8 ms·

Comcast’s Xfinity Internet Now the World’s Largest Native IPv6 Deployment

44 points by simon_vetter 13y ago

ancarda 13y ago
Google has some interesting stats on IPv6 usage: http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html Currently ~2.53% of traffic going through Google is over IPv6. Adoption Rates: Belgium: 4.1% Peru: 4.26% USA: 4.88% France: 4.91% Germany: 5.24% Romania: 7.63% Switzerland: 9.47%
- guyht 13y ago
  Any idea what causes the spikes in the graph?
  - ancarda 13y ago
    It seems to be highest over the weekend, so perhaps the drop is caused by employees at offices with no IPv6 connectivity?
samspenc 13y ago
According to the page Comcast linked to: http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/ http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/ in terms of percentage deployment, Google Fiber is at #4 with 67.05% .
TrainedMonkey 13y ago
Comcast had been somewhat unstable for me since they rolled out IPV6 in my area. Before that 4 years of being rock solid. On the bright side - dual stack indeed works, even though neither IPV4 nor IPV6 can keep ping going without dropping any packets for more then few minutes.
- ars 13y ago
  Check your cable modem SNR. Also, do you have a DOCSIS 3 modem?
  - Aloha 13y ago
    SNR is on the right line there - I'd have him look at the splitters inline between him and he curb.
  - TrainedMonkey 13y ago
    I think last time I checked SNR was close to perfect, with nothing interesting going on in the cable modem logs (I will definitely double check tonight). I got SB6141, so DOCSIS 3 is a go.
devicenull 13y ago
It's too bad that other providers are not offering this yet. For example, my provider says: > At this time Optimum is not providing IPV6 addresses. In the future we will support users wishing to connect to IPv6-only sites. Currently, web site operators today are compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6 to ensure their sites are reachable by everyone. When IPv6 becomes the standard, which currently it is not, we will provide support for it. If you don't have native IPv6 yet, ask your ISP why!
- ams6110 13y ago
  Why do I need or want native IPv6? Everything works fine on IPv4 NATed behind my home router.
  - dubfan 13y ago
    Because to traverse that NAT, you need to either forward ports manually in your router (one of those activities that seems second nature to techies but is obscure to everyone else) or use UPnP (an ugly, insecure hack). IPv6 solves the need to resort to this.
    - simoncion 13y ago
      How is UPnP more insecure than having a publicly routable IP address? Assume that the machine running UPnP behind a NAT and the machine with the publicly routable IP both have correctly configured firewalls.
      - voltagex_ 13y ago
        Define correctly - most consumer routers will respond to a uPNP forwarding request from anywhere - what if that's a Java applet running on a compromised ad network?
        simoncion 13y ago
        So what if it is? Even if the uPnP daemon on that router is so broken that it responds to requests from the WAN that configure forwarding rules for machines on the LAN, how is this less secure than having a publicly routable IP for every one of the machines on the LAN? To answer your question, assume that "correctly" is at least as secure as the default Windows Firewall configuration (with user-entered exceptions for video games and whatnot).
Aloha 13y ago
I still can't get it here. No clue when either - so frustrating.
briffle 13y ago
Meanwhile, Charter cable's IPv6 page hasn't been updated in over a year, including hints at business test deployments in Q42012. I'm sure there is someone behind the scenes working on it, but nobody I have asked (I'm a fiber business customer) seems to know who to talk to, or when its getting rolled out.
p1mrx 13y ago
Still waiting for Hacker News: $ ping6 news.ycombinator.com unknown host Funny thing is, this site runs behind Cloudflare, where IPv6 is available by checking one box. Although that will cause IPv6 addresses to appear in the CF-Connecting-IP header, so perhaps the devs can't figure out how to manipulate them, or they just don't care.
- kogir 13y ago
  I think IPv6 is similar to XHTML. Not backwards compatible with no clear benefit for most users. I'll wait for what follows (HTML5), or at least wait as long as I can.
  - trentmb 13y ago
    I can't wait for AngularIPvNode.asm.js
  - agwa 13y ago
    It's not going to play out like HTML5. There was no real urgency to replace HTML4, so we could wait until something better than XHTML came along. The IPv4 address shortage is urgent, so we're going to have to use one of solutions available now, which is either IPv6 or carrier-grade NAT. IPv6 may have its flaws, but carrier-grade NAT is far worse. While an ordinary user might not see the difference, website operators certainly will, since carrier-grade NAT makes it impossible to track and block abuse (without substantial collateral damage). I imagine that HN uses IP addresses extensively for bans and voting-ring detection. Already, some ISPs (e.g. T-Mobile) are giving users public IPv6 addresses and private IPv4 addresses that are NAT'd. In order to distinguish between different users of these ISPs, HN would need to support IPv6. Other ISPs are worse and are just doing carrier grade NAT without IPv6 (mainly in Europe/Asia, though Verizon has announced they will start doing this to some of their DSL customers in the US). For these users, HN supporting IPv6 would do no good, except to show to these ISPs that there is a point to them deploying IPv6. (Yes, one site is just a drop in the ocean, but if everyone did their part and adopted IPv6...)
btbuilder 13y ago
Once I noticed that Comcast was IPv6 enabled in my area switching it on was as easy as checking a couple of boxes in my airport express. One was to enable IPv6 and the other was to block incoming IPv6 connections. I have not noticed any issues since enabling it. Dual stack seems to work well. As browsers seem to choose whichever is faster I have seen some behaviour where Google thought I was accessing gmail from multiple locations at the same time when infact I had switched from IPv4 to IPv6.
kogir 13y ago
Anyone who's rolled out IPv6 on a large internal network or public facing site, why did you bother? Right now it seems like more work and complexity for exactly zero benefit.
- dingaling 13y ago
  - IPv6 multicast addressing is a real boon on an internal network; the ability to address entire classes of nodes with one address. For example, in IPv4 how would you implement a quick all-routers heartbeat script? In IPv6, just ping ff02::2. - Multihomed hosts are a cinch ( scope identifiers make it easy ), and inversely so are unihomed hosts with multiple addresses. No messing with virtual interfaces like IPv4 requires, just bung another IPv6 address onto the interface. I have some hosts with > 10 addresses on one interface, each aligned to a particular service. - Link-local addressing just works without any need for messing with DHCP and ARP like IPv4 requires. A new client joins the network, immediately generates a LL address and is addressable, all without external assistance. It's beautiful. - Router Advertising in my experience has proven much more reliable than DHCP, and much faster. There are still some issues with rogue RAs, however.

44 points by simon_vetter 13y ago

Google has some interesting stats on IPv6 usage: http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html Currently ~2.53% of traffic going through Google is over IPv6. Adoption Rates: Belgium: 4.1% Peru: 4.26% USA: 4.88% France: 4.91% Germany: 5.24% Romania: 7.63% Switzerland: 9.47%

guyht 13y ago
Any idea what causes the spikes in the graph?
- ancarda 13y ago
  It seems to be highest over the weekend, so perhaps the drop is caused by employees at offices with no IPv6 connectivity?

samspenc 13y ago

According to the page Comcast linked to: http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/ http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/ in terms of percentage deployment, Google Fiber is at #4 with 67.05% .

TrainedMonkey 13y ago

Comcast had been somewhat unstable for me since they rolled out IPV6 in my area. Before that 4 years of being rock solid. On the bright side - dual stack indeed works, even though neither IPV4 nor IPV6 can keep ping going without dropping any packets for more then few minutes.

ars 13y ago
Check your cable modem SNR. Also, do you have a DOCSIS 3 modem?
- Aloha 13y ago
  SNR is on the right line there - I'd have him look at the splitters inline between him and he curb.
- TrainedMonkey 13y ago
  I think last time I checked SNR was close to perfect, with nothing interesting going on in the cable modem logs (I will definitely double check tonight). I got SB6141, so DOCSIS 3 is a go.

devicenull 13y ago

It's too bad that other providers are not offering this yet. For example, my provider says: > At this time Optimum is not providing IPV6 addresses. In the future we will support users wishing to connect to IPv6-only sites. Currently, web site operators today are compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6 to ensure their sites are reachable by everyone. When IPv6 becomes the standard, which currently it is not, we will provide support for it. If you don't have native IPv6 yet, ask your ISP why!

ams6110 13y ago
Why do I need or want native IPv6? Everything works fine on IPv4 NATed behind my home router.
- dubfan 13y ago
  Because to traverse that NAT, you need to either forward ports manually in your router (one of those activities that seems second nature to techies but is obscure to everyone else) or use UPnP (an ugly, insecure hack). IPv6 solves the need to resort to this.
  - simoncion 13y ago
    How is UPnP more insecure than having a publicly routable IP address? Assume that the machine running UPnP behind a NAT and the machine with the publicly routable IP both have correctly configured firewalls.
    - voltagex_ 13y ago
      Define correctly - most consumer routers will respond to a uPNP forwarding request from anywhere - what if that's a Java applet running on a compromised ad network?
      - simoncion 13y ago
        So what if it is? Even if the uPnP daemon on that router is so broken that it responds to requests from the WAN that configure forwarding rules for machines on the LAN, how is this less secure than having a publicly routable IP for every one of the machines on the LAN? To answer your question, assume that "correctly" is at least as secure as the default Windows Firewall configuration (with user-entered exceptions for video games and whatnot).

Aloha 13y ago

I still can't get it here. No clue when either - so frustrating.

briffle 13y ago

Meanwhile, Charter cable's IPv6 page hasn't been updated in over a year, including hints at business test deployments in Q42012. I'm sure there is someone behind the scenes working on it, but nobody I have asked (I'm a fiber business customer) seems to know who to talk to, or when its getting rolled out.

p1mrx 13y ago

Still waiting for Hacker News: $ ping6 news.ycombinator.com unknown host Funny thing is, this site runs behind Cloudflare, where IPv6 is available by checking one box. Although that will cause IPv6 addresses to appear in the CF-Connecting-IP header, so perhaps the devs can't figure out how to manipulate them, or they just don't care.

kogir 13y ago
I think IPv6 is similar to XHTML. Not backwards compatible with no clear benefit for most users. I'll wait for what follows (HTML5), or at least wait as long as I can.
- trentmb 13y ago
  I can't wait for AngularIPvNode.asm.js
- agwa 13y ago
  It's not going to play out like HTML5. There was no real urgency to replace HTML4, so we could wait until something better than XHTML came along. The IPv4 address shortage is urgent, so we're going to have to use one of solutions available now, which is either IPv6 or carrier-grade NAT. IPv6 may have its flaws, but carrier-grade NAT is far worse. While an ordinary user might not see the difference, website operators certainly will, since carrier-grade NAT makes it impossible to track and block abuse (without substantial collateral damage). I imagine that HN uses IP addresses extensively for bans and voting-ring detection. Already, some ISPs (e.g. T-Mobile) are giving users public IPv6 addresses and private IPv4 addresses that are NAT'd. In order to distinguish between different users of these ISPs, HN would need to support IPv6. Other ISPs are worse and are just doing carrier grade NAT without IPv6 (mainly in Europe/Asia, though Verizon has announced they will start doing this to some of their DSL customers in the US). For these users, HN supporting IPv6 would do no good, except to show to these ISPs that there is a point to them deploying IPv6. (Yes, one site is just a drop in the ocean, but if everyone did their part and adopted IPv6...)

btbuilder 13y ago

Once I noticed that Comcast was IPv6 enabled in my area switching it on was as easy as checking a couple of boxes in my airport express. One was to enable IPv6 and the other was to block incoming IPv6 connections. I have not noticed any issues since enabling it. Dual stack seems to work well. As browsers seem to choose whichever is faster I have seen some behaviour where Google thought I was accessing gmail from multiple locations at the same time when infact I had switched from IPv4 to IPv6.

kogir 13y ago

Anyone who's rolled out IPv6 on a large internal network or public facing site, why did you bother? Right now it seems like more work and complexity for exactly zero benefit.

dingaling 13y ago
- IPv6 multicast addressing is a real boon on an internal network; the ability to address entire classes of nodes with one address. For example, in IPv4 how would you implement a quick all-routers heartbeat script? In IPv6, just ping ff02::2. - Multihomed hosts are a cinch ( scope identifiers make it easy ), and inversely so are unihomed hosts with multiple addresses. No messing with virtual interfaces like IPv4 requires, just bung another IPv6 address onto the interface. I have some hosts with > 10 addresses on one interface, each aligned to a particular service. - Link-local addressing just works without any need for messing with DHCP and ARP like IPv4 requires. A new client joins the network, immediately generates a LL address and is addressable, all without external assistance. It's beautiful. - Router Advertising in my experience has proven much more reliable than DHCP, and much faster. There are still some issues with rogue RAs, however.