June 6 Is World IPv6 Day 2012: This Time For Keeps 463
An anonymous reader writes "On 8 June 2011 many companies (big and small) enabled IPv6 to their main web sites by published AAAA records; 24 hours later, almost all of them disabled it after the test was done. This year, on June 6th, many of those same companies (Google, Bing, Facebook) will be enabling IPv6 again, but this time there won't be any going back. In addition to content providers, several ISPs are also participating: Comcast, AT&T, XS4ALL, KDDI, and others. CDNs Akamai and Limelight are on board, as well as network equipment manufacturers Cisco and D-Link. Is the chicken-and-egg problem of IPv6 finally, slowly coming to an end?"
Cisco (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps this would be a good time for Cisco to release software with even the most rudimentary of IPv6 security features.
Re:IPv6 Info (Score:5, Insightful)
Why isn't Slashdot participating? Didn't they care about an open internet at one point??
Re:I'm not changing to IPv6 on a specific date... (Score:4, Insightful)
there is simply zero business case to be amongst the early adopters
That sentence is simply wrong. Maybe not a lot, but you can't say zero. Some customers might choose an ISP because of the v6 support, or rather, some might not use an ISP because he doesn't support v6 (and if you want it another way: IPv6 dual stack is a very valid selling point).
See companies like Hurricane Electric, a large part of their current success has been IPv6 support. That story alone shows that it really is possible to make more money because you do support v6 while others don't. Now soon, customers will soon start to run away if you don't have v6. That day might well be the next 6th of June!
How will the avalanche fall? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope that some of the network/systems analysis companies out there are taking accurate notes about the state of what's accessible via IPv6 and IPv4. I think we'll see an interesting sort of "avalanche" graph when we reach the tipping point. Or not -- perhaps there will be enough dual-stack that we'll just have a slow deathmarch of sites available by IPv4, with a few less year after year?
But to step back and wax lyrical about the whole problem, the reason that IPv6 hasn't taken hold yet is because it just hasn't gotten enough of an IPv6-only install base clamouring for support on their popular websites.
Having major websites and hardware manufacturers on board is an important piece of the puzzle, but it's nothing compared to money. Get enough people inconvenienced that they will take their eyes and their money elsewere (directly, or through advertising revenue on sites, etc...), and every site that cares about their viewership will hop on the IPv6 train. Of course, this means that Bob's website that features his personal Banana Sticker Collection might not get IPv6 support until his ISP drags him to an IPv6 address, kicking and screaming all the way.
That whole idea a year or two ago about putting out a big zip file of porn, but only available on IPv6, was kind of a hoot. AFAIK it never came to fruition, but I liked the creative thinking there. Has anyone else had any crazy good (or just crazy) suggestions about how to spur IPv6 adoption?
Re:I'm not changing to IPv6 on a specific date... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be more constructive to use whatever energy needed to pressure legacy IPv4 holders to give-up their space to start planning a move to v6 or at least a dual-stack architecture. This is like people complaining there's still momentum left in the cassette tape when CDs have been around for years. Postponing the inevitable doesn't stop the inevitable from happening.
Re:I'm not changing to IPv6 on a specific date... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, it *sounds* easy, but it's not.
My wireless router does not support IPV6, and it wasn't created in the stone age, a Linksys WRT54G2. (3ish years old) Sure, it was cheap, but it's also hard to justify spending more to replace reliably working equipment. A "nice" router that supports IPV6 with grace will probably cost $50 or more.
My Comcast modem is my own. I bought it for $20 because I didn't want to pay $7/month for the DOCSIS 3.0 modem. But because it's a DOCSIS 2.0 Modem, IPV6 support is limited. A DOCSIS 3.0 modem that supports IPV6 better costs around $100.
So the real cost for me of IPV6 is already floating somewhere between $150 to $200, about what I pay for 2 YEARS of Netflix. That is only for getting the ability to have an IPV6 address to my home. That's without setting up the Xbox, Wii, or PS3 with IPV6. (Can you do it?) Let alone the Mac, the several PC laptops, my Linux workstation, or the MagicJack Plus that I use for my home phone "land line".
What about our smart phones? Will Android 2.3.x use IPV6? 'what about Android 2.2 on my wife's phone, or 2.1? What about the $90 android tablet my wife bought at Rite aid? For all of these, I have no idea, which means likely not.
What about the (awesome!) SIP app I use on my smartphone to call into the corporate phone server from my home network? Will it work with low latency over IPV6 to my corporate SIP server running IPV4, with traffic shaping that works as well as it does now with my cheap IPV4 modem? Somehow, I have my doubts...
Switching to IPV6 is easy, as long as you don't actually do it for real. As soon as you start trying to live it, use it everyday, make it part of your everyday life, well, things get complicated quickly. This is going to take a while to sort out, you know?
Privacy isn't the responsibility of IP (Score:4, Insightful)
NAT provides only the illusion of privacy; the problem isn't the addressing, but rather the huge centralized systems that we have come to depend upon and which are controlled by only a handful of entities.
Meaningful privacy assurances require effort, and must be addressed at the application layer. This is best served by crypto and peer-to-peer communications, and keeping third parties out of the loop. IPv6 offers the possibility of restoring the most important and fundamental property of the Internet: the end-to-end principle. (If you haven't already, please read this [worldofends.com].) IPv6 provides the basic foundation for applications of the future, allowing one to build in as much security, privacy, and anonymity as they may want. To communicate freely and on your own terms.
The only lemmings I am worried about are the ones who needlessly cling to NAT, and would willingly cripple their own IPv6 networks with similar restrictions. The primary value of the Internet, is that it allows everyone connected to be an equal participant. Once you hoist a NAT (or overly zealous firewall) in front of your connection, you are turning yourself into a mere client, subject to the whims and abuses of some service provider.
Re:I'm not changing to IPv6 on a specific date... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the real cost for me of IPV6 is already floating somewhere between $150 to $200
But in 10 years' time, after the magic smoke has escaped from all that hardware, you'll have upgraded to kit that supports IPv6.
People saying "I'm never going to upgrade to IPv6" come across the same as people saying "I'm never going to upgrade from IE6" - in short, idiots. And in a few years time, like IE6 users now, they will probably be idiots who can't use some big services.
Let alone the Mac, the several PC laptops, my Linux workstation
IPv6 in OS X, Linux and any Windows newer than XP pretty much Just Works with no configuration needed. You'd have to go out of your way to disable it.
MagicJack Plus that I use for my home phone "land line".
There will be legacy hardware that doesn't supprt IPv6 for some time, but in this restricted case is it a problem? I presume the MagicJack is basically an FXSSIP gateway, so whether you need IPv6 here depends on whether the SIP gateway it is connecting to has a v4 address. No one is saying you need to remove IPv4 from your network entirely.
What about our smart phones? Will Android 2.3.x use IPV6? 'what about Android 2.2 on my wife's phone, or 2.1? What about the $90 android tablet my wife bought at Rite aid? For all of these, I have no idea, which means likely not.
Android has supported IPv6 since Android 2.0.
What about the (awesome!) SIP app I use on my smartphone to call into the corporate phone server from my home network? Will it work with low latency over IPV6 to my corporate SIP server running IPV4
No, an IPv6-only device isn't going to be able to talk to an IPv4-only server (unless it uses a NAT64 gateway to do so). IPv4 is not going to suddenly disappear, dual-stacked clients are the norm, and as IPv4 addresses become harder to get hold of, ISPs will use carrier grade NAT to provision IPv4 to their clients. Talking to IPv4-only servers will still happen over IPv4.
Address exhaustion is largely a problem for servers, where NAT isn't really feasible. For many years to come, clients will have (NATted) IPv4 and (unNATted) IPv6 concurrently. Which is why it makes no sense when ISPs say "we don't need IPv6 because *we* have plenty of spare IPv4 addresses" - it doesn't matter if you have a big stack of spare IPv4 addresses if the people who operate the servers that your customers connect to don't.
What *should* have happened, is the telecoms regulators should have mandated that ISPs implement IPv6 support and sell IPv6 capable routers a good number of years ago since it was clear they were going to wait until crunch-time before bothering to do so without regulatory pressure. If that had happened, most end users would already have IPv6 capable internet connections and hardware.
Re:I'm not changing to IPv6 on a specific date... (Score:4, Insightful)
4 million customers = at least 4 million customer routers...
Plus the TV set top boxes which also have IP for on demand tv and such...
Plus their own infrastructure devices...
Plus wastage due to subnetting (network address, broadcast etc)...
Imagine trying to segment a network of that size, and then trying to keep track of what was in which segment etc... Would be quite a nightmare.
Re:Finally, an end to Google's daft IPv6 policy (Score:4, Insightful)
There is nothing daft about that policy, it simply makes sure that their services work and are responsive, as there used to be a lot of broken IPv6 setups in the wild.
Re:I'm not changing to IPv6 on a specific date... (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Granted, on my own internal network I might not bother with setting up IPV6, and instead do the equivalent of a NAT for my internal servers to give them an IPV4 address and only have my border router deal with IPV6. This is probably how it's going to work at first, and that's okay; it's getting the transition done, and for the most part everything is going to work that way. (Open holes in your own damned firewalls internally for redirects.) Eventually -- which probably means "the next version of Windows" given how IT seems to work these days -- IPV6 will be phased in even internally. I don't think IPV4 is totally going to go away any time soon because, at the very least, people are going to still use it for internal routing a lot because that's what they can do in their sleep or when drunk.
We have to either transition to IPV6, or come up with some protocol layer that sits on top of IPV4 to give additional addressing capability. Given the alternatives, the latter is utterly stupid.
That said, I'd recommend that when this starts to take off people invest craploads of money into Cisco (CSCO) stock. Just sayin'.
Re:I'm not changing to IPv6 on a specific date... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Granted, on my own internal network I might not bother with setting up IPV6, and instead do the equivalent of a NAT for my internal servers to give them an IPV4 address and only have my border router deal with IPV6.
Why? One of the really big benefits of IPv6 is the lack of address translation. This means stuff like peer to peer services (e.g. VoIP) can work without having to use unreliable nat traversal technologies such as STUN (peer to peer systems have to exchange addressing information. If there is no NAT then they just look at the local machine's address. If there is NAT then they have to use various techniques to probe the NAT and then make an educated guess as to what IP address and port their traffic will be translated to). If you try to perform some non-standard NAT at the border, you're going to reintroduce a lot of problems that IPv6 was built to avoid, and you also introduce an overhead of having to manage the NAT.
Eventually -- which probably means "the next version of Windows" given how IT seems to work these days -- IPV6 will be phased in even internally.
Why wait for the next version of Windows? Windows newer than XP has supported IPv6 out of the box (XP just involves a driver install), Linux has supported v6 out of the box for over 10 years, OS X supports it out of the box, Android supports it out of the box, lots of Apple hardware Just Works with v6, etc. Just setting the router to send RAs should see most of the clients on an average network automatically start to use v6, no need to upgrade the OS or reconfigure it.
Re:I'm not changing to IPv6 on a specific date... (Score:4, Insightful)
When you have any number of machines behind a router, and can't guarantee that all of them have a software firewall turned on, using a NAT router to protect the network makes imminent sense. Unless I'm wrong somehow and every home network in the world is ripe for attack.