IPv4 vs IPv6: The Road Ahead

jeffy124 writes "With the world moving towards having every device under the sun being Internet-connected, is the Internet going to be too large? This article off CNN.com examines this potential situation. They look into the problems of switching networks from IPv4 to IPv6, and the inclusion of inter-operability between the two. Benefits of moving to IPv6 are looked at, but so are the critics of it who point out that if we don't have a problem now, why fix it? While low of technical details, the story points out that not many systems out there currently support IPv6. "

Comments

6-BONE?

[ethereal]

Why not run the conversion like the 6bone has? That is, start off with virtual IPv6 between IPv6 supporting sites over IPv4 links, and gradually shift to native IPv6 where possible as more and more of the intermediate "link" sites convert to IPv6? At some point, you switch over core routers one by one so that they're running virtual IPv4 over IPv6 transport, and switch out the last of the IPv4 hardware as it becomes obsolete.

Not that this necessarily provides an incentive for IPv4 users to switch, but IMHO, as a person that's not too knowledgeable about IPv6, I don't see why technically a migration has to be too difficult. Maybe you could make the incentive something like rewarding you with more IPv6 addresses as you move out of IPv4 space - that would definitely move big network operators along, at least.

I'm still not sure how to force a more equal global assignment of the dwindling IPv4 address space. It seems like if the IPv4 afficianados aren't careful, China will just switch to IPv6 immediately, and the rest of the world will get dragged along just so we can continue to communicate with that huge percentage of the human race.

Re:6-BONE?

[LiteForce]

It's a nice idea but I have been trying to join the 6bone for absolutely ages now.

My upstream ISP (Demon Internet) is a participant in the 6bone network; so I e-mailed their 6bone contact and requested a small allocation of IPv6 addresses with which I could use on my internal network (all Linux; therefore all capable of IPv4).

I received no response from them whatsoever after three seperate e-mails. I *want* to switch away from IPv4, but my upstream ISP won't let me, while they are making out to the outside world that they are 'spearheading' the IPv6 revolution by announcing that they are a member of the 6bone.

Yes, I have considered applying to other 6bone networks, such as JANET and other UK ISPs, but my upstream ISP would have been ideal for my IPv4IPv6 tunnel (zero routing overheads). Besides, it is a matter of principle.

Anybody running a 6bone site reading this care to comment ? - before you say it, yes, I fulfil the criteria for joining the 6bone (according to http://www.6bone.net/ anyway).

Re:More IP address !=more ease

[Jherico]

Write IP drivers that treat all devices which return an old IP addres as being the old address followed by 96 zeroes. Treat all IP calls from legacy software the same way. Then when people update their drivers (or replace their NIC cards, whichever is less hassle for them), they just keep all IP settings exactly the same.

Actually, there is a standard in IPv6 for how to encode an IPv4 address as IPv6 (prepended zeros, not appended). Also, no one needs to replace a NIC. NICs talk Ethernet (typically), not IPv4 or IPv6, and the appropriate protocol is wrapped up in layers before it gets to the NIC.

And there is no such thing as a NIC card, or for that matter a PIN number. Sigh. Sorry, its just irritating.

As a class C IPv4 holder that can't get routed. .

[ahfoo]

I say this article sucked.
Clueless hype is all that's out there these hot summer days. It's ridiculous. They did concede that IPv6 is inevitable, but they sure spent some time wringing hands over totally irrelevant crap at the same time. I saw that link on CNN earlier in the evening and didn't read it because I knew it would suck and only went back and read it only because I saw the link here on /. and knew I could vent.
For those of us old enough to go ahead and got busy organizing networks here and there back when ICANN was getting started and you could just ask for net numbers --as I and many others did-- the problem is all too clear. The beauracratic, financial and legal powers that became involved over the years totally twisted the original premise. If you want a frickin' number you get one. If you want a thousand, you get a thousand. They're just numbers. Deal with it.
But that's not what it turned into at all. Vast portions of those billions of IPv4 numbers don't go anywhere because network routing is a financial issue closely intertwined with a technical issue that few people outside of open source are familiar with.
It's irrelevant though because IPv6 is inevitable and this has already been covered in so many other ways.
And, to top it off, dynamic domain names makes it all meta anyway. Yeah, I'm not crying about the way things are by any means but more numbers is such a rational idea. And why stop at IPv6, next step is get rid of this restricive domain naming stuff. They've already started using Chinese characters at some domain registrars. So let's just name domains like long file names so we can use popular phrases! Shit, you don't think there will be a gold rush on that shit? There's a limited set of English phrases. You take that from an English major.

Last Change of this magnitude was Color TV.

[BigBlockMopar]

From what I understand, Linux and Windows NT have had IPv6 support for quite some time now.

The problem appears to be more subtle than that. The routers are mostly compliant, I wouldn't worry about it.

The smooth transition is going to require that everyone on the 'Net start to switch over. Even half-wit Windows-95 AOL-point-and-drool users.

Surely, we can release patches to the operating systems. And users can upgrade to new applications programs which aren't crashing when they request a DNS lookup and get something longer than they expect.

But you know they won't.

As evidence, I submit to you the Code Red worm. You'd have to be living under a rock for the past two months to not know about it. Yet, I still get hit by infected machines. Follow the link on my .sig.

I haven't studied or attempted to deploy IPv6, but it will have to be backwards compatible with IPv4.

In the 1950s, Europe upgraded their TV system to color. The new PAL and SECAM color standards weren't compatible with their old 405/441-line black and white standards, leaving consumers with far too many confusing choices. Arguably, European TV never recovered.

By contrast, RCA came up with an ingenious way of making a color signal ride on top of the existing North American black and white system. Old black and white TV sets were eventually replaced with color, but there was no great format change. You bought a color TV or a black and white set, and you weren't at the mercy of finding out whether or not there was still a black and white station in your area. People transitioned more gently and weren't put off by having their two-year-old oak-cabinet investment turned into a paperweight by moving out of a 405 line service area.

IPv6 will have to be deployed in the same way or adoption rates will wane.

Re:Who would start the change?

[b1t r0t]

The problem isn't getting an IPv6 node number. There's already a pre-defined IPv6 number range for IPv4 addresses. The problem is that there need to be IPv6 routing protocols for routers, and backbones that use them.

You're thinking about this completely wrong. What was it that made TCP/IP the 800 pound gorilla standard in the first place? The US Government, especially the military, standardized on it. What we need is to get the US Government to start requiring IPv6 in contracts.