5 ms·

Brace yourself, IPv6 is coming

23 points by conductor 3y ago

alextingle 3y ago
I was expecting this article to be from 2010 or something.
- JPGalt 3y ago
  I was just going to comment, I have heard this before in a decade far far away
Woshiwuja 3y ago
If only v6 wasnt so ugly to look at :(
- p1mrx 3y ago
  My Chrome/Firefox extension makes IPv6 look nice: https://github.com/pmarks-net/ipvfoo https://github.com/pmarks-net/ipvfoo
Bluescreenbuddy 3y ago
This is like "Year of Linux". Any day now it'll happen
- orangeboats 3y ago
  Unlike Linux which has never gotten any significant foothold in any market so far, IPv6 is already deployed in many parts of the world[0]. In quite a few countries it is already the majority internet protocol, servicing >50% of the traffic. It is the enterprise world that is mostly lagging behind. I don't see how they are comparable. [0] https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6 https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6
  - commandersaki 3y ago
    IPv6 doesn't really solve the problem of address exhaustion until IPv6 addresses are first class citizens which will only happen when we do not need to rely on IPv4 addresses anymore.
JohnClark1337 3y ago
[dead]
keeganjw 3y ago
I still curse the IPv6 designers for not making it backward compatible with IPv4. IPv6 is definitely better designed but the lack of backwards compatibility makes moving to it an absolute bear. I know the designers thought the transition would only take a couple of years but almost 30 years later... here we are.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  You’re asking for the impossible. “Curse you for not magically squeezing more than 4 billion addresses into 32 bits! Curse you!”
  - commandersaki 3y ago
    Though interoperability is possible: https://web.archive.org/web/20021017164820/http://cr.yp.to/proto/ipv6.html https://web.archive.org/web/20021017164820/http://cr.yp.to/p...
    - jiggawatts 3y ago
      That article is from 2002, and arguments like that have been shot down repeatedly since then. It's a bit long-winded, but the essential argument is that IPv6 introduces a breaking change by definition -- more addresses than IPv4 supported. That's the point. Either you abandon this benefit, or break direct compatibility with IPv4. It's possible to proxy, or tunnel over IPv4, and there a few corner cases that "might" work, but the general case simply cannot. E.g.: If you support IPv6 -> IPv4 translation, then this must occur either in the host, or on the first-hop router, which must also become highly stateful so that it can return the traffic to the correct IPv6 host. This essentially means that you have IPv4 + IPv6 coexisting side-by-side either on the host or its immediate upstream. This is literally dual-stack! That's why this is the solution that has been adopted by the industry. It works. Everything else doesn't. Whatever else you're about to suggest has a counter-example where it just won't work. There aren't two toy hosts on the Internet, there are billions. There aren't a couple of routers under your control, there are hundreds of millions, most of which are replaced infrequently. Solutions for migrations must cater for every bizarre scenario, not just simplified ones required to make that solution work. Solutions must not require highly stateful routers, because at telco scale, that just doesn't work. Etc... These ideas have been discussed at length by experts in the field, and have been shot down decades ago.

23 points by conductor 3y ago

alextingle 3y ago

I was expecting this article to be from 2010 or something.

JPGalt 3y ago
I was just going to comment, I have heard this before in a decade far far away

Woshiwuja 3y ago

If only v6 wasnt so ugly to look at :(

p1mrx 3y ago
My Chrome/Firefox extension makes IPv6 look nice: https://github.com/pmarks-net/ipvfoo https://github.com/pmarks-net/ipvfoo

Bluescreenbuddy 3y ago

This is like "Year of Linux". Any day now it'll happen

orangeboats 3y ago
Unlike Linux which has never gotten any significant foothold in any market so far, IPv6 is already deployed in many parts of the world[0]. In quite a few countries it is already the majority internet protocol, servicing >50% of the traffic. It is the enterprise world that is mostly lagging behind. I don't see how they are comparable. [0] https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6 https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6
- commandersaki 3y ago
  IPv6 doesn't really solve the problem of address exhaustion until IPv6 addresses are first class citizens which will only happen when we do not need to rely on IPv4 addresses anymore.

JohnClark1337 3y ago

[dead]

keeganjw 3y ago

I still curse the IPv6 designers for not making it backward compatible with IPv4. IPv6 is definitely better designed but the lack of backwards compatibility makes moving to it an absolute bear. I know the designers thought the transition would only take a couple of years but almost 30 years later... here we are.

jiggawatts 3y ago
You’re asking for the impossible. “Curse you for not magically squeezing more than 4 billion addresses into 32 bits! Curse you!”
- commandersaki 3y ago
  Though interoperability is possible: https://web.archive.org/web/20021017164820/http://cr.yp.to/proto/ipv6.html https://web.archive.org/web/20021017164820/http://cr.yp.to/p...
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    That article is from 2002, and arguments like that have been shot down repeatedly since then. It's a bit long-winded, but the essential argument is that IPv6 introduces a breaking change by definition -- more addresses than IPv4 supported. That's the point. Either you abandon this benefit, or break direct compatibility with IPv4. It's possible to proxy, or tunnel over IPv4, and there a few corner cases that "might" work, but the general case simply cannot. E.g.: If you support IPv6 -> IPv4 translation, then this must occur either in the host, or on the first-hop router, which must also become highly stateful so that it can return the traffic to the correct IPv6 host. This essentially means that you have IPv4 + IPv6 coexisting side-by-side either on the host or its immediate upstream. This is literally dual-stack! That's why this is the solution that has been adopted by the industry. It works. Everything else doesn't. Whatever else you're about to suggest has a counter-example where it just won't work. There aren't two toy hosts on the Internet, there are billions. There aren't a couple of routers under your control, there are hundreds of millions, most of which are replaced infrequently. Solutions for migrations must cater for every bizarre scenario, not just simplified ones required to make that solution work. Solutions must not require highly stateful routers, because at telco scale, that just doesn't work. Etc... These ideas have been discussed at length by experts in the field, and have been shot down decades ago.