4 ms·

Once again I voice the only sane option: Skip IPv6 and the insanity that it is, and do IPv8 and simply double (or quadruple) the address space without introduci

Once again I voice the only sane option: Skip IPv6 and the insanity that it is, and do IPv8 and simply double (or quadruple) the address space without introducing other new things.

acdha 1y ago
This is a pipe dream in the current century. IPv6 adoption has been slow but it’s approaching 50% and absolutely nobody is going to go through the trouble of implementing a new protocol; updating every operating system, network, and security tool; and waiting a decade for users to upgrade without a big advantage. “I don’t want to learn IPv6” is nowhere near that level of advantage.
bigstrat2003 1y ago
That is not a sane option. IPv6 isn't actually that hard, companies are just lazy and refuse to implement it (or implement it correctly).
drdaeman 1y ago
It'll be objectively worse. IPv6 is at least sort of supported by a non-negligible number of devices, software and organizations. This IPv8 would be a whole new protocol, that no one out there supports. The fact that version 8 was already defined in [an obsolete] RFC1621 doesn't help either. Even if you decide to try to make it a Frankenstein's monster of a protocol, making it a two IPv4 packets wrapped in each other to create a v4+v4=v8 address space, you'll need a whole new routing solution for the Internet, as those encapsulations would have issues with NATs. And that'll be way more error prone (and thus, less secure), because it'll be theoretically possible to accidentally mix up v4 and inner-half-of-v8 traffic. Nah, if we can't get enough people to adopt IPv6, there's no chance we'll get even more people to adopt some other IPvX (unless something truly extraordinary happens that would trigger such adoption, of course).
- MintPaw 1y ago
  Are you saying you believe it's truly impossible to create a new backwards compatible standard that expands the address space and doesn't require everyone to upgrade for it to work?
  - hypeatei 1y ago
    If it's possible, why has no one done it? Most of the backwards compatible "solutions" that are presented just run into the same issues as IPv6 but with a more quirky design.
  - ianburrell 1y ago
    It isn't possible to make backwards compatible standard that expands the address space. Where are you going to put the extra address bits in the IPv4 header? It also can't be backwards compatible with IPv4 networking and software. The network gear will drop extra address, the OS will ignore it, and software will blow up. It would be much better to make a new version. But if going to make new protocol, might as well make the address big enough to not need expansion again. Then you have to update every networking device to support the new standard. And update all the protocols (DHCP, etc) for more address space. That part is what took a lot of the time for IPv6. Then you have to update all of the software to support 64-bit addresses. Luckily, most of the work was already done for IPv6. Then you have to support a transition mechanism to talk to IPv4. Except there isn't enough space in new address. IPv6 on the other hand, has enough address space to stuff the IPv4 host and port in the IPv6 address for stateless NAT.
    - rzzzt 1y ago
      > Where are you going to put the extra address bits in the IPv4 header? The optional part. EIP proposed using 16 bits (minimum) to bump the address space to 40 bits (the EIP extension portion is variable-sized so it can go higher until you reach header option limits): https://archive.org/details/rfc1385/page/4/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/rfc1385/page/4/mode/2up
      - icedchai 1y ago
Nextgrid 1y ago
The reason IPv6 adoption is lacking is that there's no business case for it from consumer-grade ISPs, not that there's an inherent problem with IPv6. Your proposed IPv8 standard would have the exact same adoption issues.
icedchai 1y ago
IPv6 is often simpler to administer than IPv4. Subnetting is simpler for the common cases. SLAAC eliminates the need for DHCP on many local networks. There's no NAT to deal with (a good thing!) Prefix delegation can be annoying if the prefix changes (my /56 hasn't in almost 3 years.) Other than that, it's mostly the same.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  > There's no NAT to deal with I frequently see this claim made but it simply isn't true. NAT isn't inherent to a protocol it's something the user does on top of it. You can NAT IPv6 just fine there just isn't the same pressure to do so.
  - icedchai 1y ago
    Technically, you are correct. Practically speaking, NAT is an inherent part of using IPv4 for 99.99% of end users. I haven't seen an end user or business with a public IP on the desktop in nearly 25 years. You can NAT IPv6 but it is rarely done since there is simply no need.
    - MartijnBraam 1y ago
      I nat IPv6 on one of my servers because having seperate ipv6 for VMS but the same IPv4 has caused some issues with running mail servers and certificates. If only I could drop IPv4 completely
drewg123 1y ago
IPv6 is the reason why we can't have IPv6 Your IPv8 is what IPv6 should have been. Instead, IPv6 decided to re-invent way too much, and is why we can't have nice things are are stuck with IPv4 and NAT. Just doubling the address width would have given us 90% of the benefit of V6 with far less complexity and would have been adopted much, much, much faster. I just ported some (BSD) kernel code from V4 to V6. If the address width was just twice as big, and not 4x as big, a lot of the fugly stuff you have to deal with in C would never have happened. A sockaddr could have been expanded by 2 bytes to handle V6. There would not be all these oddball casts between V4/V6, and entirely different IP packet handling routines because of data size differences and differences in stuff like route and mac address lookup. Another pet peeve of mine from my days working on hardware is IPv6 extension headers. There is no limit in the protocol to how many extension headers a packet can have. This makes verifying ASICS hard, and leads to very poor support for them. I remember when we were implementing them and we had a nice way to do it, we looked at what our competitors did. We found most of them just disabled any advanced features when more than 1 extension header was present.
- immibis 1y ago
  IPv6 reinvented hardly anything. It's pretty much IPv4, with longer addresses, and a handful of trivial things people wished were in IPv4 by consensus (e.g. fragmentation only at end hosts; less redundant checksums). The main disagreements have been above what to do with the new addresses e.g. some platforms insist on SLAAC. (Which is good because it forces your ISP to give you a /64). Devices operating at the IP layer aren't allowed to care about extension headers other than hop-by-hop, which must be the first header for this reason. Breaking your stupid middlebox is considered a good thing because these middleboxes are constantly breaking everyone's connections. Your sockaddr complaints WOULD apply at double address length on platforms other than your favorite one. The IETF shouldn't be in charge of making BSD's API slightly more convenient at the expense of literally everything else. And with addresses twice as long, they wouldn't be as effectively infinite. You'd still need to be assigned one from your ISP. They'd still probably only give you one, or worse, charge you based on your number of devices. You'd still probably have NAT.

Once again I voice the only sane option: Skip IPv6 and the insanity that it is, and do IPv8 and simply double (or quadruple) the address space without introducing other new things.

acdha 1y ago

This is a pipe dream in the current century. IPv6 adoption has been slow but it’s approaching 50% and absolutely nobody is going to go through the trouble of implementing a new protocol; updating every operating system, network, and security tool; and waiting a decade for users to upgrade without a big advantage. “I don’t want to learn IPv6” is nowhere near that level of advantage.

bigstrat2003 1y ago

That is not a sane option. IPv6 isn't actually that hard, companies are just lazy and refuse to implement it (or implement it correctly).

drdaeman 1y ago

It'll be objectively worse. IPv6 is at least sort of supported by a non-negligible number of devices, software and organizations. This IPv8 would be a whole new protocol, that no one out there supports. The fact that version 8 was already defined in [an obsolete] RFC1621 doesn't help either. Even if you decide to try to make it a Frankenstein's monster of a protocol, making it a two IPv4 packets wrapped in each other to create a v4+v4=v8 address space, you'll need a whole new routing solution for the Internet, as those encapsulations would have issues with NATs. And that'll be way more error prone (and thus, less secure), because it'll be theoretically possible to accidentally mix up v4 and inner-half-of-v8 traffic. Nah, if we can't get enough people to adopt IPv6, there's no chance we'll get even more people to adopt some other IPvX (unless something truly extraordinary happens that would trigger such adoption, of course).

MintPaw 1y ago
Are you saying you believe it's truly impossible to create a new backwards compatible standard that expands the address space and doesn't require everyone to upgrade for it to work?
- hypeatei 1y ago
  If it's possible, why has no one done it? Most of the backwards compatible "solutions" that are presented just run into the same issues as IPv6 but with a more quirky design.
- ianburrell 1y ago
  It isn't possible to make backwards compatible standard that expands the address space. Where are you going to put the extra address bits in the IPv4 header? It also can't be backwards compatible with IPv4 networking and software. The network gear will drop extra address, the OS will ignore it, and software will blow up. It would be much better to make a new version. But if going to make new protocol, might as well make the address big enough to not need expansion again. Then you have to update every networking device to support the new standard. And update all the protocols (DHCP, etc) for more address space. That part is what took a lot of the time for IPv6. Then you have to update all of the software to support 64-bit addresses. Luckily, most of the work was already done for IPv6. Then you have to support a transition mechanism to talk to IPv4. Except there isn't enough space in new address. IPv6 on the other hand, has enough address space to stuff the IPv4 host and port in the IPv6 address for stateless NAT.
  - rzzzt 1y ago
    > Where are you going to put the extra address bits in the IPv4 header? The optional part. EIP proposed using 16 bits (minimum) to bump the address space to 40 bits (the EIP extension portion is variable-sized so it can go higher until you reach header option limits): https://archive.org/details/rfc1385/page/4/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/rfc1385/page/4/mode/2up
    - icedchai 1y ago

Nextgrid 1y ago

The reason IPv6 adoption is lacking is that there's no business case for it from consumer-grade ISPs, not that there's an inherent problem with IPv6. Your proposed IPv8 standard would have the exact same adoption issues.

icedchai 1y ago

IPv6 is often simpler to administer than IPv4. Subnetting is simpler for the common cases. SLAAC eliminates the need for DHCP on many local networks. There's no NAT to deal with (a good thing!) Prefix delegation can be annoying if the prefix changes (my /56 hasn't in almost 3 years.) Other than that, it's mostly the same.

fc417fc802 1y ago
> There's no NAT to deal with I frequently see this claim made but it simply isn't true. NAT isn't inherent to a protocol it's something the user does on top of it. You can NAT IPv6 just fine there just isn't the same pressure to do so.
- icedchai 1y ago
  Technically, you are correct. Practically speaking, NAT is an inherent part of using IPv4 for 99.99% of end users. I haven't seen an end user or business with a public IP on the desktop in nearly 25 years. You can NAT IPv6 but it is rarely done since there is simply no need.
  - MartijnBraam 1y ago
    I nat IPv6 on one of my servers because having seperate ipv6 for VMS but the same IPv4 has caused some issues with running mail servers and certificates. If only I could drop IPv4 completely

drewg123 1y ago

IPv6 is the reason why we can't have IPv6 Your IPv8 is what IPv6 should have been. Instead, IPv6 decided to re-invent way too much, and is why we can't have nice things are are stuck with IPv4 and NAT. Just doubling the address width would have given us 90% of the benefit of V6 with far less complexity and would have been adopted much, much, much faster. I just ported some (BSD) kernel code from V4 to V6. If the address width was just twice as big, and not 4x as big, a lot of the fugly stuff you have to deal with in C would never have happened. A sockaddr could have been expanded by 2 bytes to handle V6. There would not be all these oddball casts between V4/V6, and entirely different IP packet handling routines because of data size differences and differences in stuff like route and mac address lookup. Another pet peeve of mine from my days working on hardware is IPv6 extension headers. There is no limit in the protocol to how many extension headers a packet can have. This makes verifying ASICS hard, and leads to very poor support for them. I remember when we were implementing them and we had a nice way to do it, we looked at what our competitors did. We found most of them just disabled any advanced features when more than 1 extension header was present.

immibis 1y ago
IPv6 reinvented hardly anything. It's pretty much IPv4, with longer addresses, and a handful of trivial things people wished were in IPv4 by consensus (e.g. fragmentation only at end hosts; less redundant checksums). The main disagreements have been above what to do with the new addresses e.g. some platforms insist on SLAAC. (Which is good because it forces your ISP to give you a /64). Devices operating at the IP layer aren't allowed to care about extension headers other than hop-by-hop, which must be the first header for this reason. Breaking your stupid middlebox is considered a good thing because these middleboxes are constantly breaking everyone's connections. Your sockaddr complaints WOULD apply at double address length on platforms other than your favorite one. The IETF shouldn't be in charge of making BSD's API slightly more convenient at the expense of literally everything else. And with addresses twice as long, they wouldn't be as effectively infinite. You'd still need to be assigned one from your ISP. They'd still probably only give you one, or worse, charge you based on your number of devices. You'd still probably have NAT.