Microsoft's Implementation Of IPv6

jinx_ writes: "For those of you who were interested in the OpenBSD IPv6, Microsoft has a site of their own on the subject. 'Microsoft Research (MSR) is writing an Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) implementation to further networking research on the Windows NT/2000 platform. USC/ISI East is our partner in this development. Due to external interest, we have decided to make a beta version of this implementation publicly available in both source and binary forms.' Sounds like it would be fun to play with at least." Anyone know anything more on this? Post below, please.

Comments

That's KAME's IPv6 implementation....

[DaveTerrell]

And the microsoft IPv6 stack has been out for over two years in an unsupported research capacity.

Microsoft Research rocks!

[Fervent]

I don't care what anyone says, I've visited Microsoft Research and they absolutely rock. They are totally disenfranchised with the whole "embrace and extend" tactics of their corporate employer, instead focusing on dedicated research in many awesome fields (think Lucent [Bell labs], Xerox Palo Alto Research Center [Xerox-PARC] and Agilent [HP labs]).

I'm really considering working there.

The Oldest news I've ever seen on Slashdot

[Geek Boy]

This is like..... moldy. It's _SO_ old. I have a copy here that I'm sure has been "touched" so the file is even older than the date on it. ...

-rwxr-xr-x 1 xxx xxx 286720 Jun 1 1998 msripv6-netmon-src-1.0.exe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 xxx xxx 507392 Jun 1 1998 msripv6-src-1.0.exe

Talk about missing the boat by over 2 years....

Research.

[Matt2000]

From da soft: "... implementing IPv6 to further networking research on the Windows NT/2000 platform."

Translation: "...IPv4 was really really hard. I didn't really get it. One time I was working on the NT4 drivers and I forgot what line I needed to GOTO and it turned out that all network traffic was getting opened as an Excel spreadsheet. I was moved to the talking paperclip project, but now I'm back for IPv6 cause it's easier!"

Will you agree to the EULA??

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how when Microsoft asks you to agree to their EULA, if you click "I do not agree" they ask you again until you do.

This reminds me of a Simpson episode where the following conversation takes place:

Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: Oh, okay, okay.

We need IPv6 sooner rather than later

[Apotsy]

As more and more devices (cell phones, PDAs) become IP-enabled, 32-bit IP addresses will become increasingly scarce, and eventually they will run out. Some people are predicting this will happen in just a few short years. Moving to a larger address space, such as the one afforded by IPv6 is the only answer.

Unfortunately, the fate of IPv6 rests in Microsoft's hands. If IPv6 is to ever attain widespread use, Windows will have to support it. The sheer number of Windows machines out there guarantees it. No matter how soon Linux and BSD servers support it, it will be pretty useless without widespread client-side support, and that means Windows support.

MS has had IPv6 working in the research labs for a long time, yet they are really dragging their heels when it comes to putting it into a shipping product. Beats me why. I suppose they might have some financial interesting in seeing IP numbers getting scarce ("If you want your own IP, you have to sign up for MSN!"), but somehow I don't think even Microsoft can hold back the rising demand for more IP addresses.

So, sooner or later, they are going to have to include IPv6 support in Windows by default. And not just the server-branded versions of Windows either, but the consumer versions as well. The Windows that Joe Bloe runs on his home PC will have to come with IPv6 built-in. Otherwise, Internet growth will be stifiled. Isn't it scary to think that the future of the net rests in Bill's hands?

Re:We need IPv6 sooner rather than later

[K8Fan]

My paranoid fantasy is not that Microsoft is holding back IPV6...that the true culprit is Real Networks. They have the most to lose in the world of IP multicasting that IPV6 will usher in. Currently they charge per "stream"...and their revenue model goes out the window when you can feed a multimedia event to the whole world with a single stream.

Re:We need IPv6 sooner rather than later

[Cato]

Interesting but a bit too paranoid perhaps...

Multicast is available today with IPv4, and I'm not really clear why anyone would migrate to IPv6 just to get better multicast. RealPlayer already supports multicast, and it's unlikely webcasting will really hit high volumes without multicast, so Real Networks would just have to find another business model (e.g. paid-for content subscriptions, which they are already doing, though this is even more difficult in the multicast world, since authenticated access to multicast streams really needs a fairly complex encryption setup).

The main blockers for multicast IMO are that it is pretty hard to deploy, troubleshoot and manage, and is also quite prone to DoS attacks (hey, now I can DoS an *entire multicast group* from a single compromised host!!).

There are also interesting inter-provider routing and peering issues (how do you set up peering agreements between two providers that take account of some of that traffic being multicast, i.e. it will use a lot more bandwidth potentially than just the amount coming over the provider-to-provider link.)

Re:We need IPv6 sooner rather than later

[WNight]

They don't have to support it, that's the great thing about IPv6, it'll coexist with older IPv4 implementations...

Basically an ISP puts all of its old IPv4 customers behind a NAT box and they're happy. The rest of the net uses the full address range and the poor little IPv4 box talks to them via a translator.

This'll even work for servers, if MS doesn't get on the ball with it, or releases a crippled/broken version, people who want Win2000 for a server (ugh) could simply put it behind an IPv6 NAT computer and the Win2000 box would think it was directly on the network without having to know the details of what the world is like.

Holy Shit

[drift factor]

Satan, get out the snowblower, Microsoft is posting source to what could become part of their operating system.

128 is not enough?

[sverrehu]

From the docs:

"A joint research effort by our matematicians and IT professionals have concluded that 128 bit addressing will suffice for no more than approximately 25 years into the future. Microsoft has thus decided to extend the protocol to use 136 bits, which will suffice for at least 75 years."

Just kidding...

Writing a free Ipv6 competitor for windoze?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about creating something like Trumpet Winsock. Like in the days before Microsoft implemented Ipv4 in Windows ? In other words, take the Ipv6 spec (from OpenBSD?) and write a driver for windows, and put it in the BSD licence (eventually with a M$ clasule :). Then push the spread of it. Ofcourse writing a windows driver may not be fun. But the cause is good :)

Slightly on topic. Or, attack of the marketdroids.

[Mr. Flibble]

Here is an interesting story about Microsoft, and it (slightly) involves IPV6.

I went to "Microsoft's Big Day" back in March I believe. This event was (at our town at any rate) just a big propaganda machine for Windows 2000 and Office 2000.

The hotel where it took place was initally crowded with people from the buisnesses from town, but with each intermission (the "seminar" lasted a whole day).

Basically the lectures went over the features of Win2k and why you should buy it for your buisness, same thing for Office. The main presenter (other than the boring laywer who read from the EULA... No, I am not joking)was a woman who seemed quite knowlegeable about NT. She was quite sharp I thought.

I decided to test how sharp.

I walked up to her during an intermission, where people were asking very very basic questions.

My turn came up and I asked:

"When will the Windows 2000 kernel support IPv6?
Currently it only supports IPv4, and thats a serious issue with the looming IP shortage."

Just for a second her eyes went a little wide - the first question all day that she had not been able to answer. She glanced quickly at a person nearby sitting in the front row, then looked back at me and said "I don't know".

This was fine, I did not expect her to be able to answer the question, I wanted to see her true level of knowledge, whether she was plain PR or a techie at heart.

Now what got interesting is that the fellow to my left who was sitting in the front row of the presentation (dressed in "plain" clothes)and had been the man that the presenter had glanced at, got up and began to praise Windows 2000. He mentioned how "No operating system supports IPv6".

I replied, "Funny, Linux and BSD support it." He did not believe me at first, and addressed the *nix idea with a wave of his hand, as if the *nix OSes were naught but a bother. We then argued about IPv6 and it's importance, and how it loads routers etc, etc, etc. But, as we did so I noticed that he was leading me further away from the people asking questions to the presenters (I was winning the argument because I had just read Understanding IP Addressing: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know.) I was also declaring things like: "Well, Linux can do that! What do you mean that Windows can't?" Which seemed to irk him.

(Ok, before someone tells me to read the Advocacy-how-to, I was very polite about it, and not derogitory to MS, I was doing it in more of a "Gee, I thought Windows could do that too... You mean it can't?" Besides, YOU try sitting through an 8 hour MS propaganda session and see if you don't snap!:)

We finished arguing, I "won" not that it was really important. I did not really care. Still, what I thought was *really* interesting was that I did not recognize him. I live in a small town, and I know ALL the computer people here. They all know me as the local Linux geek. I never saw this guy before, and he *WAS* knowlegable, he *DID* know what IPv6 was, and was able to discuss it. I would have known if there was a guy like this in town.

I waited until the very end of the seminar, when everyone was leaving. I watched this "plainclothes" guy, (all the MS people had Microsoft shirts on). The "plainclothes" guy left in the same van that the MS people left in. I have not seen him in town since.

Interesting don't you think?

That's the OLD version... I can ping!

[ajv]

Please use the new version from the MSDN site rather than the old crufty MSR stack.

You can get the newest version here.

Here's the stack in action:

C:\>ping6 fe80::260:1dff:fef6:32b7

Pinging fe80::260:1dff:fef6:32b7 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from fe80::260:1dff:fef6:32b7%7: bytes=32 time=2ms
Reply from fe80::260:1dff:fef6:32b7%7: bytes=32 time=2ms
Reply from fe80::260:1dff:fef6:32b7%7: bytes=32 time=2ms
Reply from fe80::260:1dff:fef6:32b7%7: bytes=32 time=2ms

That's over my WaveLAN wireless PC Card in my Win2K laptop to my flatmate's Libretto C100 running a recent NetBSD-current which is our WaveLAN - LAN gateway. All of our boxes are IPv6 native. No IPv4 encapsulation for us. And yes, WaveLAN kicks ass! You NEED WaveLAN.

So, in answer to one of the major questions, Microsoft's stack works with other IPv6 implementations. It doesn't keep settings between reboots at the moment, and it doesn't do ESP only AH.

false, 32bit IP addresses are doing fine.

[toppk]

32-bit IP address are not running out. Do you actually think there is a need for 4.3 billion publically addresses machines? Most computers today are in corporate situations that don't touch the internet except through firewalls, but currently use non-reserved ip blocks for the chance of one day things changing.

I will say, that without proper management, they could run out, but clearly look at this stupidity: "whois 3.0.0.0@whois.arin.net". Does GE need 16.7 million addresses?

What we need is variable subnet masking working on All products, and supernetting working on all routers, all the issues go away. That, and have companies justify having thousands of addresses when they only have a couple pingable IP's (and usually those are on a separate network anyway)

No, that was the point.

[Mr. Flibble]

I chose the question based on that.
I knew the stack was separate. The whole point of the question was to see how much the presenter knew, not getting an answer to the question.

I wanted to see if I got back a response like, "No, the kernel and the stack are separate" or "I believe IPv6 is forthcoming" or "what kind of question is that?"

As you just caught me on the question, I wondered if she would catch me on the question. You can choose to believe that or not, but it was the point.