5 ms·

I don't really understand. My router gives me an IPv6 address...

nottorp 2y ago
Do you understand on what basis? Do you know enough to assign addresses in a way that you, not your router, wants? Can you ssh/other forms of remote into any machine that accepts ssh on your local network using only ipv6? Can you redirect ports to specific local machines using only ipv6 (that implies they keep constant addresses)? Can you easily switch between two internet connections going through different routers that are plugged into the same switch for any machine on your local network using only ipv6? Speaking of which, since the ISP decides on the addresses behind your NAT, can two separate ipv6 internet connections even exist on a local network? This is all easily doable with ipv4 in like two afternoons without setting up anything beyond perhaps a dhcp server and some firewall rules. How many additional services do you need to do that with ipv6? And how enterprisey are they?
- vel0city 2y ago
  > Do you know enough to assign addresses in a way that you, not your router, wants? If I want to manually assign addresses it's still pretty simple, but in the end I normally just don't care. I don't want to know what IP my printer is, I just want to reach it. Which isn't a challenge at all. Even for things at my home that are IPv4 only they're practically all DHCP. Because there's little reason to ever really care about something's address. > Can you ssh/other forms of remote into any machine that accepts ssh on your local network using only ipv6? I have no problems reaching any host on any of my networks even if they're running only IPv6. It's nice too because I can trivially reach any port I want globally as well with a basic firewall change. Even better I can have one host have many IP addresses with different services bound to each address if I want. > Can you redirect ports to specific local machines using only ipv6 (that implies they keep constant addresses)? Why do any port redirection at all? Just set the firewall rule and things can hit it. And yeah, they can keep constant addresses. They can have dozens, hundreds of static host addresses if I want. > Can you easily switch between two internet connections going through different routers that are plugged into the same switch for any machine on your local network using only ipv6? If that's something you're really wanting, Network Prefix Translation can be done pretty easily. But the vast majority of home users aren't using dual WAN anyways. > This is all easily doable with ipv4 in like two afternoons Sounds like your setup with IPv4 took more work than mine with IPv6, as mine only took me an hour or so while yours took multiple days.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    > as mine only took me an hour or so while yours took multiple days. Yeah, because the first time I had no idea what I was doing, except vague feelings about ipv4 works. Did you factor in your pre existing ipv6 knowledge when you counted just an hour? > Network Prefix Translation can be done pretty easily. What's "easily"? How many services do I need to setup? Some other helpful HNer tried to explain to me once and the list was like 2 or 3 daemons in addition to dhcp, firewall etc. Do you set up complex ipv6 networks at work?
    - vel0city 2y ago
      > Do you set up complex ipv6 networks at work? Your standard was "It's unusable on your fucking home network." I've set up and managed IPv6 at work before, yes. I don't know if I'd call them "complex" networks though. Either way I set it up at home several years before. And I had been running IPv6 at home before I even bothered setting it up in a way I wanted, as my ISP's box previously had a decently competent SLAAC and IPv6 firewall setup in their CPE router. So that took me 0 minutes of time past plugging it in. As for this disdain of running such complicated systems like "DNS", so many things support mDNS these days and plenty of home routers will automatically update their local DNS with DHCP entries. I didn't have to manually configure a DNS entry for my printer, I just gave it the hostname "brother" when I first set it up and now when I need to add it, I just do "brother" on a new computer and boom it finds it wherever it is. If I want to check the toner level, I open a browser and go to http://brother http://brother and its there. And even though I've radically changed my networking setups over the years, all my configurations pointing to "brother" still just work. > What's "easily"? https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nat/npt.html https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nat/npt.html There's seven configuration options here including the Disable/Enable checkbox and a description field. If you're using ip6tables on your router, it is just two commands for a POSTROUTING and PREROUTING nat rules. ip6tables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0.99 -j NETMAP --to 2607:xxx::/64 -s fd12:3456::/64 ip6tables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0.99 -j NETMAP -d 2607:xxx::/64 --to fd12:3456::/64 But hey just complain about how it's just impossible and takes so much work instead of actually learning new things. From the sibling comment: > No, with ipv4 i can just change the default route :) Are you suggesting you're running around and changing the default route on all the devices on your network when a gateway goes down? What a nightmare. Just have your router have multiple WAN connections and have it do the failover for you. > I have absolutely no problem remembering the last byte of any machine on my network If you want, you can do the same with IPv6. You could set your stuff to have your IP addresses be fd12:3456::1, then fd12:3456::2, then fd12:3456::3, then fd12:3456::4, then fd12:3456::5, etc. Remembering 123456 as your home ULA prefix isn't too challenging, is it? You can then set up an NPT rule like the one above on your router to translate this prefix fd12:3456::/64 with whatever your public prefix is from your ISP. Most wouldn't do this though, as its essentially the Fisher Price of networking designs.
- belorn 2y ago
  Do not "ssh/other forms of remote" using ip addresses. Use domain names or local domain. It is easier to remember, is more secure (if configured in DNS), and less prone to errors. > Can you redirect ports to specific local machines using only ipv6 (that implies they keep constant addresses)? Yes. Use domain names in configuration files. It more robust, easier to read, and is better protected against network changes on the local network. I have been part of multiple ISP changes and searching through configuration files for ISP specific IP address ranges is never fun. It wastes time and is prone to errors. In enterprise settings domain names rarely changes and even when they do, the old primary name are usually retained for backward compatibility. An ISP can get replaced fairly quickly if an alternative is cheaper or provide a better service. > Can you easily switch between two internet connections going through different routers that are plugged into the same switch for any machine on your local network using only ipv6? Are you talking about BGP? BGP is a fairly complex protocol and uses some archaic configuration syntax, but even so there are generally no differences between ipv4 and ipv6. It is the same pain making sure both ipv4 and ipv6 switch between the two routes correctly.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    > It is easier to remember I have absolutely no problem remembering the last byte of any machine on my network. Because that's all it takes with ipv4 on a sorta complex home network, no need for extra services. > Are you talking about BGP? No, with ipv4 i can just change the default route :) Everything is NATed behind the two routers so changing the default route changes which connection that machine uses. You're thinking enterprise, and then ipv6 becomes ... fine. I just have a hack that works fine for me.
- immibis 2y ago
  Do you do all this stuff with IPv4? No... especially not at home.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    Yes actually. Think multiple machine home office because i WFH, not consumer "just netflix terminals, 3 phones and a console".
    - vel0city 2y ago
      Lots of machines at home and yet having DNS tied to DHCP or running mDNS is too much of a hassle. I would hate to have to remember even the last octet of all my machines in my house. Instead it's just the simple names. The numbers underneath can all change whenever, it doesn't matter. Until I start calling my kids by an octet a name will be easier to remember instead of "is that north camera 101 or 105 or 113 or..." versus "north-camera.my.net" or "is my pool controller 10.7 or 10.8 or..." Instead it's just pool-pump.my.net.
      - nottorp 2y ago
        > Lots of machines at home and yet having DNS tied to DHCP or running mDNS is too much of a hassle. Yes. I have no problem remembering the numbers. Illegal?
        vel0city 2y ago
        I bet you probably go to this website by visiting https://209.216.230.207 https://209.216.230.207 since that's way easier to remember than https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com I mean why would anyone really care to deal with DNS anyways, just a bunch of fluff. Real IT admins just memorize IP addresses. Why would I bother dealing with all that DNS hassle? If its easier to remember this site by its name, why wouldn't it also be easier to remember what your file share's host is by just remembering its name instead of some collection of digits? Do you remember people by their phone numbers or by their names? Having functional local DNS is not complicated these days. On tons of systems it comes out of the box, you almost have to go out of your way to not make it work. You need to actively try to not use it.
pasc1878 2y ago
Mine does not
everforward 2y ago
Do your devices behind the router get IPv6 addresses, or just the router itself? I wouldn't be super surprised to see routers getting IPv6 addresses and doing a 6in4 NAT, so devices behind the router get IPv4 addresses. I would be surprised and impressed if your devices were actually getting public IPv6 addresses. IPv6 can be kind of unwieldy, but the bigger issue to me is that old and/or very cheap clients (like bargain-bin AliExpress IoT stuff) may not support IPv6 at all. I believe you can run DHCP for both and let the client pick one, but then you're into running dual-stack routers, and I would be very surprised if ISPs had any interest in supporting them for home use. I may well be wrong, though. I haven't looked into it in a few years, because my ISP doesn't support it.
- jachee 2y ago
  Every device on my LAN that responds to Bonjour on `.local` uses link-local IPv6 without me having had to do any configuration or put any thought into it whatsoever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ EDIT - Oh, you’re talking about public IPv6… similarly, my router (a TP-Link Archer 1200) gets assigned a prefix by my ISP, which it then auto-assigns inside devices IPs from, again without any explicit configuration or intervention on my part. Super easy.
- FeepingCreature 2y ago
  edit: Okay I thought it did but apparently my router doesn't assign publically routable IPv6 addresses by default. I found a setting that would enable this though. Gonna leave it off for security reasons, but it's just a toggle, so still seems pretty easy. Also my local interface apparently has an (unrouted) ip in the same subnet as my router's public address, and I'm not sure how it got it.

Do you understand on what basis? Do you know enough to assign addresses in a way that you, not your router, wants? Can you ssh/other forms of remote into any machine that accepts ssh on your local network using only ipv6? Can you redirect ports to specific local machines using only ipv6 (that implies they keep constant addresses)? Can you easily switch between two internet connections going through different routers that are plugged into the same switch for any machine on your local network using only ipv6? Speaking of which, since the ISP decides on the addresses behind your NAT, can two separate ipv6 internet connections even exist on a local network? This is all easily doable with ipv4 in like two afternoons without setting up anything beyond perhaps a dhcp server and some firewall rules. How many additional services do you need to do that with ipv6? And how enterprisey are they?

vel0city 2y ago
> Do you know enough to assign addresses in a way that you, not your router, wants? If I want to manually assign addresses it's still pretty simple, but in the end I normally just don't care. I don't want to know what IP my printer is, I just want to reach it. Which isn't a challenge at all. Even for things at my home that are IPv4 only they're practically all DHCP. Because there's little reason to ever really care about something's address. > Can you ssh/other forms of remote into any machine that accepts ssh on your local network using only ipv6? I have no problems reaching any host on any of my networks even if they're running only IPv6. It's nice too because I can trivially reach any port I want globally as well with a basic firewall change. Even better I can have one host have many IP addresses with different services bound to each address if I want. > Can you redirect ports to specific local machines using only ipv6 (that implies they keep constant addresses)? Why do any port redirection at all? Just set the firewall rule and things can hit it. And yeah, they can keep constant addresses. They can have dozens, hundreds of static host addresses if I want. > Can you easily switch between two internet connections going through different routers that are plugged into the same switch for any machine on your local network using only ipv6? If that's something you're really wanting, Network Prefix Translation can be done pretty easily. But the vast majority of home users aren't using dual WAN anyways. > This is all easily doable with ipv4 in like two afternoons Sounds like your setup with IPv4 took more work than mine with IPv6, as mine only took me an hour or so while yours took multiple days.
- nottorp 2y ago
  > as mine only took me an hour or so while yours took multiple days. Yeah, because the first time I had no idea what I was doing, except vague feelings about ipv4 works. Did you factor in your pre existing ipv6 knowledge when you counted just an hour? > Network Prefix Translation can be done pretty easily. What's "easily"? How many services do I need to setup? Some other helpful HNer tried to explain to me once and the list was like 2 or 3 daemons in addition to dhcp, firewall etc. Do you set up complex ipv6 networks at work?
  - vel0city 2y ago
    > Do you set up complex ipv6 networks at work? Your standard was "It's unusable on your fucking home network." I've set up and managed IPv6 at work before, yes. I don't know if I'd call them "complex" networks though. Either way I set it up at home several years before. And I had been running IPv6 at home before I even bothered setting it up in a way I wanted, as my ISP's box previously had a decently competent SLAAC and IPv6 firewall setup in their CPE router. So that took me 0 minutes of time past plugging it in. As for this disdain of running such complicated systems like "DNS", so many things support mDNS these days and plenty of home routers will automatically update their local DNS with DHCP entries. I didn't have to manually configure a DNS entry for my printer, I just gave it the hostname "brother" when I first set it up and now when I need to add it, I just do "brother" on a new computer and boom it finds it wherever it is. If I want to check the toner level, I open a browser and go to http://brother http://brother and its there. And even though I've radically changed my networking setups over the years, all my configurations pointing to "brother" still just work. > What's "easily"? https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nat/npt.html https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nat/npt.html There's seven configuration options here including the Disable/Enable checkbox and a description field. If you're using ip6tables on your router, it is just two commands for a POSTROUTING and PREROUTING nat rules. ip6tables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0.99 -j NETMAP --to 2607:xxx::/64 -s fd12:3456::/64 ip6tables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0.99 -j NETMAP -d 2607:xxx::/64 --to fd12:3456::/64 But hey just complain about how it's just impossible and takes so much work instead of actually learning new things. From the sibling comment: > No, with ipv4 i can just change the default route :) Are you suggesting you're running around and changing the default route on all the devices on your network when a gateway goes down? What a nightmare. Just have your router have multiple WAN connections and have it do the failover for you. > I have absolutely no problem remembering the last byte of any machine on my network If you want, you can do the same with IPv6. You could set your stuff to have your IP addresses be fd12:3456::1, then fd12:3456::2, then fd12:3456::3, then fd12:3456::4, then fd12:3456::5, etc. Remembering 123456 as your home ULA prefix isn't too challenging, is it? You can then set up an NPT rule like the one above on your router to translate this prefix fd12:3456::/64 with whatever your public prefix is from your ISP. Most wouldn't do this though, as its essentially the Fisher Price of networking designs.
belorn 2y ago
Do not "ssh/other forms of remote" using ip addresses. Use domain names or local domain. It is easier to remember, is more secure (if configured in DNS), and less prone to errors. > Can you redirect ports to specific local machines using only ipv6 (that implies they keep constant addresses)? Yes. Use domain names in configuration files. It more robust, easier to read, and is better protected against network changes on the local network. I have been part of multiple ISP changes and searching through configuration files for ISP specific IP address ranges is never fun. It wastes time and is prone to errors. In enterprise settings domain names rarely changes and even when they do, the old primary name are usually retained for backward compatibility. An ISP can get replaced fairly quickly if an alternative is cheaper or provide a better service. > Can you easily switch between two internet connections going through different routers that are plugged into the same switch for any machine on your local network using only ipv6? Are you talking about BGP? BGP is a fairly complex protocol and uses some archaic configuration syntax, but even so there are generally no differences between ipv4 and ipv6. It is the same pain making sure both ipv4 and ipv6 switch between the two routes correctly.
- nottorp 2y ago
  > It is easier to remember I have absolutely no problem remembering the last byte of any machine on my network. Because that's all it takes with ipv4 on a sorta complex home network, no need for extra services. > Are you talking about BGP? No, with ipv4 i can just change the default route :) Everything is NATed behind the two routers so changing the default route changes which connection that machine uses. You're thinking enterprise, and then ipv6 becomes ... fine. I just have a hack that works fine for me.
immibis 2y ago
Do you do all this stuff with IPv4? No... especially not at home.
- nottorp 2y ago
  Yes actually. Think multiple machine home office because i WFH, not consumer "just netflix terminals, 3 phones and a console".
  - vel0city 2y ago
    Lots of machines at home and yet having DNS tied to DHCP or running mDNS is too much of a hassle. I would hate to have to remember even the last octet of all my machines in my house. Instead it's just the simple names. The numbers underneath can all change whenever, it doesn't matter. Until I start calling my kids by an octet a name will be easier to remember instead of "is that north camera 101 or 105 or 113 or..." versus "north-camera.my.net" or "is my pool controller 10.7 or 10.8 or..." Instead it's just pool-pump.my.net.
    - nottorp 2y ago
      > Lots of machines at home and yet having DNS tied to DHCP or running mDNS is too much of a hassle. Yes. I have no problem remembering the numbers. Illegal?
      - vel0city 2y ago
        I bet you probably go to this website by visiting https://209.216.230.207 https://209.216.230.207 since that's way easier to remember than https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com I mean why would anyone really care to deal with DNS anyways, just a bunch of fluff. Real IT admins just memorize IP addresses. Why would I bother dealing with all that DNS hassle? If its easier to remember this site by its name, why wouldn't it also be easier to remember what your file share's host is by just remembering its name instead of some collection of digits? Do you remember people by their phone numbers or by their names? Having functional local DNS is not complicated these days. On tons of systems it comes out of the box, you almost have to go out of your way to not make it work. You need to actively try to not use it.

pasc1878 2y ago

Mine does not

everforward 2y ago

Do your devices behind the router get IPv6 addresses, or just the router itself? I wouldn't be super surprised to see routers getting IPv6 addresses and doing a 6in4 NAT, so devices behind the router get IPv4 addresses. I would be surprised and impressed if your devices were actually getting public IPv6 addresses. IPv6 can be kind of unwieldy, but the bigger issue to me is that old and/or very cheap clients (like bargain-bin AliExpress IoT stuff) may not support IPv6 at all. I believe you can run DHCP for both and let the client pick one, but then you're into running dual-stack routers, and I would be very surprised if ISPs had any interest in supporting them for home use. I may well be wrong, though. I haven't looked into it in a few years, because my ISP doesn't support it.

jachee 2y ago
Every device on my LAN that responds to Bonjour on `.local` uses link-local IPv6 without me having had to do any configuration or put any thought into it whatsoever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ EDIT - Oh, you’re talking about public IPv6… similarly, my router (a TP-Link Archer 1200) gets assigned a prefix by my ISP, which it then auto-assigns inside devices IPs from, again without any explicit configuration or intervention on my part. Super easy.
FeepingCreature 2y ago
edit: Okay I thought it did but apparently my router doesn't assign publically routable IPv6 addresses by default. I found a setting that would enable this though. Gonna leave it off for security reasons, but it's just a toggle, so still seems pretty easy. Also my local interface apparently has an (unrouted) ip in the same subnet as my router's public address, and I'm not sure how it got it.