8 ms·

IPv6 Internet is broken

282 points by stargrave 4y ago

delroth 4y ago
"broken", not really -- in practice anyone who cares about IPv6 connectivity does not use Cogent as their only upstream, or they learn very quickly that Cogent does not provide them with what they advertise. This might impact you if you're in the business of buying transit from a tier 1 provider, but that's virtually nobody. (It's also far from the only issue you'll get as a Cogent customer, they're generally, uh, pretty shit.)
pera 4y ago
It's not IPv6 that is broken, it's fucking Cogent and they have always been like that
- voidwtf 4y ago
  Yea, they’ve always been happy to sell bulk transit for rock bottom prices, then try to leverage their customer base against other companies. Everyone in the ISP/Transit world does it though, trying to double dip by charging their customers for service then trying to charge other to peer with them unless it’s in their favor to peer freely. Peering should be best effort, and as close to free as possible when you already have a presence in a location. I understand some cost to cover the hardware necessitated by peering, but the only person being charged should be the customer you’re providing a service in my opinion.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    This is the classic Comcast "why does netflix get a free ride" Pr spin for a few years ago where they are battling net neutrality and trying to convince the public that Netflix, and Google were "free riding" and "not paying their fair share" for the network which is "just like water"
wolfendin 4y ago
This is a “Cogent is broken” problem and not an IPv6 is broken problem. Anyone who has to deal with getting full tables for any significant length of time knows not to single home to Cogent— they’ll do it on v4 peerings too (See their spats with AOL and Level 3)
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  As an end user, I don't have a "make Cogent behave differently" button, but I do have an "enable IPv6" button. And when turning that one off makes my internet work, and turning it on makes my internet not work, guess what.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - toast0 4y ago
    Cogent does supply some residential users, mostly in high density housing, but generally Cogent customers have options and can switch. That's the 'make Cogent behave differently' button of course, it doesn't work very fast. And on this issue, it may not ever work. Cogent is best used as part of a multihoming strategy, and not as an only route. Even if you take a neutral stance about their role in peering disputes, the fact that they are involved in a lot of them means if you only use them, you're likely to have less connectivity than if you had a different transit provider or multiple transit providers.
m3drano 4y ago
I'd say this is a Cogent problem. Not an IPv6 nor an "Internet" problem. Tye solution is to single out Cogent and that class of ISPs, like Telefónica in ES.
greyface- 4y ago
No mention yet of the HE/Cogent peering cake? https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/22/peering-disputes-migrate-to-ipv6 https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/22/peer... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CObnXjmDtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CObnXjmDtg
- LeonM 4y ago
  From 2009, damn, this has been going on for 13 years now...
- Technetium 4y ago
  This is absolutely fantastic. Thank you for linking!
- ehPReth 4y ago
  I remember this! Sad that it's still an issue :(
zinekeller 4y ago
Same feelings as others: avoid Cogent at all costs and encourage anyone who solely uses Cogent to switch to another provider, preferably in a multi-home configuration. It's not even this issue, Cogent simply wants your dollars and do f***-all but the absolute minimum. Basically, most tier-1 providers allows settlement-free peering with anyone who can meet some physical requirements (like having mutual interconnection in America, Europe and Asia) and legal ones (everyone wants to avoid sanctions). HE clearly meets this requirement. Google also clearly meets this requirement. Both are not connected to Cogent despite both are willing to interconnect to Cogent. Cogent just allows connections to whoever they feel to connect, they don't have a criteria except for "if we allow them, will they kill our business"?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
larsonnn 4y ago
I would like to know which services would not work or which countries are involved.
- crizzlenizzle 4y ago
  For example everything hosted by Cogent directly: https://bgp.tools/prefix/2001:550::/32#dns https://bgp.tools/prefix/2001:550::/32#dns
  - larsonnn 4y ago
    And when Cogent is my provider Google services would not work. But is it for all countries? I ask because providers in the EU have some other laws as USA for example. Or is this peering globally the same ?
    - toast0 4y ago
      Peering disputes in Europe center around different carriers generally. But the basic dispute is the same, carrier A doesn't want to peer with carrier B, probably for business reasons, so they try to setup their peering rules so that carrier B doesn't qualify, or they won't upgrade connections. I know I've seen some carrier names that come up in those disputes a lot, often the incumbent telco for a particular country. But you've got a lot of countries there and most of them had their own nationalized phone company, and only one or two end up having public spats over peering. There's similar stuff in some countries in Asia, where some of the incumbent telcos refuse to peer locally. (and of course, China has the GFW)
voxadam 4y ago
Has there ever been a conversation in which Cogent was the good guy?
- Youden 4y ago
  There was the Comcast peering dispute over Netflix traffic (carried by Cogent) around 2014.
  - voxadam 4y ago
    That's funny, shortly after I made my comment I had a faint recollection of Comcast v. Cogent. I'm still not sure who to blame in that pissing match. Comcast is one of the most hated retail ISPs in the US while Cogent is one of the most hated bargain basement Tier 1.5 transit ISPs in the country. While I'd genuinely have a difficult time picking sides in such a fight I think that in the end, I'd have to side with Comcast, as much as I hate to say it. I'd love to hear from people more in the mix than me on the topic.
    - bewaretheirs 4y ago
      "It's a pity both sides can't lose"
    - aidenn0 4y ago
      I think Comcast "wins" the most evil here just because they have a monopoly on broadband in many areas, so overcharge their customers for substandard service, then they turn around and use the monopsony of Internet access to those customers to charge for peering. At least Cogent charges low prices for their shit.
crizzlenizzle 4y ago
It’s generally not a good idea to be single homed anyway. My first network was only upstreamed by HE and I ran into the Cogent situation quite quickly. Adding more upstreams fixed it. But also other NSPs don’t reach everything. Sometimes there are some niche networks that can only be reached over peering or some other transit providers. Though it’s super rare.
- Bluecobra 4y ago
  True, but many small businesses don’t have the hardware or expertise to manage multiple full BGP tables. Also depending where you are your ISP options might be limited. For example one of the remote sites I manage only has Lumen/CenturyLink wired to the building. If would really stink if I couldn’t get to anything on HE’s network through no fault of my own.
kkfx 4y ago
IPv6 have many defects BUT allow a lost thing we desperately need NO DAMN needed NAT. Witch means that with a 2Gbps+ f.o. connection you can host your service at home, with a static IPv6 global address and a domain name bound to it. IMVHO many giants obstacle IPv6 NOT because it's hard and not so nice BUT because they fear loosing their privileged position. Oh, sure most people do not have TODAY a homeserver but how much would it take to see pre-packaged pseudo-FLOSS homeservers like we see for android "pirate-TV minicomputers"? Try weighting that before judge.
- nly 4y ago
  ISPs don't want this. They want to upsell you to a business service if you want a static IP. They'll just use dynamic IP allocation aka DHCP to make the whole thing really inconvenient.
  - philjohn 4y ago
    *some ISP's don't want this. I'm on Zen in the UK and have both a static IPv4 (with additional IP's available for a relatively lot fee in blocks of 8 or more) and a /48 IPv6 block.
    - mnd999 4y ago
      Same with A&A, although they are a bit more expensive than the likes of Sky / Virgin / BT it’s definitely worth it.
    - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
      So what? Almost for a decade, I used to have 15 IPv4 addresses with OVH _for free_, and this very December they decided to start charging for them. Before OVH, I also was with another similarly-cheapo ISP that gave me one IPv4 for free until they decided to start charging for it (and I left). It's just a matter of time. Of course if your ISP is expensive enough they'll just keep eating the cost for more years, but .. what's the point? One IPv4 is not that costly yet that is worth an expensive ISP over it...
  - 4y ago
knorker 4y ago
With my ISPs I've had IPv4 broken more often than IPv6. To the point that I've set up an IPv4-over-IPv6 tunnel out, for when IPv4 breaks.
- kalleboo 4y ago
  I had IPv4 routing on my router just crash and die once, it took half a day to realize since so many big properties are on IPv6
nonrandomstring 4y ago
Isn't this a common failure pattern in tech now? A big company gets "successful" by selling cheap or free. They build a big crowd who are accepting of poor service then inflict arbitrary decisions on their customers, and once the abuse is normalised they spread "broken" tech through standards-breaking and non-interoperability. People then justify the problem because a mob of beaten-down users meekly accept the situation and anyone asking for better is dubbed an "elitist" or "idealist". For example, between them Google and Microsoft have wrecked email. IPv6 doesn't look "broken" here, it's just under attack.
- arbitrage 4y ago
  > For example, between them Google and Microsoft have wrecked email. How so?
  - peppermint_tea 4y ago
    an example that comes to mind : find me in the RFC where it is stated that blocking residential ips is ok. (google does this, so not compliant to original standard) I would also add (but this is not email per se) : no adoption for GPG/PGP this makes your cryptographic signature a bare textfile attachement. both microsoft and gmail spam filter = blackbox.
    - jeroenhd 4y ago
      My mail server occasionally receives mail from residential ISPs and it's literally always spam. If people could be trusted to manage their mail server we wouldn't have this problem, but IoT crapware is still listening on port 23 till this very day and the manuals still state that you need to disable the firewall and forward all traffic to your shitty webcam for it to work. Reporting this abuse to the carrying ISPs is about as useless as shouting my complaints down the toilet. Until both IoT production companies and individual consumers take responsibility for the awful internet created by these maliciously incompetent users and the laughably bad IoT devices they buy, I'm not removing this filter rule from my mail server. I do usually get a notification that something hit quarantine so if it sounds important I can still see it, but I've never had to release mail banned for this reason so far.
jesprenj 4y ago
Why are packets not routed via peers (customers of cogent) that also peer with HE, or at least peer indirectly with HE? My home ISP certainly can route packets to both HE and Cogent: root@tranzistor:~# ping cogentco.com PING cogentco.com(cogentco.com (2001:550:1::cc01)) 56 data bytes 64 bytes from cogentco.com (2001:550:1::cc01): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=21.1 ms ^C --- cogentco.com ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 21.107/21.107/21.107/0.000 ms root@tranzistor:~# ping he.net PING he.net(he.net (2001:470:0:503::2)) 56 data bytes 64 bytes from he.net (2001:470:0:503::2): icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=164 ms ^C --- he.net ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 164.454/164.454/164.454/0.000 ms root@tranzistor:~# Why are packets from cogent to HE not routed via my ISP?
- iptrans 4y ago
  Because your ISP is not keen on paying for third parties transiting their network.
- Arnavion 4y ago
  Your ISP does not want to route other people's traffic for them, only its customers. So it doesn't broadcast a route for arbitrary destinations through its AS.
  - JCharante 4y ago
    interesting, so it's like a neighborhood between 2 major roads that has signs prohibiting through traffic?
    - hcrean 4y ago
      In this case it is a cul-de-sac between two 8-lane interstate highways...
- toast0 4y ago
  Peering is for your own traffic and traffic of your customers. You don't carry generally carry traffic for your peers to other peers. It doesn't make business sense; if congent and HE want to exchange traffic via your ISP, at least one of them is going to have to be a customer of your ISP.
oarsinsync 4y ago
Lots of disdain for Cogent on this thread, and very little comments about HE effectively having much the same business model as Cogent: sell pipes as cheap as possible, run them as hot (full) as possible, care little about performance implications. As a transit supplier, they’re both pretty low quality, suited to bulk traffic only. Anything latency/loss sensitive goes over other providers. HE and Cogent both are best suited to their roles as carrier of last resort. If you as a customer depend primarily on either of them, that’s a particularly unfortunate situation that should be remediated if possible.
- ddalex 4y ago
  Isn't this the intended business model? Different tiers for different needs at different price points? I'd think that HE could offer a higher service level with better quality if the economics would make sense
- guerby 4y ago
  HE will peer with you for free on most IX AFAIK, here is an HE IPv6 peering from a tiny not-for-profit ISP on FranceIX-Paris: https://lg.tetaneutral.net/detail/h7/ipv6?q=HE_FRANCEIX_PARIS_6 https://lg.tetaneutral.net/detail/h7/ipv6?q=HE_FRANCEIX_PARI... 162016 IPv6 routes from HE. Current IPv6 full view about 166926 routes. Cogent will not peer with you. If you're starting an ISP: buy cogent and another transit, peer with HE on your local IX, you should be good to go.
  - bradfitz 4y ago
    Yup! I have 162161 routes from HE right now (for free) on the SeattleIX.
- humanistbot 4y ago
  > Lots of disdain for Cogent on this thread, and very little comments about HE effectively having much the same business model as Cogent: sell pipes as cheap as possible, run them as hot (full) as possible, care little about performance implications. I'm sorry, but how is the quality of HE's performance in any way relevant to the issue of Cogent refusing to follow industry norms for settlement-free / equal cost-sharing peering? Cogent isn't refusing to peer with HE (and Google btw) because of latency/loss. Cogent is notorious for trying to squeeze every penny out of other networks through peering, HE is the exact opposite.
otabdeveloper4 4y ago
IPv6 is a religion, you will not reason with its adepts. Of course they will claim that the whole world is "doing it wrong", despite the collective failure of humanity to roll out IPv6 for decades and decades.
- KyeRussell 4y ago
  I’m not a v6 evangelist. I don’t work in networking, nor do I know enough about it to really want to evangelise for v6. Surely “humanity hasn’t prioritised doing something, therefore the ‘something’ is inherently flawed” is an argument that conjures enough contemporary exceptions that you can see how deeply and utterly flawed it is?
  - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
    IPv6 was supposed to solve problems and make life easier, not more complicated. If your argument for adopting new technology is basically "you must eat your vegetables" then your technology has failed.
    - dogleash 4y ago
      My experience building products for customers is that they're a few percent novel or exciting and >90% eating veggies.
- kmbfjr 4y ago
  The problem will solve itself. CGNAT will only take us so far until that no longer scales to where the ISPs want to pay for it. That said, IPv6 is a horrible implementation.
  - nolls 4y ago
    Cgnat can scale forever. There are isps with dozens or even hundreds of millions of clients using cgnat with no issues.
bpbp-mango 4y ago
ipv4 or ipv6 no one serious only has a single upstream
hbfdhfdhadfhnfa 4y ago
fortunately from my ISP in Czech republic I can reach both destinations via IPv6 fine. However, the said ISP is giving me only /64 IPV6 block therefore limiting it to one subnet. That is poor, really poor implementation that does not allow ipv6 e.g. in my work laptop VLAN. O2 internet(the ISP) - you suck.
- zajDee 4y ago
  If this is DSL/FTTH, don't wait and switch to T-Mobile, Metronet or UVTnet. O2 have been doing this wrong since 2012 and it doesn't look like they will fix it in this decade.
  - zajDee 4y ago
    Forgot to mention that while O2 provides you with a poor single /64, UVTnet gives you a nice and shiny /48 (others currently stick to /56s). What a difference.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - vetinari 4y ago
    Unfortunately, multiple ISPs (PODA, Vodafone-ex-UPC) are doing it wrong and they do not seem to be bothered by it or even trying to fix it.
    - zajDee 4y ago
      True dat. Some of the mishaps can be attributed to incompetence and some to lack of desire to be real ISPs for the future. Too bad one is usually geographically restricted to one or a very few ISPs, especially when all of them are doing IPv6 wrong.
      - kubo6472 4y ago
        The situation is even worse here at your SE neighbors. The three nation wide ISPs don't provide working IPv6 at all: Slovak Telekom (Deutsche Telekom Subsidiary, same as Czech T-Mobile/T-Com) - FTTx, DSL, WISP Orange (French Orange S.A. subsidiary) - FTTx, DSL, WISP O2 (The Czech HQ'd PPF owned, not the UK one) - WISP And even the more regional, but still big, aren't much better. UPC (Liberty Global subsidiary) - Cable Antik (Slovak company) - FTTx, Cable, WISP SWAN (also Slovak company) - DSL, FTTx, WISP But I have to shout out my dad's ISP, it's called RadioLAN, it's a slovak company, provides WISP and FTTx and also IPv6 to everyone by default. So far the only one I've found. Funny thing is, the peering in our country is handled by two IXs: SIX and NIX both natively supporting IPv6 interconection. If I've messed some terminology or I've outdated info, I'm sorry. As you said, nod to until we live in a very very specific location, we're left with just one ISP, or basically the same one in blue. I'm less than 10km behind the capital's outer borders, yet I have a huge problem getting FTTH ran here. It's literally connected at the both ends of our street, just not here. I've considered doing something about it myself, it's just simply too expensive.
Havoc 4y ago
TIL hn really hates cogent
- tristor 4y ago
  For many very good reasons
wilhil 4y ago
I'm a Cogent customer and we wouldn't be where we are without them, but, they give me the most headaches out of any provider I have to deal with. I tried raising a complaint as their SLA states about packet deliverability/guarantees - and I said "well, you have 100% packet loss to HE"... I didn't get very far and they basically just blamed it on HE - but, I wonder if someone had more time, if they could make a complaint down this avenue?!
- humanistbot 4y ago
  That's clever, but they've been pulling this BS for over a decade, and I'm sure their SLA is iron-clad.
based2 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering#Depeering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering#Depeering
Joyfield 4y ago
HE and Google could block traffic to and from Cogent until they submit OR start paying THEM for access. Ill be it would take like less than a week.
lwhalen 4y ago
Netflix also refuses to accept HE IPv6 traffic. This was 'fun' to find out when deploying IPv6 on my home network, and my TV could no longer stream from them.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  Wow I did not know this. Tested this on HE's Looking Glass and you're right. Ridiculous!
  - sgjohnson 4y ago
    People were abusing their 6to4 tunnel, which is why Netflix banned them.
    - mjevans 4y ago
      It's a geo-fencing / DRM / regional licensing restrictions BS problem. HE is innocent, and Netflix probably doesn't have a choice* (though arguably what should matter is the bank account location of the buyer).
    - bpye 4y ago
      I remember seeing this, by accident, years and years ago before it was blocked. Took me longer than it should to realise why I was seeing US Netflix content, in the UK.
evgpbfhnr 4y ago
That article doesn't have a date (as far as I can see), is that still a problem? Looking up a random cogent ip (www.cogentco.com on bgp.he.net shows they have a route for it: https://bgp.he.net/ip/2001:550:1::cc01 https://bgp.he.net/ip/2001:550:1::cc01 (might not be true the other way around, I don't know how to check -- I can join both networks, but I'm not on either...)
- Dagger2 4y ago
  It was first archived by web.archive.org in 2016, so it's at least that old. And yes, it is: $ wgetnull www.cogentco.com --2022-12-12 06:40:42-- http://www.cogentco.com/ Resolving www.cogentco.com (www.cogentco.com)... 2001:550:1::cc01, 38.100.128.10 Connecting to www.cogentco.com (www.cogentco.com)|2001:550:1::cc01|:80... failed: Connection timed out. Connecting to www.cogentco.com (www.cogentco.com)|38.100.128.10|:80... failed: Network is unreachable. (I'm on an HE tunnel, and v4 doesn't work either since I use NAT64, so their site is just dead for me.)
woodruffw 4y ago
Cogent's IPv6 peering has been broken forever, as immortalized in the HE "please peer with us" cake[1]. [1]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpetach/4031195041 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpetach/4031195041
john8675309tm 4y ago
Interesting, I just tested that here as well and sure enough my HE peer had no issues going to Google, but my Cogent peer didn't. This isn't an ipv6 is broken problem this is a Cogent is broken problem.
ArchOversight 4y ago
Title is misleading, should be "Cogent's IPv6 support is broken"
ElijahLynn 4y ago
I think the article could be better titled "IPv6 Internet Is Broken Right Now" because I read the title initially as the architecture is fundamentally broken, and in reality the article is saying that the architecture isn't broken but it is broken right now because of lack of peering agreements.
dan15 4y ago
This article is from 2021 so I'm not sure why it's being posted again Last-Modified: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 04:23:25 GMT

282 points by stargrave 4y ago

"broken", not really -- in practice anyone who cares about IPv6 connectivity does not use Cogent as their only upstream, or they learn very quickly that Cogent does not provide them with what they advertise. This might impact you if you're in the business of buying transit from a tier 1 provider, but that's virtually nobody. (It's also far from the only issue you'll get as a Cogent customer, they're generally, uh, pretty shit.)

pera 4y ago

It's not IPv6 that is broken, it's fucking Cogent and they have always been like that

voidwtf 4y ago
Yea, they’ve always been happy to sell bulk transit for rock bottom prices, then try to leverage their customer base against other companies. Everyone in the ISP/Transit world does it though, trying to double dip by charging their customers for service then trying to charge other to peer with them unless it’s in their favor to peer freely. Peering should be best effort, and as close to free as possible when you already have a presence in a location. I understand some cost to cover the hardware necessitated by peering, but the only person being charged should be the customer you’re providing a service in my opinion.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  This is the classic Comcast "why does netflix get a free ride" Pr spin for a few years ago where they are battling net neutrality and trying to convince the public that Netflix, and Google were "free riding" and "not paying their fair share" for the network which is "just like water"

wolfendin 4y ago

This is a “Cogent is broken” problem and not an IPv6 is broken problem. Anyone who has to deal with getting full tables for any significant length of time knows not to single home to Cogent— they’ll do it on v4 peerings too (See their spats with AOL and Level 3)

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
As an end user, I don't have a "make Cogent behave differently" button, but I do have an "enable IPv6" button. And when turning that one off makes my internet work, and turning it on makes my internet not work, guess what.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- toast0 4y ago
  Cogent does supply some residential users, mostly in high density housing, but generally Cogent customers have options and can switch. That's the 'make Cogent behave differently' button of course, it doesn't work very fast. And on this issue, it may not ever work. Cogent is best used as part of a multihoming strategy, and not as an only route. Even if you take a neutral stance about their role in peering disputes, the fact that they are involved in a lot of them means if you only use them, you're likely to have less connectivity than if you had a different transit provider or multiple transit providers.

m3drano 4y ago

I'd say this is a Cogent problem. Not an IPv6 nor an "Internet" problem. Tye solution is to single out Cogent and that class of ISPs, like Telefónica in ES.

greyface- 4y ago

No mention yet of the HE/Cogent peering cake? https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/22/peering-disputes-migrate-to-ipv6 https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/22/peer... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CObnXjmDtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CObnXjmDtg

LeonM 4y ago
From 2009, damn, this has been going on for 13 years now...
Technetium 4y ago
This is absolutely fantastic. Thank you for linking!
ehPReth 4y ago
I remember this! Sad that it's still an issue :(

zinekeller 4y ago

Same feelings as others: avoid Cogent at all costs and encourage anyone who solely uses Cogent to switch to another provider, preferably in a multi-home configuration. It's not even this issue, Cogent simply wants your dollars and do f***-all but the absolute minimum. Basically, most tier-1 providers allows settlement-free peering with anyone who can meet some physical requirements (like having mutual interconnection in America, Europe and Asia) and legal ones (everyone wants to avoid sanctions). HE clearly meets this requirement. Google also clearly meets this requirement. Both are not connected to Cogent despite both are willing to interconnect to Cogent. Cogent just allows connections to whoever they feel to connect, they don't have a criteria except for "if we allow them, will they kill our business"?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

larsonnn 4y ago

I would like to know which services would not work or which countries are involved.

crizzlenizzle 4y ago
For example everything hosted by Cogent directly: https://bgp.tools/prefix/2001:550::/32#dns https://bgp.tools/prefix/2001:550::/32#dns
- larsonnn 4y ago
  And when Cogent is my provider Google services would not work. But is it for all countries? I ask because providers in the EU have some other laws as USA for example. Or is this peering globally the same ?
  - toast0 4y ago
    Peering disputes in Europe center around different carriers generally. But the basic dispute is the same, carrier A doesn't want to peer with carrier B, probably for business reasons, so they try to setup their peering rules so that carrier B doesn't qualify, or they won't upgrade connections. I know I've seen some carrier names that come up in those disputes a lot, often the incumbent telco for a particular country. But you've got a lot of countries there and most of them had their own nationalized phone company, and only one or two end up having public spats over peering. There's similar stuff in some countries in Asia, where some of the incumbent telcos refuse to peer locally. (and of course, China has the GFW)

voxadam 4y ago

Has there ever been a conversation in which Cogent was the good guy?

Youden 4y ago
There was the Comcast peering dispute over Netflix traffic (carried by Cogent) around 2014.
- voxadam 4y ago
  That's funny, shortly after I made my comment I had a faint recollection of Comcast v. Cogent. I'm still not sure who to blame in that pissing match. Comcast is one of the most hated retail ISPs in the US while Cogent is one of the most hated bargain basement Tier 1.5 transit ISPs in the country. While I'd genuinely have a difficult time picking sides in such a fight I think that in the end, I'd have to side with Comcast, as much as I hate to say it. I'd love to hear from people more in the mix than me on the topic.
  - bewaretheirs 4y ago
    "It's a pity both sides can't lose"
  - aidenn0 4y ago
    I think Comcast "wins" the most evil here just because they have a monopoly on broadband in many areas, so overcharge their customers for substandard service, then they turn around and use the monopsony of Internet access to those customers to charge for peering. At least Cogent charges low prices for their shit.

crizzlenizzle 4y ago

It’s generally not a good idea to be single homed anyway. My first network was only upstreamed by HE and I ran into the Cogent situation quite quickly. Adding more upstreams fixed it. But also other NSPs don’t reach everything. Sometimes there are some niche networks that can only be reached over peering or some other transit providers. Though it’s super rare.

Bluecobra 4y ago
True, but many small businesses don’t have the hardware or expertise to manage multiple full BGP tables. Also depending where you are your ISP options might be limited. For example one of the remote sites I manage only has Lumen/CenturyLink wired to the building. If would really stink if I couldn’t get to anything on HE’s network through no fault of my own.

kkfx 4y ago

IPv6 have many defects BUT allow a lost thing we desperately need NO DAMN needed NAT. Witch means that with a 2Gbps+ f.o. connection you can host your service at home, with a static IPv6 global address and a domain name bound to it. IMVHO many giants obstacle IPv6 NOT because it's hard and not so nice BUT because they fear loosing their privileged position. Oh, sure most people do not have TODAY a homeserver but how much would it take to see pre-packaged pseudo-FLOSS homeservers like we see for android "pirate-TV minicomputers"? Try weighting that before judge.

nly 4y ago
ISPs don't want this. They want to upsell you to a business service if you want a static IP. They'll just use dynamic IP allocation aka DHCP to make the whole thing really inconvenient.
- philjohn 4y ago
  *some ISP's don't want this. I'm on Zen in the UK and have both a static IPv4 (with additional IP's available for a relatively lot fee in blocks of 8 or more) and a /48 IPv6 block.
  - mnd999 4y ago
    Same with A&A, although they are a bit more expensive than the likes of Sky / Virgin / BT it’s definitely worth it.
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    So what? Almost for a decade, I used to have 15 IPv4 addresses with OVH _for free_, and this very December they decided to start charging for them. Before OVH, I also was with another similarly-cheapo ISP that gave me one IPv4 for free until they decided to start charging for it (and I left). It's just a matter of time. Of course if your ISP is expensive enough they'll just keep eating the cost for more years, but .. what's the point? One IPv4 is not that costly yet that is worth an expensive ISP over it...
- 4y ago

knorker 4y ago

With my ISPs I've had IPv4 broken more often than IPv6. To the point that I've set up an IPv4-over-IPv6 tunnel out, for when IPv4 breaks.

kalleboo 4y ago
I had IPv4 routing on my router just crash and die once, it took half a day to realize since so many big properties are on IPv6

nonrandomstring 4y ago

Isn't this a common failure pattern in tech now? A big company gets "successful" by selling cheap or free. They build a big crowd who are accepting of poor service then inflict arbitrary decisions on their customers, and once the abuse is normalised they spread "broken" tech through standards-breaking and non-interoperability. People then justify the problem because a mob of beaten-down users meekly accept the situation and anyone asking for better is dubbed an "elitist" or "idealist". For example, between them Google and Microsoft have wrecked email. IPv6 doesn't look "broken" here, it's just under attack.

arbitrage 4y ago
> For example, between them Google and Microsoft have wrecked email. How so?
- peppermint_tea 4y ago
  an example that comes to mind : find me in the RFC where it is stated that blocking residential ips is ok. (google does this, so not compliant to original standard) I would also add (but this is not email per se) : no adoption for GPG/PGP this makes your cryptographic signature a bare textfile attachement. both microsoft and gmail spam filter = blackbox.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    My mail server occasionally receives mail from residential ISPs and it's literally always spam. If people could be trusted to manage their mail server we wouldn't have this problem, but IoT crapware is still listening on port 23 till this very day and the manuals still state that you need to disable the firewall and forward all traffic to your shitty webcam for it to work. Reporting this abuse to the carrying ISPs is about as useless as shouting my complaints down the toilet. Until both IoT production companies and individual consumers take responsibility for the awful internet created by these maliciously incompetent users and the laughably bad IoT devices they buy, I'm not removing this filter rule from my mail server. I do usually get a notification that something hit quarantine so if it sounds important I can still see it, but I've never had to release mail banned for this reason so far.

jesprenj 4y ago

Why are packets not routed via peers (customers of cogent) that also peer with HE, or at least peer indirectly with HE? My home ISP certainly can route packets to both HE and Cogent: root@tranzistor:~# ping cogentco.com PING cogentco.com(cogentco.com (2001:550:1::cc01)) 56 data bytes 64 bytes from cogentco.com (2001:550:1::cc01): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=21.1 ms ^C --- cogentco.com ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 21.107/21.107/21.107/0.000 ms root@tranzistor:~# ping he.net PING he.net(he.net (2001:470:0:503::2)) 56 data bytes 64 bytes from he.net (2001:470:0:503::2): icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=164 ms ^C --- he.net ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 164.454/164.454/164.454/0.000 ms root@tranzistor:~# Why are packets from cogent to HE not routed via my ISP?

iptrans 4y ago
Because your ISP is not keen on paying for third parties transiting their network.
Arnavion 4y ago
Your ISP does not want to route other people's traffic for them, only its customers. So it doesn't broadcast a route for arbitrary destinations through its AS.
- JCharante 4y ago
  interesting, so it's like a neighborhood between 2 major roads that has signs prohibiting through traffic?
  - hcrean 4y ago
    In this case it is a cul-de-sac between two 8-lane interstate highways...
toast0 4y ago
Peering is for your own traffic and traffic of your customers. You don't carry generally carry traffic for your peers to other peers. It doesn't make business sense; if congent and HE want to exchange traffic via your ISP, at least one of them is going to have to be a customer of your ISP.

oarsinsync 4y ago

Lots of disdain for Cogent on this thread, and very little comments about HE effectively having much the same business model as Cogent: sell pipes as cheap as possible, run them as hot (full) as possible, care little about performance implications. As a transit supplier, they’re both pretty low quality, suited to bulk traffic only. Anything latency/loss sensitive goes over other providers. HE and Cogent both are best suited to their roles as carrier of last resort. If you as a customer depend primarily on either of them, that’s a particularly unfortunate situation that should be remediated if possible.

ddalex 4y ago
Isn't this the intended business model? Different tiers for different needs at different price points? I'd think that HE could offer a higher service level with better quality if the economics would make sense
guerby 4y ago
HE will peer with you for free on most IX AFAIK, here is an HE IPv6 peering from a tiny not-for-profit ISP on FranceIX-Paris: https://lg.tetaneutral.net/detail/h7/ipv6?q=HE_FRANCEIX_PARIS_6 https://lg.tetaneutral.net/detail/h7/ipv6?q=HE_FRANCEIX_PARI... 162016 IPv6 routes from HE. Current IPv6 full view about 166926 routes. Cogent will not peer with you. If you're starting an ISP: buy cogent and another transit, peer with HE on your local IX, you should be good to go.
- bradfitz 4y ago
  Yup! I have 162161 routes from HE right now (for free) on the SeattleIX.
humanistbot 4y ago
> Lots of disdain for Cogent on this thread, and very little comments about HE effectively having much the same business model as Cogent: sell pipes as cheap as possible, run them as hot (full) as possible, care little about performance implications. I'm sorry, but how is the quality of HE's performance in any way relevant to the issue of Cogent refusing to follow industry norms for settlement-free / equal cost-sharing peering? Cogent isn't refusing to peer with HE (and Google btw) because of latency/loss. Cogent is notorious for trying to squeeze every penny out of other networks through peering, HE is the exact opposite.

otabdeveloper4 4y ago

IPv6 is a religion, you will not reason with its adepts. Of course they will claim that the whole world is "doing it wrong", despite the collective failure of humanity to roll out IPv6 for decades and decades.

KyeRussell 4y ago
I’m not a v6 evangelist. I don’t work in networking, nor do I know enough about it to really want to evangelise for v6. Surely “humanity hasn’t prioritised doing something, therefore the ‘something’ is inherently flawed” is an argument that conjures enough contemporary exceptions that you can see how deeply and utterly flawed it is?
- otabdeveloper4 4y ago
  IPv6 was supposed to solve problems and make life easier, not more complicated. If your argument for adopting new technology is basically "you must eat your vegetables" then your technology has failed.
  - dogleash 4y ago
    My experience building products for customers is that they're a few percent novel or exciting and >90% eating veggies.
kmbfjr 4y ago
The problem will solve itself. CGNAT will only take us so far until that no longer scales to where the ISPs want to pay for it. That said, IPv6 is a horrible implementation.
- nolls 4y ago
  Cgnat can scale forever. There are isps with dozens or even hundreds of millions of clients using cgnat with no issues.

bpbp-mango 4y ago

ipv4 or ipv6 no one serious only has a single upstream

hbfdhfdhadfhnfa 4y ago

fortunately from my ISP in Czech republic I can reach both destinations via IPv6 fine. However, the said ISP is giving me only /64 IPV6 block therefore limiting it to one subnet. That is poor, really poor implementation that does not allow ipv6 e.g. in my work laptop VLAN. O2 internet(the ISP) - you suck.

zajDee 4y ago
If this is DSL/FTTH, don't wait and switch to T-Mobile, Metronet or UVTnet. O2 have been doing this wrong since 2012 and it doesn't look like they will fix it in this decade.
- zajDee 4y ago
  Forgot to mention that while O2 provides you with a poor single /64, UVTnet gives you a nice and shiny /48 (others currently stick to /56s). What a difference.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- vetinari 4y ago
  Unfortunately, multiple ISPs (PODA, Vodafone-ex-UPC) are doing it wrong and they do not seem to be bothered by it or even trying to fix it.
  - zajDee 4y ago
    True dat. Some of the mishaps can be attributed to incompetence and some to lack of desire to be real ISPs for the future. Too bad one is usually geographically restricted to one or a very few ISPs, especially when all of them are doing IPv6 wrong.
    - kubo6472 4y ago
      The situation is even worse here at your SE neighbors. The three nation wide ISPs don't provide working IPv6 at all: Slovak Telekom (Deutsche Telekom Subsidiary, same as Czech T-Mobile/T-Com) - FTTx, DSL, WISP Orange (French Orange S.A. subsidiary) - FTTx, DSL, WISP O2 (The Czech HQ'd PPF owned, not the UK one) - WISP And even the more regional, but still big, aren't much better. UPC (Liberty Global subsidiary) - Cable Antik (Slovak company) - FTTx, Cable, WISP SWAN (also Slovak company) - DSL, FTTx, WISP But I have to shout out my dad's ISP, it's called RadioLAN, it's a slovak company, provides WISP and FTTx and also IPv6 to everyone by default. So far the only one I've found. Funny thing is, the peering in our country is handled by two IXs: SIX and NIX both natively supporting IPv6 interconection. If I've messed some terminology or I've outdated info, I'm sorry. As you said, nod to until we live in a very very specific location, we're left with just one ISP, or basically the same one in blue. I'm less than 10km behind the capital's outer borders, yet I have a huge problem getting FTTH ran here. It's literally connected at the both ends of our street, just not here. I've considered doing something about it myself, it's just simply too expensive.

Havoc 4y ago

TIL hn really hates cogent

tristor 4y ago
For many very good reasons

wilhil 4y ago

I'm a Cogent customer and we wouldn't be where we are without them, but, they give me the most headaches out of any provider I have to deal with. I tried raising a complaint as their SLA states about packet deliverability/guarantees - and I said "well, you have 100% packet loss to HE"... I didn't get very far and they basically just blamed it on HE - but, I wonder if someone had more time, if they could make a complaint down this avenue?!

humanistbot 4y ago
That's clever, but they've been pulling this BS for over a decade, and I'm sure their SLA is iron-clad.

based2 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering#Depeering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering#Depeering

Joyfield 4y ago

HE and Google could block traffic to and from Cogent until they submit OR start paying THEM for access. Ill be it would take like less than a week.

lwhalen 4y ago

Netflix also refuses to accept HE IPv6 traffic. This was 'fun' to find out when deploying IPv6 on my home network, and my TV could no longer stream from them.

Karrot_Kream 4y ago
Wow I did not know this. Tested this on HE's Looking Glass and you're right. Ridiculous!
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  People were abusing their 6to4 tunnel, which is why Netflix banned them.
  - mjevans 4y ago
    It's a geo-fencing / DRM / regional licensing restrictions BS problem. HE is innocent, and Netflix probably doesn't have a choice* (though arguably what should matter is the bank account location of the buyer).
  - bpye 4y ago
    I remember seeing this, by accident, years and years ago before it was blocked. Took me longer than it should to realise why I was seeing US Netflix content, in the UK.

evgpbfhnr 4y ago

That article doesn't have a date (as far as I can see), is that still a problem? Looking up a random cogent ip (www.cogentco.com on bgp.he.net shows they have a route for it: https://bgp.he.net/ip/2001:550:1::cc01 https://bgp.he.net/ip/2001:550:1::cc01 (might not be true the other way around, I don't know how to check -- I can join both networks, but I'm not on either...)

Dagger2 4y ago
It was first archived by web.archive.org in 2016, so it's at least that old. And yes, it is: $ wgetnull www.cogentco.com --2022-12-12 06:40:42-- http://www.cogentco.com/ Resolving www.cogentco.com (www.cogentco.com)... 2001:550:1::cc01, 38.100.128.10 Connecting to www.cogentco.com (www.cogentco.com)|2001:550:1::cc01|:80... failed: Connection timed out. Connecting to www.cogentco.com (www.cogentco.com)|38.100.128.10|:80... failed: Network is unreachable. (I'm on an HE tunnel, and v4 doesn't work either since I use NAT64, so their site is just dead for me.)

woodruffw 4y ago

Cogent's IPv6 peering has been broken forever, as immortalized in the HE "please peer with us" cake[1]. [1]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpetach/4031195041 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpetach/4031195041

john8675309tm 4y ago

Interesting, I just tested that here as well and sure enough my HE peer had no issues going to Google, but my Cogent peer didn't. This isn't an ipv6 is broken problem this is a Cogent is broken problem.

ArchOversight 4y ago

Title is misleading, should be "Cogent's IPv6 support is broken"

ElijahLynn 4y ago

I think the article could be better titled "IPv6 Internet Is Broken Right Now" because I read the title initially as the architecture is fundamentally broken, and in reality the article is saying that the architecture isn't broken but it is broken right now because of lack of peering agreements.

dan15 4y ago

This article is from 2021 so I'm not sure why it's being posted again Last-Modified: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 04:23:25 GMT