Watch this: IPv4 must die! So let's beef up on IPv6 Youtube Video In this 90-minute webinar QA's John Cannings looks at the shortcomings of IPv4 and how IPv6 answers the needs of today’s communications systems. The Register is broadcasting a bunch of online sessions recorded at QA's Tech Week in April 2014. No registration is required to watch the recordings. ipv6 logo
It was ill-conceived right from the start - by not being an expansion of IPv4 but a replacement. It doesn't matter that my computers are capable of IPv6 if my ISP-supplied router isn't
It's worth reading The IPv6 Mess by DJ Bernstein - http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/ipv6mess.html - that paper was written over 10 years ago now, but all the criticisms of IPv6 are as valid today as they were then. But nothing has been done and thus we have the mess we're in now - where IPv6 is the bastard child that the masses don't care about.
Amen. IPv6 is a laboratory test of obeisance by theoretically-knowledgeable people to a claim of authority that is obviously full of guano. It is more filling and tastes worse, compromises security, and makes the Internet's real problems worse. But hey the "authorities" say it's necessary, especially if it helps Cisco sell more kit.
Off topic comment!
Dug around a bit on DJ Bernstein's micro site and came across a link to this Richard Stallman article: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Reading through it I couldn't help but think about smartphones and specifically Android and iOS: "Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that."
Probably the biggest mistake Richard made was setting it in 2096 rather than 2020...
dig AAAA theregister.co.uk - no result.
dig AAAA myworkservers - full set of AAAA records with all services IPv6-enabled
dig AAAA mypersonalwebsite - full set of AAAA records with all services IPv6-enabled, that's been like that for about 3 years now.
Sorry, Reg, but until you just ring up your host and get them to add IPv6 and run a webserver that was written this century to support IPv6, you really have NO place telling us how to deploy IPv6.
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And the amount of traffic your IPv6 sites get? I suspect it's rather lonely in the IPv6 world...
My money is on further improvements happening to the existing IPv4 internet before IPv6 ever really goes prime time, but then I'm working on a couple of ideas...
Actually, basically all GMail SMTP traffic and Google search comes in and out on IPv6. I'm sure if you switched off GMail and Google for your users they'd be up in arms so, just on it's own, that's a fair chunk.
Lots of mobile networks and protocols are IPv6-only - you'll see a ton of iPhone/iPad access if you switch it on.
Apart from that, it RELIES ON WEBSITES TO DEPLOY IT FIRST, which is exactly my concern. It's like those old banking websites that used to tell you that Firefox isn't supported because "nobody uses it to access our website"... of course not, you morons - how can you access a website that specifically does not support Firefox in the first place?
IPv6 isn't going away. And it's literally a day or two's work to turn it on for your main public-facing services (enable it, add entries in firewalls and configurations for it - THEY ALL SUPPORT IT ALREADY - stick entries in your DNS for it, and you'll spot that google's DNS, SMTP and HTTP servers instantly start talking to you over IPv6.
Most of us are using OSes that already support IPv6. Client-side, the problem is nonexistent.
Most ISPs and backbone networks should have IPv6 support on their gear unless they haven't upgraded their stuff for longer than 5 years.
Then why the hell are we still lacking large-scale IPv6 deployments?
My brand new Juniper SRX 110 can't talk to my ISP via IPv6 since its dynamic stuff isn't compatible. My over priced cisco ADSL router for home can't cope with IPv6 either even though that ISP was the 1st in the country to support it. My data center in Los Angles seems to be having a world of hurt providing IPv6 address space. Work's less than two year old cisco router that cost more than a small car can't talk to my other ISP's IPv6 router correctly either without lots of work around on both parts but I'm hard pressed to test it since I'm not having much luck with stuff that "just works". I have managed to publish BGP routes out IPv6 routers that can't cope with the traffic.
Just like the ISDN router from 2002 that I was messing with today, It all claimed it was IPv6 ready.
Then setup what you would if your whole ISP was IPv4.
There's an IPv4 address SET ASIDE for automatic, on-the-fly, ISP-independent, 6-to-4 translation. You just set up your local equipment, then make the last link in chain go through 6-to-4 and it talks IPv4 only. That's it.
Personally, my stuff is all using IPv6 anyway. My host is Tagadab (part of Claranet), they do cheap VPS and servers and every one gets 5 IPv4's and as many IPv6's as you like. You click a button, your server gets an IPv6 allocated and routed to you. It's that quick.
Given that every mobile operator in the world is using IPv6 by now (they have to if they want to support the latest standards), your ISP not keeping up is pretty poor show.
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