end user/eyeball networks will buy transit from both.
    - ipython 4y ago
      I’m sorry but how is cogents shitty business model somehow the fault of ipv6? Peering disputes happen on ipv4 as well
      - unquietwiki 4y ago
        I think HE's been begging to peer to Cogent for years now. I've even seen cakes posted online.
magicalhippo 4y ago
> And lastly... a lot of IT guys still don't care for IPv6 The issue I have with IPv6 is that it's so complex compared to the IPv4 I know, and still has lacking support in routers and similar. For example, I want to be sure my local devices uses my local NTP server. With IPv4 it's trivial, I just add an option to the DHCP server. With IPv6 I can't do that with RA, I have to use DHCPv6. But Android doesn't support DHCPv6, so I have to run both RA and DHCPv6, and hope it just works out. Next there's firewall rules. I used to run pfSense, and it just didn't support changing prefixes. Everything was configured based on the full IPv6 address, so everything had to be reconfigured when the prefix changed. Not only that, but stuff like DNS server address didn't get updated properly, so all the clients still tried to connect to the DNS server (my router) using the old prefix, so no internet for any of the clients all of a sudden. Additionally, using the full IPv6 address internally is a PITA, since even if I assign a server a nice ::2 ending, my prefix is a full 64 bits of random noise (which changes, yay!). So I ended up using ULAs, which at least preserved some of my sanity, but it's another thing to manage. So yeah, once I start having IPv6 issues and have to figure out some solution I wonder why bother. Mostly because it's so different, and it's still under development, both specification wise and the implementations. IPv4 for most people is quite simple in comparison, due to an established ecosystem. IPv6 on the other hand feels quite rough, including the impedance mismatches due to clearly being designed for large enterprise networks. That being said, I've now had IPv6 enabled at home for over a year, things mostly work well. The key change was to ditch pfSense and switch to OpenWRT.
- ac29 4y ago
  > For example, I want to be sure my local devices uses my local NTP server. With IPv4 it's trivial, I just add an option to the DHCP server. With IPv6 I can't do that with RA, I have to use DHCPv6. But Android doesn't support DHCPv6, so I have to run both RA and DHCPv6, and hope it just works out. Out of curiosity, why does this require DHCPv6? Cant you just point your local devices to ntp.homedomain (or whatever the DNS name of the local NTP server is)?
  - unquietwiki 4y ago
    I think if you're using the Meinberg NTP client on Windows, or chrony on Linux, that's feasible. Older systems may prefer to snag it from DHCP: which probably would only do IPv4 anyway.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

So the largest expansion of general availability compute (and associated addressing needs) occurs and it ignores ipv6. Re: 50% ... Your ipv6 numbers are very likely mobile, are they not? And those all CGNAT to ipv4 land? So the entire ipv6 mobile space (the biggest victory of the ipv6 war) is basically behind the #1 thing that ipv6 hate more than anything: a NAT. If you can't get ISPs to support it............ ............... ............... ISPs! The central access points to the internet for consumers! THE MAIN PEOPLE THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE CORRALLED. If you didn't get these people on IPv6 within a decade of the protocol, well I don't know what to say. I can't explain the massive degree of failure. Well, I don't have to, look at this thread. I just hear excuses. Blah blah ISPs Blah blah VMs blah blah kubernetes. If the ISPs don't support ipv6, then the software applications CANNOT be upgraded. If it is 2022 and there are major failures in ipv6 support (and there are) in places like comcast and the like, then whose fault is that? It is the fault of the ipv6 organizations, designers, ratifiers, etc. To underline, in America we have MASSIVE monopolies on consumer ISP access, and have for decades. That means in order to wrangle these organizations, you, what, get 10 people in the room and the FCC and get it hammered out? IPV6 isn't just a failure of protocol design. It is a massive failure of organization and outreach. The attitude, rife throughout all ipv6 conversations, is the protocol designers forced it on the internet and said "take it or leave it". The issue is ipv4 has ALWAYS been easier for a programmer. ipv6 always makes for more headaches. This is a massive massive failure. IPV4 networking sucks! NAT! bridges! Gateways! Prozies! port forwarding! CGNAT! It's still all easier than ipv6. Think about that. The issue here is that ipv6 has no hammer. It didn't have the FCC on board or some ultra-powerful group that could deliver the hammer. This is like IE6 (what is it about the number 6? don't answer that), that required a grassroots rebellion in silicon valley to dislodge. Well, and Google Chrome. GET A HAMMER. Idea: GOOGLE IS THE HAMMER.

unquietwiki 4y ago
Windows Vista came out in 2007, and it explicitly had a dual-stack IPv4+IPv6 implementation. Around that same time, the BSDs were finishing up KAME, and Linux support was decently mature. That was 15 years ago. Software and OS-wise; with the exception of some features of Mikrotik routers + managed Meraki & Ubiquiti stuff just now getting onboard; the support is there. Node's using it properly now. I was able to update Pidgin to use it 10+ years ago. So I think we've got the software-side long figured out; we just needed to get the damn vendors on-board. I'm glad we agree on NAT sucking. Though given a lot of ISPs are doing DHCPv6 without fixed net-ranges to clients; a work environment does benefit from having ULAs still; sometimes even with NAT66. Performance & security-wise, IPv6 still wins that battle: most routers disable automatic inbound traffic, and you can pinhole traffic directly between hosts.
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  I'm willing to bet that every ISP in America has IPV6 capabilities but the ones that have not activated it have done so out of corporate lethargy. The bosses aren't yelling, "TURN ON IPV6 AND MAKE IT WORK" so the peons have no reason to flip the switches. The bosses have no reason to push for IPV6 as it will increase support costs and add work hours but it will not increase income or improve profits. We need a mandate from the FCC that says that any ISP that has accepted federal funds to build or deploy internet access systems must turn on IPV6 to the consumer or face penalties. Short of that, it's not going to happen.

mike_d 4y ago

> And lastly... a lot of IT guys still don't care for IPv6; as those biases show up in these & on Reddit; so that perpetuates the cycle You know the 3rd and 7th largest networks on the internet still can't reach each other over IPv6, right? It is super awesome that it "just works" for you, but recognize you might just not have the perspective of one of the people who has to make it "just work" for you.

s3000 4y ago
>You know the 3rd and 7th largest networks on the internet still can't reach each other over IPv6 Who is responsible? Which networks are those?
- mike_d 4y ago
  Cogent and Hurricane Electric, the upstream providers of 31% and 17% of networks on the internet respectfully. The reason as an end user you can access both sides of the spit is because network engineers for end user/eyeball networks will buy transit from both.
  - ipython 4y ago
    I’m sorry but how is cogents shitty business model somehow the fault of ipv6? Peering disputes happen on ipv4 as well
    - unquietwiki 4y ago
      I think HE's been begging to peer to Cogent for years now. I've even seen cakes posted online.

magicalhippo 4y ago

> And lastly... a lot of IT guys still don't care for IPv6 The issue I have with IPv6 is that it's so complex compared to the IPv4 I know, and still has lacking support in routers and similar. For example, I want to be sure my local devices uses my local NTP server. With IPv4 it's trivial, I just add an option to the DHCP server. With IPv6 I can't do that with RA, I have to use DHCPv6. But Android doesn't support DHCPv6, so I have to run both RA and DHCPv6, and hope it just works out. Next there's firewall rules. I used to run pfSense, and it just didn't support changing prefixes. Everything was configured based on the full IPv6 address, so everything had to be reconfigured when the prefix changed. Not only that, but stuff like DNS server address didn't get updated properly, so all the clients still tried to connect to the DNS server (my router) using the old prefix, so no internet for any of the clients all of a sudden. Additionally, using the full IPv6 address internally is a PITA, since even if I assign a server a nice ::2 ending, my prefix is a full 64 bits of random noise (which changes, yay!). So I ended up using ULAs, which at least preserved some of my sanity, but it's another thing to manage. So yeah, once I start having IPv6 issues and have to figure out some solution I wonder why bother. Mostly because it's so different, and it's still under development, both specification wise and the implementations. IPv4 for most people is quite simple in comparison, due to an established ecosystem. IPv6 on the other hand feels quite rough, including the impedance mismatches due to clearly being designed for large enterprise networks. That being said, I've now had IPv6 enabled at home for over a year, things mostly work well. The key change was to ditch pfSense and switch to OpenWRT.

ac29 4y ago
> For example, I want to be sure my local devices uses my local NTP server. With IPv4 it's trivial, I just add an option to the DHCP server. With IPv6 I can't do that with RA, I have to use DHCPv6. But Android doesn't support DHCPv6, so I have to run both RA and DHCPv6, and hope it just works out. Out of curiosity, why does this require DHCPv6? Cant you just point your local devices to ntp.homedomain (or whatever the DNS name of the local NTP server is)?
- unquietwiki 4y ago
  I think if you're using the Meinberg NTP client on Windows, or chrony on Linux, that's feasible. Older systems may prefer to snag it from DHCP: which probably would only do IPv4 anyway.