Vista Not Playing Well With IPv6

netbuzz writes in to note that some early adopters of Microsoft Vista are reporting problems with Vista's implementation of IPv6. An example:"'We are seeing a number of applications that are IP-based that do not like the addressing scheme of IPv6,' says one user. 'We will send a print job to an IP-based printer, and the print job becomes corrupted. We're seeing this with Window's Vista machines. When IPv6 is installed, this happens without fail. As soon as we remove IPv6, all of our printer functions return to normal.'"

Re:Simple solution.

[someone300]

What if you're trying to migrate to IPv6 but still have "classic" IPv4 devices on the network?

Anyway, why is this screwing anything up? My understanding on Linux/OSX is that enabling IPv6 doesn't change anything about the way IPv4 applications function, despite using a different addressing sceme. Why would this be any different for Vista? This is indicative of a layering problem...

I am NOT surprised, given that...

[CodeShark]

Early attempts by M$ to implement networking foundered badly until they cozied up to Novell for a short stint -- a deal an insider told me was scuttled when Novell code was found on M$ machines without a signed agreement.

It may just be my long memory seeing repetitive mistakes by the software giant, but it seems like ALL of M$ network implementations seem to suffer in the early going until they manage to buy cheat or steal for good code to solve their own implementation messes...

Thoughts anyone?

Re:Obligatory

[TransEurope]

The really cool thing with that is, there are so many adresses that networms cannot jump to machines via the usage of random ip adresses and you cannot scan entire subnets anymore. It's like to try fishing in an ocean with a gun. Maybe you'll never hit any crature in the big water.

Re:Very funny, but...

[EveryNickIsTaken]

IPv6 adoption is going to be heavily stunted by this inadequacy if it isn't fixed pretty pronto

IPv6 hasn't been adopted en masse for years. Why would the release of Vista suddenly give reason for people to switch? There's clearly been resistance to the switch, and Vista has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Blame Vista, or applications?

[Vellmont]

I've got Vista, an IP based printer, and even IPV6 via a tunnel broker. I've had no problems with printing or any other network applications.

So I have to wonder, is this really an issue with Vista's IPV6, is it an issue with the driver writers, or is it a minor issue with Vista's implementation of the layer that supports IP printers?

The article seems to indicate "we turned off IPV6 and then it started working". Well that tells us a little, but it's hardly time to start blaming the IPV6 stack. There's quite a few different components that could be responsible. I had problems with Firefox on Ubuntu on my network, and was able to track it down to a faulty implementation of DNS on my DSL modem only under IPV6.

Order of magnitude more orders of magnitude

[The Monster]

"2^32 unique addresses ought to be enough for anybody."

Well, there really aren't that many unique addresses available for machines, thanks to the fact that every subnet requires two addresses for the subnet itself and the broadcast address (never did understand why those couldn't have been the same address), but the article puts it this way?

Pv6 supports a 128-bit addressing scheme, which lets it support an order-of-magnitude more devices that are directly connected to the Internet than its predecessor, IPv4.

order of magnitude [m-w.com]

: a range of magnitude extending from some value to ten times that value

For every ~3.3 bits added to a binary number, it supports an order of magnitude more addresses. Leaving completely aside the upper half of the address (since devices are supposed to be mobile, and should therefore have a unique 64-bit host address), the added 32 bits add nearly TEN orders of magnitude, or an order of magnitude more orders of magnitude.

Note to authors: If you don't understand what words mean, don't use them.

Re:And this is news because?

[vtcodger]

***And this is news because?***

I dunno. How about, it's news because it indicates that Microsoft's product testing is less than industrial strength?

Oh, is that all?

[AdmV0rl0n]

Vista crashes our main network switches here. We did not have a requirement for Vista, so we've banished it until we do an upgrade on firmware project, which will be done on a if/when required by the business (HP pro curve switches).

We found this on Beta and tried to talk to MS, after being passed from piller to post and jerked round (we frankly have real work to get on with) we gave up. We tested with the full release, and, well, until we have time its just barred from the business.

Re:Microsoft's IPv6 stack

[jandrese]

I thought the TCP/IP stack was fairly unique to Windows, which is why the API to use it was slightly different (just enough that a POSIX app would mysteriously fail to work). The commandline network applications (Telnet, FTP, etc...) were taken from BSD, but the BSD license allows that. The downside is that they took the absolute oldest versions of those applications they could find, skipping the years of improvements available for them.

I dare to ask, "who the hell cares"?

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

OK, I've been a programmer for some time now, and most of that time I've heard of IPv6, and seen some interfaces to configuring it (OS X), even if it's not "on" per se... but WHAT the heck problem was it supposed to originally solve, again? And perhaps because it's not solving any pressing problems (from what I can tell), implementations of it are not getting the attention they dubiously deserve? Is NAT not going to keep us from eventually running out of IPv4 addresses, or some other workaround that sort of namespaces different subnets of the Internet?

Will it really be important some day for every physical item in my possession to have a unique address and an RFID tag?

Do sysadmins at big corporations really WANT every one of their machines to have an address that is uniquely addressable from anywhere on the Internet? Will this help to solve issues such as VPN'ing behind a firewall, etc.?

An honest question.

Let's clear a few things up (ok, a rant)

[Nigel Stepp]

This will probably be redundant by the time I end up posting, but then again, maybe not.

It seems like there are a few things that are causing confusion. Also, I want to rant about ipv6 adoption.

First of all, this looks like it's probably the printer's (or printer driver's) fault and not Microsoft's.

Second, about ipv6 in general...

It hurts me a bit to see people saying "Just disable ipv6 whenever you install vista." I think MS is doing a great thing by enabling ipv6 by default. If the instructions to support desk people, or some "best practice" becomes to disable ipv6 right away, ipv6 will take *another* 10 years to enter the mainstream.

This is pretty bad considering that ipv4 addresses are running out in the next 5 years.

It is exactly these kind of firmware/driver bugs (not having ipv6 support in a network appliance should now be considered a bug) that need to be flushed out before the internet is thrust into ipv6 adoption when the address space runs out.

IPv6 *does* solve problems, and it *will* be the primary mode of accessing the internet for consumers. Shaking out bugs by actually using ipv6 is necessary.

So, MS should *not* be berated because of this. This particular instance is not their fault, and they're doing the right thing by putting ipv6 up front in vista.

Lastly, I'd like to say that deploying ipv6 in the home is actually ridiculously easy. I have a tunnel through hurricane electric [tunnelbroker.net]. Stateless autoconfig, which happens with ipv6 by default, assigns addresses without a dhcp server, and allows things to run right away.

IPv6 and OS support is not the problem. Application and network hardware vendors *have* to get with the program and start to support ipv6 in a very real way.