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I tried to upgrade a major porn site to ipv6 years ago. Our provider didn't support it. I couldn't get an ipv6 gateway to talk to me about gating it. We just couldn't get it done, and it wasn't because our efforts weren't there.

    It looks like there are still only a handful of ipv6 sites out there.

    http://www.ipv6.org/v6-www.html

    http://www.sixxs.net/wiki/IPv6_Enabled_Websites

    Until there is a good reason to upgrade, it won't happen. Leave the sky is falling conspiracy out of it.

went to http://www.ipv6.org/ and it said that I had an IPv6 address, did a $ping6 2001:4860:0:2001::68 (thats ipv6.google.com) and got replies.
anyone else on comcast seeing this??

Altavista used to... Back when it was run by DEC.

See:
http://www.ipv6.org/v6-www.html

Microsoft research have a v6 site too...

My site (www.ev4.org) is also available on v6, just incase anyone cares.

Does it matter? Eventually, it'll be IPv6 or nothing. Forget switching over just for a site or two, people will be switching to connect. Also, IPv6 would make static IPs much more practical and make it more awesome to be able to recite one's own IP from memory.

Also, there is a handful of IPv6 sites, but, for the most part, they're worthless to most people. (Well, at least they're there.)

I feel that while we don't need IPv6 yet, waiting until we do need it would be foolish. Think of this in the same terms as the Y2K issue, which never became an issue because people took proactive action.

Some useful IPv6 related links:
    - http://www.simphalempin.com/dev/miredo/
    - http://evanjones.ca/macosx-ipv6.html
    - http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/
    - http://www.hexago.com/
    - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/590/ - displays ipv6 address in firefox, if it has one
    - http://www.ipv6.org/impl/windows.html

All that is really needed is for the pockets of IPv6 networks to join up, rather than staying as pockets. Maybe an IPv6 based P2P or something of the sorts might help provide some sort of momentum.

For those in Japan, I suggest checking out IPv6 Promotion Council, WIDE, Internet Initiative Japan and the BSD folks over at KAME.

In general, you probably also want to check the IPv6 Information Page, which lists many IPv6 websites, FTP sites and even IRC sites not already listed. (Almost all the above sites are also IPv6-reachable.) This totally trashes the idea that there is NOBODY on IPv6, which is good because it is a delusion which prevents people from using IPv6.

I've used numerous IPv6 tunnels and will shortly be getting native IPv6 from my provider at home, so I cry "bullshit" to those who say it can't be done. Setting up an IPv6 tunnel through a broker requires knowing your public IP address and your MAC address, then running a simple script to set up the IPv6-over-IPv4 connection. It's all of a couple of minutes work, maximum. I dare those who say IPv6 isn't being used to actually set up such a tunnel, use IPv6, THEN come back and tell the rest of us why what they just did was so impossible.

Actually, Wind'ohs can be had with IPv6 support. Windows eXtra Problems has an MS-sanctioned IPv6 implementation, even though it is "intended for development use and trial network deployments" (http://www.ipv6.org/impl/windows.html)

Windows 2000BC can have IPv6... with a MS-sanctioned add-on designed by Microsoft Research... Which in itself rings a big warning light, because if Microsoft considers something beta software, it must be even more unstable than their OSes.

Users of Windows 95-98 and assumably ME and NT4.0 can use Trumpet Software's Winsock v5.0 to connect, using IPv6-aware applications, via IPv6. This is not a very neat way of doing it however, and I do not recommend it, as Winsock is primarily a modem dialer (I personally used it back in the Windows 3.1 days to connect to my ISP via a 14.4 modem)

Source

You should rephrase that to "will we ever truly need the address space that something like IPV6 provides?" IPV6 has much more to it than just a huge address size.

See also: IPV6.org

IPv6 isn't all about greater address space. It also brings improvements on routing and network autoconfiguration. The packets can also be classified into different categories, etc.

Enable your box with IPv6 today, Freenet6 provides free IPv6 connectivity over IPv4. Get some IPv6-enabled apps and use some IPv6-enabled servers/services, FTP and IRC being among the available ones.

IPv6 isn't all about greater address space. It also brings improvements on routing and network autoconfiguration. The packets can also be classified into different categories, etc.

Enable your box with IPv6 today, Freenet6 provides free IPv6 connectivity over IPv4. Get some IPv6-enabled apps and use some IPv6-enabled servers/services, FTP and IRC being among the available ones.

• IPv6- The Next Generation Internet - About IPv6.
• IPv6 Forum
• IP Version 6 (IPv6) - IPv6 at Sun.
• No shortage of IP addresses - Cnet Asia
• Big players push IPv6, but masses resist.
• Ready for IPv6 - PC World
• Ready for IPv6, Part 2 - PC World
• Verio Brings IPv6 to North America
• NTT Com Expands IPv6 Coverage
• KDDI Labs Pilots IPv6 Network Between Japan and the US
• Foundry Does 10GigE for N+I
• Perspective: IPv6, the Net's next frontier

"What's Next?" you asked... IPv6 is next.

Windows XP supports IPv6 natively. Older versions support it with an add-on.

I have just noticed that the IPv6 web site lists implementations of IPv6 for various platforms. Hopefully this should be useful to those of you wanting to test out IPv6 on your system.

IPv6 information:
http://www.ipv6.org/

IPv6 for Windows:
http://www.microsoft.com/ipv6
http://research.microsoft.com/msripv6/

IPv6 for Linux:
http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/

IPv6 for Mac:
http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/ipv6

IPv6 for Java:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/net/ipv6_g uide/

Nice karma whorin'. I particularly like the unattributed copy-and-paste straight from the horse's mouth.

You should really try turning your powers to trollin'. Slashdot needs more users with your skillz.

We're already out of addresses - why add more in wireless space? IPv6 has many features that allow for efficient autodiscovery of other nodes, transition mechanisms to move easily from IPv4, multicasting capabilities, etc.

Let's drop this 192.168.x.x and 10.x.x.x stuff and just give everybody their own address. Multiple addresses can easily be used on a single interface as well.

Just something to think about when you want to design something yourself. If you don't want it to make itself extinct in the next few years, think about integrating IPv6 at the outset. It _is_ widespread technology just waiting to happen.

Links:

IPv6.org
hs247.com
freenet6.net
6bone.net

For more reasons on why IPv6 is so cool, and some of the neat things it can do (especially in the field of mesh-wireless, check out some of the technical details here.

My bet, or at least opinion, would be the way IP address have been allocated in chunks to certain holders, forcing the proposal of IPv6 far sooner than it should have needed to be. I doubt there was any way the shortage of IPv4 addresses could have been foreseen way back when every household on earth still only needed one telephone line.

You are most likely thinking IPs are 32 bits rather than the sum of four bytes with each byte representing an address class of A,B,C, and D.

Sorry, you are wrong. The address classes happen to mask to single bytes, but the subnet masking does not.

The problem occurs in that if they ever run out of addresses and make more, they would add another byte.

What?? What part of your anatomy did you pull that out of? IPv4 is, by definition and unchanging, 32 bits. The next version of TCP/IP is IPv6, which uses 128 bit addresses. Of course, at that point we no longer store IP addresses in a scalar variable and routing will most likely be done in different ways.

Let me know if you have ever heard of a 36-bit datatype in C/C++ or any other language. Im curious.

As a matter of fact, many DEC and IBM computers used 36 bit words. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the very first version of Unix on the PDP/11 had 36 bit longs. But if you're trying to make some sarcastic point, probably a 40 bit datatype would have worked better (8 * 5 = 40 bits).

How about the enormous chunk of Linux webservers? Last I read, Linux has supported IPv6 for some time now.

Yes, but does your cable or DSL provider route IPv6 ? Do they help you get your own /48 routed to your home if you want it ? I wish my cable provider supported IPv6 and/or multicast.

And your Linux webserver might have a bit of a problem serving IPv6 clients out of the tarball. Apache 1.3.x still needs a set of patches (available from the kame ftp server). Apache 2.0, still in beta supports it now.

...we should educate ourselves about it.

good IPv6 homepage

IPv6 HOWTO

IPv6 Standards

IPv6 Tutorial (PDF)

And the 6bone

Or checkout the IPv6 project page

Yes, IPv6 does include encryption. And, it is on by default. All communications are encrypted. Though, IPv6 isn't to widely used yet. But I'm sure if there were an IPv6 napster compatable server (and client for that matter), it would most likely be used alot by people with AUP's that dont allow them to download mp3's, etc. You will also probably want to have a read of either IPv6.org and 6bone.net.

You should check out http://www.ipv6.org/. The security will be much better with ipv6.

Ok, let me get this straight: You start with IPv4, run TCPv4 over that, make a standard HTTP connection, and tunnel TCPv4 through that. Why stop there? Why not tunnel IPv6 over the tunnelled TCP connection? Then you can run TCPv6 over the IPv6 connection, and make a HTTP connection through it all!

http://www.ipv6.org/

http://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/html/ipng-main. html

http://www.ipv6forum.com/

http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6 -HOWTO.html

Unfortunately, ipv6.org is currently down.

r. ghaffari
(25/M/Baltimore, MD)

For those of you who would like to implement ipv6 on your systems, there are howto's available at http://www.ipv6.org/howtos.htmlAlso check out the USAGI Project

I do believe that IPV6 is going to provide the exact functionality you are describing. Although IPV6 has been around about as long as IPV4 in my memory, IPV6 will solve alot of these problems. Check out http://www.ipv6.org/.

... you guessed it: Two routing tables!

Under IPV5, they will run out of IPs before they run out of memory!

Everyone who for a second believes that IPv6 is going to leave anyone out in the cold when it comes time to upgrade hasn't read a SINGLE document describing it. Here is a link for you. Click it. Now. Don't tell me I didn't warn you. That link is a semitechnical overview of IPv6, but for some more important details, see the RFC describing the new sockets system.

One thing I want you to get absolutely sure is that IPv6 is fully backward compatible with v4 AND you can switch an individual host or router from v4 to v6 without cutting out any of your v4 customers. From the first link:

Ease of transition is a key point in the design of IPng. It is not something [that] was added in at the end. IPng is designed to interoperate with IPv4. Specific mechanisms (embedded IPv4 addresses, pseudo-checksum rules, etc.) were built into IPng to support transition and compatibility with IPv4. It was designed to permit a gradual and piecemeal deployment with a minimum of dependencies.

BTW, another poster made a comment about how 'IPv6 is dead till it ships in a microsoft stack. When it does, IPv6 will be real instantly.' What kind of idiocy!?! Did IPv4 just suddenly become important because Microsoft added it to Win95?!? And besides, with something as important as the IP, no one company (or two, even MS + Cisco have their limits) can dictate what and how it will be. Why don't you go and write some applications that use IPv6 in a way that people want and can't be done in IPv4. Then, and only then, does it become real.


--------

The following links are some that i've come across. They are rather interesting at times:

A how-to for stealing someone's domain name, which was a ddresed in the article. Furthermore, the specs for these protocols and implementations can be found here and here. There was also a critical interview calling for the implementation of these more secure systems in order to prevent the holes in the current system..

But unfortunately, Linux is not an OS. Having IPv6 in the kernel is fine, but it is a *major* PITA to get even the basics (ping, traceroute) recompiled, etc. FreeBSD is way ahead of the game in this case.

Actually, the newest iputils packages have ping6, traceroute6, etc. and many other packages (e.g. OpenSSH) can be compiled with ipv6 support with relative ease. (Note that I realize OpenSSH is originally from a *BSD and I recognize and respect their support for IPv6 - but Linux *does* also have it)

As I'm sure countless others have pointed out, there is excellent information on transitioning (borrowed word from a friend of mine at school... I'm not sure it's a real word, but hey...) to ipv6 at the ipv6.org site, as well as a Linux HOWTO with some easy-to-follow instructions.

At this point, I recommend checking out some RFCs if you're wanting to set up an IPv6 box... It has all kinds of nuances IPv4 didn't have that you need to know at this point. Once it is widely deployed, IPv6 has fabulous autoconfiguration methods; however, if (like most of us) you will have to be tunneling through IPv4 to get to the nearest IPv6 host, you'll hafta set a lot of that stuff up yourself.

That said, you know that as soon as I can get a working IPv6 tunnel at school I'll have it in a heartbeat. ;-)

ipv6.org has lots of stuff for the less well informed, including the implementations that are currently available.

Oh, and the Linux HOWTO.

ipv6.org has lots of stuff for the less well informed, including the implementations that are currently available.

Oh, and the Linux HOWTO.

Books...
Ipv6 : The Next Generation Internet Protocol Stewart S. Miller; Paperback

IP Addressing & Subnetting Including IPv6 Syngress Media; Paperback

Ipv6 Networks Marcus Goncalves, Kitty Niles; Paperback

And of course IPv6.org is an excellent source of info on the next generation for the internet.

Its already here as a networking technology and for many areas its increased security model enables things that couldn't previously be done. Big privacy question marks over it though.

And second, what kind of architecture - software and hardware -can do for this Internet generation what the Net protocols did for the last one?

I beleive the hardware which will encourage freedom in the "second Internet generation" has to be by far free or very low cost PCs. At the present, there are many people with PCs and Internet access, but still the majority does not have a PC or Internet access (barring public terminals, libraries, etc). I beleive once more people start to get a PC and get onto the Internet, they will begin to realize what is out there for them (on the Internet) and how they will be able to find almost anything they could ever dream of. There are some folks (governments in particular) which wish to limit the free flow of ideas and information on the Internet, and the more people who get on the Internet and find out the limitless amount of ideas, information and content available to them, the more new Internet users (hopefuly) will pay attention to what they have to lose when laws and "innovations" (such as SDMI or UCITA) are introduced.

The software which will help ensure freedom in the "second Internet generation" would be, of course, OSS solutions. Along with my theme of low cost PCs, free, readily available and reliable operating systems (Linux, *BSD, etc) are available at the present. Combine Linux with a low cost PC and Internet access, and consumers could be on the Internet with a $300 PC and $10/month Internet access (or $400 for 3 years of Internet access and a PC from some offers I've seen). $400 is a price I realistically feel many consumers can afford, as opposed to 2 or 3 years ago when consumers would have to spend at least $1500 for a PC with a modem and $25/month for Internet access.

My second answer to the "software" question would be free Intenet access. At the present, most free acess providers are limited in the OSes they support (Windows NT or 9x). However, if free service providers supply Linux clients, not only do they increase their customer base, but help more people discover what this whole "Intenet" thing they've been missing is. If you have a Windows PC and and no Internet access (how are you reading this?!), there are plenty of free access providers available (a good list can be seen here on Yahoo!). Personally, I would rather pay for Inernet access since I can't stand advertising, but if you live with some banners on your screen, it's a splendid deal.

The protocols which will help the second generation Internet thrive will be IP v6. Not only is it an open protocol available for all OSes, vendors and individuals to use, but it also comes with other features such as built in encryption which helps to keep what someone wants to be private, well, private.

One problem with my ideas is that history has shown that the majority of people don't keep up on proposed and new laws, nor do they research what they buy before it's too late. I quick and easy example of this would be the low voter turnout each year.

The other issue is that, as much as we hate to admit it, Linux has a ways to go for usability. I've seen the "My grandma can use Linux!" discussion many times before here on Slashdot, but I feel installation, configuration, GUIs and easy ways to update the OS (to add new features and patch bugs) need to be improved before Linux will be the OS of choice for first time PC users.

So, in summary, PCs, OSes and Internet access which are at low or no cost will help more people to get onto the Internet, see all of the wonders it has to offer, and hopefuly realize what we all have to lose in the future if we do not protect the freedoms we have now.

It seems I remember something about either address allocation having to be free, or the actual transit over the network...I'm not sure which, and I can't find any information on it right now, but I thought either way, it'd be of particular interest with regards to (and possibly opposition of) your idea of micropayments for bandwidth and such.

I'll try to find out some more info on this; anyone know much else about it?

I do, however, know for a fact that you're quite a bit more than wrong about the lack of services over the IPv6 network. They are plentiful, for the users and developers using the current testbed (aka the 6bone). DHIS is one of many free providers of IPv6 testing address allocation, Freenet6 is another. And there are numerous IPv6 capable sites, including FreeBSD's site, portions of Microsoft's site, NASA...

If you check out the main IPv6 sites, such as the 6bone, IPv6.org, IPv6Forum, and a whole lot of others, you'll find the network is quite extensive. Work is being done quite a bit, and it's more than just talk.

A few days ago there was a discussion on "Ask Slashdot" about IPv6 and Linux support. One of the biggest complaint was the lack of IPv6 support in most of the applications that run under Linux. It's nice to see here that some application developers are seeing the value of getting early support for IPv6 integreated into their core product offering. Once you've tackled Sendmail, BIND, Apache, and an FTP server, you have the most important tools for a good IPv6 server offering.

This is the MOST common misconception about IPV6, and I wish people somehow would stop getting this idea.

IPV6 IS NOT solely to remedy ip address shortages. There are those who contend that there is no such shortage, and we can all just use NAT boxen and masquerading till the cows come home. Which leads to the natural assumption that there's no need for IPV6.

Other important things that come with IPV6 are the QoS ratings, additional security features (!), better design from the network architecture standpoint, general improvements in the spec, etc.
Keep in mind, IPV4 is OLD, and it was never meant to do the things we have it doing, becuase the designers at the time had no idea how the Internet would turn out.

(!) BTW, this does NOT refer to the so-called loss of anonymity caused by putting a MAC in the address. Read more at the IPV6 FAQ.

Check out this site for a semi-informative FAQ: http://faq.v6.wide.ad.jp/ There is also: http://www.ipv6.org/ and http://www.6bone.net/ They claim they are working on a real FAQ and there are apparently some hotows floating around the site...

• www.6bone.net
• www.ipv6.org

Your ISP can be running a cooked hamburger, as far as you're concerned. :) So long as you've an internet connection, the only requirement is that you set up a tunnel, connecting to some existing node on the 6bone. It's as easy as that. :)

Just e-mail the maintainer of the node, get the IPv4 address for their end-point, let them know the address for your end-point, configure SIT0 accordingly, and you're sorted.

(If you get a dynamic IP address, from your ISP, it's slightly more complex. The maintainer'll need to have some kind of script running, to automatically adjust the tunnel, according to what your new IP address is.)

This was a good article on a technical subject. I've looked into this a bit already, and this article agreed with what I already knew and confirmed a few things I'd only suspected.

This is of more than passing interest to us. My employer has recently aquired some other largish companies, and we need to set up a corporate Intranet. Problem is, we don't have enough IP addresses.

(Well, maybe we do. There are rumours of a class B address owned by some research lab somewhere in the company. People are currently trying to track it down. Failing that, we might just have to buy a company that already owns one.)

So now what do we do about IPv6? Everyone in the company is using IPv4, often with 10.*.*.* addresses hidden behind firewalls that do NAT. We need to integrate all these networks into one corporate Intranet, and the idea of having lots of NAT boxes playing games with IP addresses does not sound good. Neither does the prospect of renumbering all those boxes by hand. We don't run DHCP anywhere (someone once talked about security issues as the reason for that, I don't know anything more).

One idea is to create an IPv6 backbone for the Intranet with IPv4 subnets hanging off it, and use protocol translation routers to connect the subnets. That way we can get the subnets on with minimum hassle, and upgrade them as and when it becomes feasible.

As far as upgrading goes, our favoured solution would be to just buy new machines with IPv6 stacks installed. We certainly don't want a flag day. Reading the IPv6 site, it looks like IPv6 and IPv4 machines can co-exist on the same Ethernet spur or whatever. Am I right about this?

Any information would be gratefully received.

This is something a of no-brainer, but you can find out a great deal about IPv6 by checking out

http://www.ipv6.org/

If you just want a in-depth understanding of why you should use IPv6 instead of Ipv4 take a look at

http://www.ie tf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-iab-case-for-ipv 6-04.txt

Firstly, this isn't an official draft of an IETF working group - anyone can submit a draft, even if it's this lousy. (Working group drafts are of the form draft-ietf-working_group_name-*)

Secondly, IPv6 isn't really that complex, especially considering this proposal isn't exactly simple (would it really be easier to roll this out instead?!). An excellent starting point is the Internet Architecture Board Case for IPv6. You can also get some good information and links at the IPv6 Imformation Page. I have to say I don't like the way this guy slates IPv6 without explanation, maybe he needs to read up a bit more on the subject.

Finally, although one day we may run out of IPv4 addressing, that's not the immediate addressing problem - the problem is of uneven distribution of addresses. While the USA might be alright, where every corporation who could shout "Me Too!" got a class A, there are other places in the world who are very short on addresses. I've heard it said that Madagascar has just 200 global IPv4 addresses! A whole country run through NAT! *Shudder* (I reserve the right for this to be an urban legend ;)

Anway, there's loads of other really neat stuff in IPv6 aside from extending the address space to keep us all happy....

There are many more than 3 independent implementations of IPv6. Offhand, I can think of INRIA, KAME, Sun, Mentat, Microsoft Research, Digital/Compaq, IBM, NRL, Cisco, Telebit...

See http://www.ipv6.org for more info.