3 ms·

Does IPv6 make this better? I’m not expert on NAT at all but keep hearing differing versions on whether IPv6 helps here. I have a P2Pish side project of my own

• api 3y ago
  No. Usually there's a stateful firewall on at least one side that requires keepalive. IPv6 does massively help in the area of P2P connection setup since usually there is either no NAT or 1:1 NAT (no port remapping). Connection setup works virtually 100% of the time, but you still need keepalive. Basically we broke the Internet as an end-to-end network because endpoint devices were not secure and it was easier and faster to stuff middle boxes into the network than secure them. Today the situation is better but there are still enough misconfigured and old systems and grossly insecure IoT devices on modern networks that we can't really take away firewalls. The Internet is unplanned development. It looks like the wiring in a third world slum, not like an orderly planned system where engineers designed things up front. You can experiment with "network nudism" as I've heard it called, but first you have to make sure everything on your network is up to date and not running any services that you don't need or aren't secure. This involves nmapping your network, cataloguing everything on it, etc., and is beyond what most people can do. Even most network admins would have a tough time fully cataloguing all devices on a corporate network. It's tough to keep track of.