Slashdot over IPv6

fuzzel writes "Even though Slashdot has run a number of articles about IPv6 (1|2|3) it apparently isn't reachable over IPv6 directly. But for the people that do already have IPv6 they can use http://slashdot.org.sixxs.org and they will be automaticaly gatewayed. This trick works for most sites by simply appending .sixxs.org to the domain part of a url, eg http://www.google.com.sixxs.org, the gateway will the rewrite url's to have it appended automatically so that everything goes over IPv6. Full information is available on http://ipv6gate.sixxs.net. Oh and yes if you don't have IPv6, those domains under sixxs.org won't work :)"

Comments

That's weird..

[glenkim]

I have IPv6 (I know this because I'm chatting on an IPv6 IRC server), but the link doesn't work..

Re:That's weird..

[Peridriga]

We call the Slashdot Effect.

You learn something new every day.

Re:That's weird..

[dannyweb]

Are you using an IPv6 Browser? I believe that Mozilla is one, but I haven't a clue what other ones are out there.

Re:That's weird..

[Ded Bob]

Are you using an IPv4 proxy?

Re:That's weird..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the most widely used browser comes to mind - Internet Explorer. and they even provide links to other IPv6 info sites that actually work. Oh I know. Big bad Microsoft. How dare I even mention their name.

either I don't have IPv6, or..

[Anonymous Coward]

uh.. or it could just be slashdotted :P uhm, wait..
I don't know.

Re:either I don't have IPv6, or..

[madshot]

ahh.. Everyone on Slashdot that uses IPv6 probably just overloaded the 6bone network in the traditiona /. way!

If /. can do that, what will happen when the entire world converts.. Does that mean I'm going to need to buy all new linksys hardware ::Evil Grin::

Oh great...

[magickalhack]

"And in other news, Slashdot managed to bring down the entire IPv6 network today..."

Re:Oh great...

[trezor]

"And in other news Microsoft just released The Microsoft Internet V6. However it does not, I repeat not, seem to be working at all.
This does not at the present time seem to be releated to browserwars or other gang warfare."

Re:Oh great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft began implementing support for IPv6 in SP3 for NT4 and IE can view IPv6 sites. In this case they are not behind and the times and they are not trying to stop it with a rival technology.

Re:Oh great...

[Ctrl-Z]

... and there is no indication at this time that the current unavailability is related to terrorist activity of any kind.

Re:Oh great...

[bicho]

Thats one of the funniests comments I've ever seen!

good one!

Re:Oh great...

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't get out much, do you?

Re:Oh great...

[bicho]

Am I so obvious?

Seriously now, I have problems getting along with people before I know them better, which usually takes me about a year of constantly meeting them.

I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Longinus]

I'm not entirely clear on why IPv6 such a cool/neccesary thing. As far as I, in my limited knowledge, know, IPv6 will allow for more IP address, but is that it? I'm not questioning its usefullness, but am simply curious if there are any other benefits that come along with IPv6.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Aussie]

try this link

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Jugalator]

There are several other benefits to IPv6 IETF is implementing while they are updating the protocol. They don't wish to do it too often for obvious reasons and will try to get as much useful stuff in the new version while they're at it.

IPv6...

- ... will support IPSec intrinsically to provide end-to-end security on protocol level.

- ... eliminates the need of NAT with special "local" addresses.

- ... supports QoS features.

- ... supports multihomed devices and load balancing, since an IPv6 address specifies a network interface, not a computer as in IPv4.

- ... uses "modularized" headers where only the necessary fields are used. This essentially makes IPv6 more optimized than IPv4. For example, if the payload of a packet is larger than 64KB, IPv6 will attach another field for "jumbo payloads" and set the 16-bit value to 0.

- ... contains improved multicast support (as an extension header), support for an authentication header (also an optional extension header), and an encryption header (also an optional extension header).

- ... provides enhancements for DNS.

- ... provides automatic neighbor discovery which is especially useful for ad hoc networks and wireless devices.

- ... has a completely rewritten adress autoconfiguration.

See also:
IPv6: The Promise, The Problems, The Protocol
RDC 2373

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Max Romantschuk]

IPv6 will allow for more IP address, but is that it? I'm not questioning its usefullness, but am simply curious if there are any other benefits that come along with IPv6.

For one thing I've understood that IPv6 will make routing possible without keeping track crazy amounts of addresses in huge routing tables. IPv& addresses are hierachical, and in a simplified sense work something like this:

country.state.city.area.house.etc.etc...

NOTE: this is not the actual layout... I don't remember the details. But the point is a backbone router only needs to look at the start of the address, and then send the packet "in the right direction" so to speak. The same thing applies longer down the chain.

Would someone who is more enlightened care to explain this in an official manner? ;)

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

>- ... supports multihomed devices and load balancing, since an IPv6 address specifies a network interface, not a computer as in IPv4.

This is no difference from IPv4. In IPv4, the original intention was to use an IP address for each network interface (appropriate for the network that interface is on).
The use of a single address for a computer is just a later common-practice that was introduced only because it was convenient.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[BigJim.fr]

The only solution available to provide Internet access to the hosts on the LAN was to use a private non routable subnet and to masquerade it behind the edge router. NAT also allowed some of these hosts to expose services to the outside world. But this solution has a major drawback : it breaks end to end connectivity and thus complicates the offering of many services that the Internet was meant for. Used like that, NAT is an evil kludge.

IPv6 provides a way out. There certainly are many other advantages in the use of IPv6, but end to end connectivity for the masses is what could have the deepest impact. Think about is : when every single workstation has a routable IPv6 address, everyone will have the potential to serve. This is is what the Internet was meant to be, and actually was in the early days.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[rela]

- ... uses "modularized" headers where only the necessary fields are used. This essentially makes IPv6 more optimized than IPv4. For example, if the payload of a packet is larger than 64KB, IPv6 will attach another field for "jumbo payloads" and set the 16-bit value to 0.

Now, the first thing I thought of when I read that was: "What happens when someone finds out a that a major vendor can't handle it when the 16-bit length is 0 but there is no "jumbo payload" in the packet?"

Okay, perhaps not the best example, but are they looking to try to avoid (as much as possible) spots in the protocol that might in the future be exploited? 'Cause I'm sure lots of people here know better than I many ways to abuse IPv4...

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Jugalator]

Yes, I also thought it added some complexity that might be exploited somehow. Hmm..

Another example:

An IPv6 packet can contain "chains" of headers since it has a "Next Header" field to describe the next extension header. I suppose an extension header has a similar field as well. I wonder what happens if you chain a huge packet together and send it? Would it be detected as illegal? The packet should still follow the standard. Is there an upper limit of total packet size?

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Jugalator]

Doh. I was meaning "is there an upper limit of total *header* size" above...

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC.. it will be something like bigisp.smallerisp.smallerip.mac_address_of_device

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[yesod]

Enforcing heirarchy where there isn't one will make matters much worse. In your example - what happens if you and your neighbour use different providers?

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[rela]

Damn, that's a good point...

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Think about is : when every single workstation has a routable IPv6 address, everyone will have the potential to serve."
Just what your ISP wants, a bunch of kiddies serving up all sorts of crap over their lines.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Screaming Lunatic]

country.state.city.area.house.etc.etc... NOTE: this is not the actual layout... I don't remember the details. But the point is a backbone router only needs to look at the start of the address, and then send the packet "in the right direction" so to speak. The same thing applies longer down the chain. Would someone who is more enlightened care to explain this in an official manner? ;)

Actually, this is done with IPv4 now as well. Originally, IPv4 was split into Class A,B, and C networks. Class A networks were larger blocks of addresses than Class B and C. Class A networks were allocated pretty quickly. So all there are left are Class C network blocks.

If an organization gets a Class C network block, they have to use stuff like NAT and subnetting to uniquley identify each machine in there network and make routing manageable.

These Class C network blocks are dished out geographically now. But the Class A network blocks that were dished out earlier are not being utilized well, because organizations don't have enough machines to fill them out.

That's a pretty shitty explanation. Partly because I forget the number of bits in an IPv4 address that identifies the network and the number that identifies a host. So I can't come up with a good example. But my IPv4 address looks like so: 142.179.xxx.xxx (I'm not gonna give you my exact address)

And my subnet mask: 255.255.248.0

So my (Class C) network is (probably) identified by the first 21 bits. (If my conversion is correct).

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[The Analog Kid]

Its all about the number 6. It makes you feel like your better in someway over IPv4. Its going to replace IPv4 anyway, slowly. Internet adaptation is pretty slow if you ask me, well not all the time, its just when Microsoft doesn't give out the patches fast enough to the clients so they can upgrade and use the new software.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that netmask looks like a subnet of a class A or B network, I'm not going to look up 142.179 to see which...

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[boaworm]

- ... eliminates the need of NAT with special "local" addresses.

Just a question on this one. I do agree that there will be enough IP addresses that there is no need to use special local addresses. Bit i actually find it very useful. It makes it easy to see where I am located, is it behind NAT, behind a firewall or just through a proxy ?. Currenty I can figure some of this out just by looking at my IP address, but without local IP subnets, things will get more confusing.

And furthermore, i'd say the "end of NAT" is a bit too much. I find it very useful to use a NAT gateway/firewall and put insecure clients behind that. It reduces the need to think secure on the local network. I can for instance export my fileserver data rw onto 192.168 without much consern. Wouldn't wanna do that if they were all "real" IP's.

IPv6 is great and it will allow those who DONT want to be behind NAT to get a "real" IP address, but its not the end of NAT.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[sowellfan]

I guess I'm just ignorant, but where is IPv5?

I read the Linux IPv6 FAQ, but it only explained that we currently use IPv4, and that people are trying to switch to IPv6, but nothing at all was said about IPv5. I'd think it'd be a common enough question to be in the FAQ.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's bigger than a class C, or your network is misconfigured.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[rsheridan6]

What browsers offer IPv6 support? Those pages would not work in either Phoenix or IE.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[duffbeer703]

You are right and wrong. There isn't really such a thing as a Class C address these days... nowadays we use CIDR.

Check out this link:
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/sparkman/ netcalc .htm

They have a bunch of network calculators which will make it alot clearer than I can.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[MCZapf]

But why wouldn't you want each PC on your network to have a "real" IP address. With a firewall in place, you can still block traffic that you don't want in/out. And it'll be much easier if you ever have to open something up, you'll have much less headaches if all the internal machines have "real" IP addresses already.

If you really want to hide the internal structure of your network, you could still do NAT to translate the internal addresses to one external gateway address. But you don't neccesarily have to use the same local subnet as everyone else.

IMHO, the benefit of being able to see if you are behind NAT by looking at your IP address is rather small. It's not the only indicator anyway. I've got a "real" IP address here at work. But, for http, anyway, I go through a transparent proxy. So, to the outside world, it looks like I'm visiting from one of several proxy servers.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

Class A: 8 bits for network
Class B: 16 bits for network
Class C: 24 bits for network

142 = 10001110
Starts with 10, so this is a Class B network.
0 -> Class A
10 -> Class B
110 -> Class C
111 -> "special" (IIRC, there's a class D and E, which are reserved for multicast and other weirdness)

Your class B network is identified by the first 16 bits.

248.0 = 11111000.00000000

This class B network is further divided into 30 subnets, identified by the next 5 bits. Each subnet can have a maximum of 2046 computers, identified by the last 11 bits.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

I would if you had made that a link, but you didn't and /. put a space in it so it would require actual work. If you're gonna give people a link, make it a link.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Scott Wunsch]

And furthermore, i'd say the "end of NAT" is a bit too much. I find it very useful to use a NAT gateway/firewall and put insecure clients behind that. It reduces the need to think secure on the local network. I can for instance export my fileserver data rw onto 192.168 without much consern. Wouldn't wanna do that if they were all "real" IP's.

Why not? If you set up a trivial firewall using iptables and allowing only --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED (or the equivalent using some other stateful firewall), you have exactly the same level of security as you do with NAT. If you also throw in a rule to ensure that no spoofed packets come in with a source address that matches your internal subnet, you can now safely export your fileserver data.

Remember, --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED means that you're protected by exactly the same connection tracking code as you are with NAT. And, by eliminating NAT, you're no longer breaking the end-to-end nature of IP.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

- ... supports multihomed devices and load balancing, since an IPv6 address specifies a network interface, not a computer as in IPv4.

Last time I checked IPv4 addresses were assigned to interfaces, and computers could have multiple interfaces (guess what routers have). In some cases, due the OS used, you can have multiple IPs in the same interface, but I guess that is considered virtual interfaces, so you have one address per (virtual or physical) interface. So please, someone clarify this.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

"you have exactly the same level of security as you do with NAT"

Not completely, as NAT also removes information about the NATted network. How many hosts are there? Which of the hosts behind the firewall is this?

NAT is also partly a privacy tool, which (at least) gives the feeling of better security. Not just filter our the packets that don't seem related to an established connection, but also filter out all information that the receiver does not absolutely need.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[jelle]

The problem is that they are running out of large subnets for large organizations and ISPs, so that there now are many organizations and ISPs with multiple smaller subnets. So instead of having one routing table entry for a large subnet, the backbone routers now need multiple entries that point to the same gateway(s) for that single destination...

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[JukkaO]

IIRC some time ago somewhere some people were extending IPv4 with some features that didn't as such go into IPv6, much less were compatible with it. They used version id 5 in the packet header. To avoid confusion IETF skipped v5 in the official drafts for the next generation IP.

Someone who knows better might be able to fill in the amiguities.

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

I can for instance export my fileserver data rw onto 192.168 without much consern.

IPv6 has the link-local address space. It's not as if every IPv6 subnet were globally routeable...

Re:I'll guess I'll admit it..

[damien_kane]

Not completely, as NAT also removes information about the NATted network. How many hosts are there? Which of the hosts behind the firewall is this?

So does the ESTABLISHED,RELATED firewall rule.
If unknown people cannot penetrate your firewall with a ping or whatever else (since a ping is neither established nor related) they cannot realistically determine if any host on said network exists, so all they know is there is a possibility og being 2^64 or however many IPs happen to be in your subnet.
This is the same with NAT, people can only realistically guess that there may be up to 2^24 hosts behind your network.
In either case there is no way for someone to know how many hosts are up unless you specifically allow them through the firewall (say for a webserver or IRC or some such host)

Slashdotting...

[Jugalator]

I think sixxs.org just found out the ultimate solution to prevent a site from becoming slashdotted. :-)

IPv6 Slashdotting?

[mikeophile]

Are there enough /.'ers using IPv6 to /. sixxs.org?

If not, then shame on us.

IPv6 today?

[_pruegel_]

Does it have any advantage to use IPv6 today? As far as I understood it is still experimental and has no practical use yet. What did I miss?

Re:IPv6 today?

[Richard_at_work]

Its fully usable, and is no longer experimental. There are a number of practical uses, although they vary from person to person. I use a ipv6 range for a number of different reasons, one of which is to protect me from attack when on irc (a ipv6 tunnel is a lot easier and more convenient to drop than your ipv4 connection :) ). The other reason is that you can assign IPv6 ips to machines behind a NAT gateway, and have fully routable addresses, which is handy if your broadband providor doesnt issue you with multiple ips.

Disclaimer: i help run ipng.org.uk, a UK tunnel broker.

Re:IPv6 today?

[Diabolical]

See this link for more info regarding IPv6 and it's advantages in today's networks.

Re:IPv6 today?

[spongman]

you can assign IPv6 ips to machines behind a NAT gateway, and have fully routable addresses

please expand on this

Re:IPv6 today?

[Erik Hensema]

An IPv6 address is 128 bits long. Of these 128 bits, 64 bits are reserved for the host part. Usually it's a somewhat mangled version of your ethernet MAC address (a router will broadcast a prefix, and client machines will simply append the mangled version of their MAC to the prefix -- this is called autoconfiguration).

This means you need a /64 subnet on each segment.

Usually providers will assign you a /48 addressspace, giving you roughly enough space for 65000 subnets.

Of course these addresses are routable: you don't need NAT and your machines are reachable from the internet.

Re:IPv6 today?

[radish]

OK - I'm not trying to be smart here. But why do people want fully routable addresses so much? I have 3 or 4 boxes at home behind NAT. It all works fine, the performance is good, all the apps work, I have servers running which the internet can see. As I see it, the NAT even improves security a bit, in that machines which don't need to be visible to the net automatically aren't - a kind of firewall. The only reason I can see to use IPv6 is to take out the NAT and have everything directly connected. What does that get me?

Re:IPv6 today?

[dpilot]

If one must whore some karma, one might also try google with "ipv6 howto" and you'd find:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+IPv6-HOWTO/

and similar copies rising right to the top of the list. If I could ever get all the other nice things on my plate done, this would be another nice one to add.

Re:IPv6 today?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. There are some things you can't do with NAT. For example, some VPN tunneling solutions can't be used over NAT.

2. What if you want to run a service on the same port on multiple machines. With NAT you can only forward a port to a single machine. With fully routable, there are no problems.

3. What if you NAT an office and some idiot is poking around other peoples networks. With NAT, all you know is that the connection came from your office. With fully routable IPs you may be able to tell whos machine was the culprit.

These are just three. There are many more...

Re:IPv6 today?

[The Mgt]

If you're using IPV6 via a tunnel broker then using the SixXS gateway enables you to avoid your ISP's evil transparent web proxy.

Re:IPv6 today?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find that it's not so much a matter of advantage or disadvantage as that it's almost impossible to get an IPv6 address in North America. My provider doesn't supply one. The tunnels don't work through Linksys routers. I'm stuck on v4 until one of the two changes.

Multicast?

[trezor]

How about a nice, standard way of foing multicasting within the IP-stack? Sounds good to me!

oh... And the internet is running short of adresses. That might turn into a problem ofcourse :)

Re:Multicast?

[matt_fk]

The 'net might run out of IP address space? Not a matter of if.. it's matter of when. ;)

Re:Multicast?

[JPriest]

I forgot hte exact number of available addresses with IPv6 but it's something crazy like 200 available addresses for every sqare foot on the planet.

Re:Multicast?

[sepluv]

It is 2^128 or 3(10^38). That is 6(10^23) or six hundred sextillion addresses per square metre of the Earth's surface. That's a... lot.

We should not run out soon with ipv6, though of course they need that many because they have to overkill for redundancy and to aid the creation of complex multi-level hierarchies of addresses, which should speed things up (and, of course, importantly, mean that IP addresses can be allocated automatically).

Also they do envisage every electronic device in the world (phone, smart card, washing machine, paper shreader (umm..not sure the use of the last one but i'm sure there is 1)) being connected to the net.

Re:Multicast?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you forgot to divide that number by the number of square feet on the earth. 2^128 is the number of total adddresses. Anyway going from 32 bit to 33 bit would double the number of available addresses, 34 bit would double that. You can imagine how 128 bits should last a while.

Re:Multicast?

[sepluv]

I think you forgot to divide that number by the number of square feet on the earth. 2^128 is the number of total adddresses.

The first figure is the total. Then I say "that is...per square metre". (I prefer metric).

Finally!

[kinnell]

...a good reason to upgrade my machine to IPv6 - Not

the ironies

[lingqi]

I get a feeling in my gut that says sixxs.org is not as impervious to slashdotting as slashdot itself,

so maybe we will finally be able to slashdot slashdot, or at least the IPv6 gateway,

BUT maybe there are not enough slashdotters using IPv6 to be able to connect to the IPv6 slashdot in order to slashdot slashdot's IPv6 gateway,

and... [head explodes]

the rewrite url's what?

[tamnir]

the gateway will the rewrite url's to have it appended automatically so that everything goes over IPv6.

I think I get the general idea, but it took me some time. Funny how a couple of spelling mistakes can lead to a quite obfuscated sentence. Anyway, here is what I now think (after checking the site: boggled at that sentence in vain! :) ) that it meant:

the gateway will then rewrite URLs on the pages sent back to your browser, appending automatically the ".sixxs.org". This way, all the links will still go through the IPv6 gateway, letting you transparently surf the web over IPv6!

Re:the rewrite url's what?

[MourningBlade]

the gateway will then rewrite URLs on the pages sent back to your browser, appending automatically the ".sixxs.org". This way, all the links will still go through the IPv6 gateway, letting you transparently surf the web over IPv6!

Yes, but now the phrase is better! Yes, better! It's been enhaced with an exclamation mark!

You too can have all the fun and glory of high-priced translators and english professors by the mere addition of an exclamation mark! Yes! You!

(sorry, I couldn't help but be an ass here...)

Re:the rewrite url's what?

[battjt]

Dyslexia can help on ./

I read it right the first time. I couldn't understand your complaint until I read it out loud.

the gateway will rewrite the url's to have it [.sixxs.org] appended automatically so that everything goes over IPv6.

No problem. Obviously you don't work with enough Engrish speakers.

Re:the rewrite url's what?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it's useful sometimes. I also didn't see any problem with that sentance, but I have a hard time reading when people refuse to use the shift key.

Damn.

[JanusFury]

My OS supports IPv6, but my router doesn't. Doubt that my ISP does either. Apparently this will only be truly possible for people with direct pipes (T1, etc.) Or does anyone know of ways around these problems other than nagging my ISP and router manufacturer?

Re:Damn.

[Anonymous Coward]

yea go and sign up for a free ipv4-ipv6 tunnel somewhere. It'll create a virtual interface on your pc with the end point on some ipv6 network somewhere. ten seconds on google will tell u where to find this, the only url i can remember is he.net but they are not only full of spammers but also laggy as fk so I would find somewhere else.

tbh most of the current implementations of ipv6 are slow as shit, I am hoping this is just because they are overloaded with people testing them...

There is also the small fact that IANA is still holding about 60 class A's in their reserved zones, so forgive me if I say the ipv4 address shortage is bullshit. I bring this up lots here but nobody can ever give me an answer as to why they are holding back millions of perfectly useable addresses while at the same time making us all jump through hoops to get any address space and claiming we are running out.

Re:Damn.

[fo0bar]

My OS supports IPv6, but my router doesn't. Doubt that my ISP does either. Apparently this will only be truly possible for people with direct pipes (T1, etc.) Or does anyone know of ways around these problems other than nagging my ISP and router manufacturer?

Use a tunnel broker. It lets you tunnel ipv6 connections over ipv4 to another endpoint. Two of the most popular are Freenet6 and Hurricane Electric. Hurricane Electric requires a static ipv4 IP, but Freenet6 works with dynamic IPs.

Re:Damn.

[Richard_at_work]

How does your router not support it? all it has to do is pass the protocol 41 which is the IPv6 gif tunnel, and the vast majority of routers do this fine. No ports need forwarding, and infact on my home router and a number of other routers ive set ipv6 up on, needed no configuring at all to get the tunnel working.

Disclaimer: i help run ipng.org.uk, a UK tunnel broker

Re:Damn.

[spongman]

Heh, i replied to you in anoth post in this discussion. I'd love to know more details on how you can do this. I have a T1, how can I use IPv6?

Re:Damn.

[Richard_at_work]

Its very very easy. Give me a email on richard.price@ipng.org.uk and i will discuss it further with you!

Re:Damn.

[Omnifarious]

My ISPs that support IPv6, like mine (Visi) have tunnel endpoints right there. This is a much better solution than using some tunnel broker way off on some far flung corner of the network. It gets your tunnelled IPv4 packets turned back into IPv6 as close to you as possible.

Tunneling this way essentially works by sending IPv4 packets between tunnel endpoints who's content type field says they contain IPv6 packets.

Re:Damn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop modding me interesting and answer me damnit! You're all in on it.

Surely there must be someone with some clue about address allocation here who can explain why IANA have been going on about IPV4 Address shortages when they are holding nearly 30% of the available IPV4 addresses back, and have always done so...

I appreciate that a few of those ranges are reserved for LAN/multicast...but what about the other 30-40 class A's. It would only take a few routing table updates to get them operational so why aren't they being brought into use?

Re:Damn.

[IamTheRealMike]

Tunnelling doesn't allow us to deploy proper IP multicast however, which I think is one of the biggest advantages.

Having a proper, working multicast system well supported by the backbone routers would rewrite the rules of the net. Radio stations wouldn't be limited by needing constant donations of bandwidth, large file downloads could be put on a carousel saving more bandwidth, even websites if you were clever enough.

Using tunnelling doesn't give ISPs any incentive to move to IPv6 natively though, so we don't get the benefits of that.

IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[SilverSun]

This whole discussion and the support of IPv6 is completely pointless. There are 101 ways to bridge your IPv6 to IPv4 and the other way round. There is no chicke and egg problem. The real reason why IPv6 is not widely deployed is that nobody really needs it.

This is just like HDTV, yes, it's better, cooler, has nifty features, but the old thing does most of the job for much less money/effort.

With IP this situation 'might' (not necessarily 'will') change with the vanishing IP address space, but I am convinved it's perfectly safe to wait till we get there.

If any ISP really thinks he needs v6 he will just install it. Why should I (as a user) try to convince any ISP to use v6. It's just nothing that matters to me. (Multicast?? ha!) I can tell you, that I (as an ISP) don't even know why I should convince anybody. This whole discussion is probably sponsored by cisco's PR department.

Cheers.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[TheSunborn]

This is not true, there are real problems getting ip address from Ripe The result is that where I live we got 500 Computers behind a single nat gateway because we can't get an ip to each use. The result is a lousy network.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[Anonymous Coward]

no shit, I'd really like to be able to use the default ssh ports and change the machine names instead of have a differnet port for every service on every machine behind my home nat.

ipv4 is worthless.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[MrSubtle]

I imagine you'll feel an urgent need to take steps when ARIN announces that anybody who doesn't support v6 won't get any more v4 IP addresses, and an even more urgent need when they start taking away address blocks from those who aren't taking steps to support v6. Just a thought.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[mbyte]

I can second this. Getting IP adresses from RIPE is a major pain. their current policy forbids (!) to assign unique IP adresses to virtual web-servers, so you have to resort to name-based virtual hosts, which creates a whole lot of problems ... (SSL, etc ..)

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[TheRaven64]

but I am convinved it's perfectly safe to wait till we get there.
Good point. Also, I see no reason why we should bother researching renewable forms of energy until we actually run out of oil. After all, the perfect time to solve a problem is when our infrastructure depends on the solution - solving a problem before it's a catastrophe is just wasted effort.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[SilverSun]

I didn't say we should stop researching! Rersearch is necessary. But actively pushing for it is nonsense. An ISP will nerver provide v6 because think it is 'cool' to use v6. He will switch is big corps decide that it is more cost effective to change the ISP from a cheap v4 one to a more expensive one that provides v6. It's as simple as that. This is called 'free market' and it works.

Now, fossile/renewable energies is a completely different issue. Bringing it up in this context is plainly stupid.

Cheers

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[SilverSun]

That doesn't contradict my point.

I say: If you can live with a lousy network, you don't need v6. (You can live with lousY NTSC, you don't need HDTV).

If you think, you could be more costeffective with v6, because you can maybe fire sysadmins, because you don't need NAT anymore, why don't you just do it? There are ISPs providing v6, change ISP, what prevents you?

Cheers.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[Electrum]

which creates a whole lot of problems ... (SSL, etc ..)

Everything supports HTTP/1.1 now days, or sends a Host header with HTTP/1.0. The SSL issue can be solved rather easily by either using wildcard certificates, or running each SSL site on it's own port.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The result is that where I live we got 500 Computers behind a single nat gateway because we can't get an ip to each use. The result is a lousy network."

Maybe having 500 computers going through a SINGLE(!) gateway is affecting your performance.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[sgtrock]

I don't mean this as a slam, really I don't.

However, if you need to host 500 servers and can't figure out how to set up a NAT gateway to support them, maybe you need to hire some competent help.

If you can't figure out how to negotiate a contract with your Internet provider to get the bandwidth that you need, maybe you need to hire some competent help.

If you can't figure out that when you are talking about 500 computers to hide behind a NAT you should be talking to an ISP/bandwidth provider who knows how to sell commercial class services, maybe you need to hire some competent help.

If you are the help, then God help the organization that you work for. In the meantime, I strongly suggest spending a lot of time polishing your skillset, because your next boss won't be as willing to put up with this kind of mess.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Running the ssl servers on different ports is not really a solution for any kind of professional hosting company, clients dont want to use https://theirdomain.com:port. They will just go somewhere else that they can use the normal domain name with https://. Most site visitors have a hard enough time remembering the domain name, let alone a port number aswell.

As for the IPV4 shortage, have a look at this. Who currently holds the most class A's? Why that would be IANA who have over 80 (by my quick count) of the things held in reserve. Now I can understand them holding onto the LAN allocations, multicast and things like 127.* but why the fuck do they hold 80 class A's and complain about address shortages.

As someone who has been through the trauma of applying for IP space (in europe) and being turned down, which makes it kinda hard to run an ISP, this pisses me off beyond belief. Please someone tell me I'm being stupid and there is some logical reason why they hold nearly a THIRD of the ipv4 space, be it that all those addresses are non-routable or whatever, because I just don't get it. Also explain how there can be an address shortage when there are 80 class A's that we could use sat there.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[malice95]

Try buying a wildcard cert from Verisign.. Good Luck. And no client wants to have to put a port on a url to access an ssl website.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[Electrum]

Try buying a wildcard cert from Verisign

We buy ours from Equifax without trouble. See the certificate for ITmom.com if you don't believe me.

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[Anonymous Coward]

We should have a new moderation category

"Sarcasm".

Re:IPv6 - Chicken and egg ? - no!

[TheSunborn]

Servers??? I said where I live not where I work. Having a nat server cause problems with online gaming. Msm also got problems sending files due to the nat.

Is this a meta-story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Soo...

Are we allowed to discuss about Slashdot's weaknesses and possible improvements under this un-story, or are the messages going to be modded as off-topic?

Dont worry

[tanveer1979]

This happens occaisnaly. U see IpV6 has A.I. Embedded Logic cone addressing data pump. Today its not in a good mood dues to slashdotting.

Question: But are their enough /. users on Ipv6 to /. the network.
Answer: Dosentmatter buddy, even though I dont have v6, I tried clicking on it twice just to see what happens.

Tomorow is a weekend. So the network will be in a good mood.

Re:Dont worry

[martissimo]

Question: But are their enough /. users on Ipv6 to /. the network.
Answer: Dosentmatter buddy, even though I dont have v6, I tried clicking on it twice just to see what happens.

Dont underestimate the power of a stubborn slashdotter, if i have learned anything from time here, it's that you must click every link several times to try and sneak a lucky page load in.

I probably clicked the slashdot and google V6 links 3 or 4 times a piece thinking there was no possible way slashdot or google had been /.'d ;)

Re:Dont worry

[Marc2k]

I probably clicked the slashdot and google V6 links 3 or 4 times a piece thinking there was no possible way slashdot or google had been /.'d ;)

Even so, it's not Google or Slashdot being Slashdotted, it's the sixxs.org gateway that has to facilitate the transfer. As of right now, they probably didn't foresee or get ready to handle a good Slashdotting, as the intersection of people using IPv6 and people who know about the sixxs.org rerouting would be a lot slimmer, at least for the moment.

Damn Irresponsible

[tanveer1979]

hey Taco. dont you have sense. In this oil scarce world you are going on V6s!!. guys dont listen to these nerds, stay on V4 and save the earth.

Re:Damn Irresponsible

[Anonymous Coward]

s/V4/inline4

Re:Damn Irresponsible

[leviramsey]

stay on V4 and save the earth.

Was a V4 ever made? Every 4-cylinder engine I've seen is an inline-4 (to reduce function-call overhead, apparently ;o))

Re:Damn Irresponsible

[Anonymous Coward]

Prototype Ford Mustang (basis of an early Ford Capri design) was debuted with a V4 engine.

Tunnel Brokers

[Richard_at_work]

The best way currently to use IPv6 is via tunnel brokers, who give you a range of ips (/64 or /48, both of which will vastly outnumber any number of electrical components in your house).

These work by creating a ipv6 GIF tunnel over ipv4, to a server which has either further tunnels to the 6bone or native connectivity. Once you have this setup (and its preety easy to do on Linux, Windows, and very easy to do on the BSDs) then any ipv6 traffic can be routed automatically. This way you dopnt need to use a gateway, and you can use pretty much any app over ipv6, including ftp, ssh, www, email etc.

Disclaimer: I help run ipng.org.uk, which is a UK tunnel broker, who gives you a /64 (thats 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 distinct ips :) ) and delegates full forward and reverse DNS to you for this range.

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[mikeophile]

Want an idea of how big a /64 IP range is? Imagine giving an IP address to every cell in your body, plus 180,000 or so other people.

Re: Tunnel Brokers

[iangoldby]

These work by creating a ipv6 GIF tunnel over ipv4...

That is just so stupid and typical. Why oh why do we have to put up with this recyling of old and broken technologies, and patent issues to boot? You would have thought that if they are making a fresh start with a new so-called modern protocol, they would at least use a new and modern specification such as, let's say, PNG? Duh!!!!

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[Richard_at_work]

The number of IPs in a /64 is 18,446,744,073,709,551,616. Thats a lot!

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[Richard_at_work]

Ignore that, what i meant to say was:

For a complete matrix of ipv6 ranges right down to a /16 and the nubmer of ips in each range, check out powersource, who has a fantastic representation of the scope of ipv6.

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[Twirlip of the Mists]

thats 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 distinct ips

Great. Every goddamn atom in your computer has its own bloody IP address. Tell me again why this is important?

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[mikeophile]

Suppose you wanted to replace each cell of your body with a nanodevice.

You're going to need a way to address them aren't you?

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[grolim13]

It makes configuration easier - like DHCP, only without needing DHCP :) Once your router/firewall/gateway machine has an IPv6 address, it broadcasts it the prefix (first 64 bits, IIRC) to the local network. Other machines on the network will configure their own IP address to be the prefix, with their MAC address tacked on the end, and likely set their default gateway to the router.

Re: Tunnel Brokers

[cioxx]

that's the dumbest attempt at a joke i've heard on /. in a long time.

Congratts!

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[MrFredBloggs]

Well, now theres no problem automating devices such as light switches, toasters, car radios, watches, walkmen/diskmen, printers, phones..etc etc. Trees, gardens etc (for remote watering of).
I'm serious. Also stuff that isn't even on a network. People, windows! It can become a global identification system.

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[rabidcow]

I think, to some degree, this is an important point. No one (no individual) needs 18 quintillion addresses. Giving people way more addresses than they need is what lead to earlier problems with the address space of IPv4. Now there's still more (lots more) /64 blocks of IPv6 than total addresses in IPv4, but do we really want to risk repeating the mistakes of the past?

Re: Tunnel Brokers

[Idaho]

You would have thought that if they are making a fresh start with a new so-called modern protocol, they would at least use a new and modern specification such as, let's say, PNG? Duh!!!!

Right, so this is exactly what they are doing, at least in the Netherlands: IPng (IP Next Generation)

Happy now? :P

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

thats 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 distinct ips

Great. Every goddamn atom in your computer has its own bloody IP address. Tell me again why this is important?


It means that every subnetwork in your site can have the same size network. By convention, end customers ("subscribers" is the ipv6 term) are assigned a /48, meaning you get 128-48=80 bits of address space to do with as you please. By convention, the first 16 of those bits are used for your subnet addresses, and the remaining 64 are individual host addresses on those subnets.

To put it in more familiar IPv4 terms, imagine if there were so many IP addresses available that even the smallest sites could be given a class B. Now instead of having to subnet your network into efficiently sized CIDR blocks (eg, the lab upstairs gets 10.123.5.224/28, the billing dept gets 10.123.5.128/27, tech supports dept gets 10.123.5.32/29), you can just say everyone gets a class C (eg, the lab upstairs gets 10.123.5.x, the billing dept gets 10.123.6.x, tech supports dept gets 10.123.7.x). Much easier for humans to work with that way.

To put in in IPv6 terms again, every site gets assigned a /48 (say, 2002:6f2d:9ffe) because the address space really is that big now. By convention, the next 16 bits are for your subnets (eg, the lab upstairs gets 2002:6f2d:9ffe:0001:x:x:x:x, the billing dept gets 2002:6f2d:9ffe:0002:x:x:x:x, tech supports dept gets 2002:6f2d:9ffe:0003:x:x:x:x). When assigning subnets within your site, you only have to keep track of 4th group of bits in the address. See how much easier this makes your life as a network administrator? You can still used small CIDR blocks if you wanted to, but you don't need to. Just giving everyone the same sized subnet is easier for you to work with,

There's also the autoconfiguration thing (host addresses can be assigned based on their NIC hardware addresses, since the IPv6 subnet space is bigger than ethernet address space)...

Re: Tunnel Brokers

[Wesley Felter]

Tunnel brokers are obsolete; 6to4 is simpler and more efficient.

Re:Tunnel Brokers

[Feztaa]

The sad thing is that ipv6 actually does provide you with enough address space to do that, and then some...

IPv6 has a 128 bit address space, meaning that there are 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,45 6 possible addresses (at least I think so... correct me if I'm wrong).

Now, according to this there are 50 trillion cells in the human body. When you do the math (2^128/50e12) we find that the IPv6 address space is enough for all the cells in 6,805,647,338,418,769,269,267,492 people.

Since the count of 50 trillion is basically a WAG according to that website, I'll calculate something else, as well.

One mole is defined here as the number of molecules in 0.012 kilograms of carbon-12, which is 6.022*10^23 molecules (Avogadro's number). Therefore, if you gave one IPv6 address to every molecule in a given substance, it would take 565,065,371,838,157 moles of that substance to exhaust the address space.

This means it would take 6,780,784,462,057.88 kilograms (or 6,780 teragrams) of carbon-12 to exhaust the IPv6 address space!

Now, maybe I calculated something wrong, but that just seems like a freaking lot of IP addresses...

Not yet ...

[fv]

> Are there enough /.'ers using IPv6 to /. sixxs.org?

Apparently not yet:
felix/home/fyodor> ping6 slashdot.org.sixxs.org PING slashdot.org.sixxs.org(3ffe:4007:1:1:210:dcff:fe20 :7c7c) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 3ffe:4007:1:1:210:dcff:fe20:7c7c: icmp_seq=0 hops=56 time=266.762 msec
64 bytes from 3ffe:4007:1:1:210:dcff:fe20:7c7c: icmp_seq=1 hops=56 time=257.366 msec
64 bytes from 3ffe:4007:1:1:210:dcff:fe20:7c7c: icmp_seq=2 hops=56 time=258.530 msec

Of course, authentication cookies won't work in that domain (unless they've hacked around that). And the login form uses a relative URL, so it posts your password to the .sixxs.org gateway. Whoever runs that will have a lot of low-UID accounts if he wants 'em :).

-Fyodor
Concerned about your network security? Try the Free Nmap Security Scanner

Re:Not yet ...

[fuzzel]

Authentication cookies are now indeed hacked,
thus slashdot logins and many others will now work.

And we don\\\\\\\'t want any low-UID or other login accounts. That is also what is stated in the notes at the bottom of the page along with the only thing that gets logged by Apache with a logline.

Official router access so we can enable IPv6 is somewhere more in our line of work.

Btw.. your latency shows up as 266ms, could you paste a traceroute so we can find out the bottlenecks, the hop from Amsterdam to the US should be around 80ms, with 300ms one is in Japan ;)

Of course.

[bbtom]

Our 'technology' college doesn't have IPv6. There's a suprise. It's good, and therefore we don't have it.

Why the Weird Gateway?

[ewhac]

My limited understanding of IPv6 is that you can deploy v6 addresses locally, and advertise them globally via DNS using AAAA records. You can then talk over the larger Internet using a 6-over-4 tunnel.

Assuming this is correct, why doesn't Slashdot simply advertise an AAAA record, then accept connections through a 6-over-4 tunnel (or natively, if their bandwidth provider can speak it)? What are the technical considerations preventing this from working?

Schwab

Re:Why the Weird Gateway?

[Ankka]

Why? Because Slashdot is "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" for those who use latest IE with Windows. And as Windows does not support IPv6 out of box, no IPv6 Slashdot.

Re:Why the Weird Gateway?

[qoncept]

And as Windows does not support IPv6 out of box

ipv6 install

What were you saying?

Re:Why the Weird Gateway?

[Matty_]

According to Microsoft, this is only supported on Windows XP (just to make it clear to others). They also say that the upcoming Windows 2003 Server will support IPv6, in at least the same state in which XP does.

I think it is still considered "beta" so-to-speak.

Re:Why the Weird Gateway?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Microsoft, this is only supported on Windows XP (just to make it clear to others).

Which is by now the only version of Windows really supported by Microsoft.

I think it is still considered "beta" so-to-speak.

The IPv6 support of stock linux (say kernel 2.4.19), is still buggy and alpha. You need to apply USAGI patches to get something which is closer to standard compliance

Re:Why the Weird Gateway?

[Wesley Felter]

Last I heard, Slashdot is behind a load balancer and a firewall; do those support IPv6?

Re:Why the Weird Gateway?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not longer considered beta since SP1 for WinXP, and it's a supported protocol. You can read about it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/techinfo/ ad ministration/ipv6/default.asp

Re:Why the Weird Gateway?

[peter]

2.4.19 was seriously broken. IPv6 works again in 2.4.20 (as well as in 2.4.18). It is still alpha, though.

US Alternative Tunnel Broker

[fv]

>Disclaimer: I help run ipng.org.uk, which is a UK tunnel broker,
>who gives you a /64 ... and delegates full forward and reverse DNS to you

Great! And for those of us in the States (especially California), Hurricane Electric offers a free tunnel broker with these characteristics that I would recommend.I have been using it for more than 6 months, and find it quite stable. You do lose your /64 if HE can't ping you for 24 hours, but a new one is only a mouse click away. And what kind of geek would leave their computer inaccessible for that long anyway? ;). Initial activation does take a day or so.

-Fyodor
Concerned about your network security? Try the free Nmap Security Scanner

640k is more than enough for anybody

[prodangle]

I read on this thread that the IP header's version field only has 4 bits (I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds awfuly clever). We are currently of course using IPv4, and 5 is reserved for some stream protocol thingy, then isn't it theoretically possible that we will want more in the future for other uses? If we decide we want 11 more, then there will be 17 differant IP versions, which cannot all be represented with 4 bits. Therefore we'll have to make the 5 bits (or 99 bits) for the version field, inso scrapping all previous versions including IPv6??

I have no idea whether this is technically accurate or not, does anybody else know?

Re:640k is more than enough for anybody

[Shade, The]

IPv4 has lasted for around 30 to 40 years. Is there any reason to suspect IPv6 won't last just as long, considering the obscene number of IP addresses that are possible under the protocol? It seems to me that worrying whether or not IPv17 will be backward compatible with IPv4 or IPv6 isn't something to immediately be concerned about. Maybe in another 50 to 100 years or so :)

Re:640k is more than enough for anybody

[Anonymous Coward]

The version number is small, but standards like IP had better not change frequently.

If the version number ever gets high enough (unlikely), obviously any IP header with a version number of 15 will contain further version bits.

Re:640k is more than enough for anybody

[vidarh]

It's trivial to "fix". The point is that nothing that just understand older versions of IP will need to know which of the never versions it's dealing with, just that it's too new for it to understand. So all you have to do is say that any version that uses X and above in the version field have more version bits stored elsewhere in the header. Newer software will know about it, and older software wouldn't benefit from knowing if it's seeing a version 8 packet or a version 1024, or whatever.

Whaa?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Hurricane Electric site.

Our tunnel service is oriented towards developers and experimenters that want a stable permanent tunnel.

Yet you lose all 18 bazillion IP's if you can't be pinged for 24 hours? Stable and permanent my ass!

Re:Whaa?

[caino59]

well, if you cant be pinged for more than 24 hours, i think huricane electric is the least of your problems

either get your server fixed or get a better ISP.

Re:Whaa?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I can't be pinged for 24 hours, it means i'm not home, and my PC is OFF.

Re:Whaa?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you only have one PC and it's not always on, stick with IPv4.

Who is this article for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those of you who can't read this article because you're running IPv6, should read this article which tells you how to point your browser to some other site, which in turn will let you read this site. Whah? Catch-22.

'Have' IPv6???

[jez9999]

But for the people that do already have IPv6 they can use

What exactly does it take to 'have' IPv6? What stuff neds to be upgraded? Application software? OS? Router? Does your ISP need to 'have' or 'support' it? It also seems a hell of a lot more complex to type in an IPv6 address than an IPv4 one, but I guess that only matters if you're not using a domain. Then again, with so many IP addresses available with IPv6 this may be the case, as there won't be nearly enough domains to hold everyone's IP!

I'm sorry that this will sound ignorant, but if I'm asking the question and I'm not exactly dumb, it's no wonder all the AOLers aren't using IPv6! I don't even know how you use it, and there are barely any servers using it either, no?

Re:'Have' IPv6???

[prodangle]

Everything, no, yes, yes, yes, it is, s'pose, and lol (I think). No - not at all, lol, and I don't know how to answer that triple negative .

Re:'Have' IPv6???

[jez9999]

Application software doesn't need to be upgraded? Because I thought it would. Wouldn't Mozilla or Internet Explorer (older versions at least) complain if you entered "3ffe:0501:0008:0000:0260:97ff:fe40:efab" into the address bar? Isn't internet application software usually built to parse IP addresses of IPv4 type?

Re:'Have' IPv6???

[prodangle]

I think the browser would just send the string you entered into the address bar as part of the request, and if it was recognised as a valid IPv6 address, the content would be returned, I'm not completely sure though.

Re:'Have' IPv6???

[kwuck]

I use IPv6 with a free service, freenet6.net, and my linux with ipv6 support. You can read the directions in that web.

Re:'Have' IPv6???

[grolim13]

Mozilla supports IPv6 natively. Not sure about Internet Explorer.

Re:'Have' IPv6???

[WWWWolf]

What exactly does it take to 'have' IPv6? What stuff neds to be upgraded? Application software? OS? Router? Does your ISP need to 'have' or 'support' it?

OS and applications. Many operating systems already do support IPv6, as do many applications (Mozilla does, at least, as does many IRC clients because there's distinct benefits.)

Router/ISP level support is Nice To Have, but there are tunneling servers that enable IPv4 sites to talk IPv6.

As far as setup woes go, my setup was as easy as 'apt-get install freenet6' =)

Re:'Have' IPv6???

[JayJay.br]

For an IPv6 network to work, all hosts need to be aware of IPv6. That would be "native IPv6" (not sure about the term, but you get the picture!). That is, you need your ISP/OS/Routers/whatever is in the middle to know IPv6.

You could also tunnel IPv6 over IPv4, so two ends could communicate using IPv6 in a v4 network.

Or, you could use a gateway, like sixxs.org. There is some info in the link supplied in the article, but if you want the big stuff, please RTFRFC 2460!

HTH!

Re:'Have' IPv6???

[Kjellander]

Wouldn't Mozilla or Internet Explorer (older versions at least) complain if you entered "3ffe:0501:0008:0000:0260:97ff:fe40:efab" into the address bar?

The correct way of typing in an IPv6-URL would be:

http://[3ffe:0501:0008:0000:0260:97ff:fe40:efab]/

But since that site doesn't seem to work try connecting to www.6bone.net net with this:

http://[3ffe:b00:c18:1::10]/

This only works if you "'Have' IPv6" off course. :)

Lot of features - lack of simplicity

[Anonymous Coward]

ipv6 has a features - which is why it lacks the simplicity that made ipv4 a huge success ....

virtualhosting/ssl

[jadavis]

I understand that, in principle, you should only have one IP per machine. However, what about having multiple sites on one computer that need to use different SSL certs? This is of course common in virtualhosting environments.

Is there some other way that SSL can determine which certificate to use? It seems as though an SSL-based site (anything, even not HTTP) requires its own IP. Am I correct? What is the "right" thing to do?

Re:virtualhosting/ssl

[cehf2]

You are indeed correct that SSL sites need to be unique per ip/port combination, however there is an extension to TLSv1.0 (the IETF SSL standard) that allows the client to tell the server the host it is attempting to contact, (just as HTTP passes this information in the Host Header).

I believe that this extension will become standard soon, but then of course you need all the SSL browsers and servers to implement the extension before we can solve that particular problem.

Re:virtualhosting/ssl

[trib3003]

Dunno how you come up with SSL when IPv6 is the topic ;-)
But anyway:

Apache FAQ

Should answer your Question.

Ipv6 is great

[johnburton]

I have a few machines at home and things like a tivo and a Zaurus that need IP addresses. Ideally they all should have proper routable IP addresses so the internet can be used as it is intended. Luckily my ISP (Andrews & Arnold) provide as many IP adresses for my ADSL as I want for no extra cost. But I'm still limited to 5 usable addresses. But they also provide Ipv6 access to the internet and give you a range of addresses. But instead of five addresses I get a whole /64 range which is 2^64 usable addresses. Anyway, if anyone in the UK wants ADSL and to use IPV6 I can recomment A&A as an ISP for this

Re:Ipv6 is great

[radish]

So how do you get IPv6 working on the Tivo? I spend enough time on the forums explaining how to set up a reverse proxy, I don't even want to get started with IPv6 ;)

I guess I still don't see why I should upgrade. As I see it, my setup works just fine now using NAT, and if I upgraded I'd get loads of grief, not least having to make sure all my IP apps support IPv6 - I bet most don't.

Can anyone convince me why I need it?

Even I can have a site on ipv6

[johnburton]

How come slashdot don't have an IPv6 address. Even I can manage it. I have an ipv6 website at http://ipv6.jb99.co.uk/ (not that there is anything interesting on there)

Re:Even I can have a site on ipv6

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this a troll?? I think he meant http://ipv6.jb99.co.uk/.

It\'s absolutely true - slashdot SHOULD get hooked up to the 6bone or something. If one of the geekier sites on the Internet can\'t do it, what chance do we have that other sites will? C\'mon slashdot admins - pull your fingers out. :)

Personally I\'m looking forward to the day I can forget about NAT and not compile in the IPv4 stack on my box.

Re:Even I can have a site on ipv6

[Anonymous Coward]

Doh he did say http://ipv6.jb99.co.uk/ - just the sixxs.org proxy "helpfully" converted his URL so that it looked like it had .sixxs.org at the end, even though it was plain text and not in a link! Please ignore the first part of my comment. :)

BTW using this proxy is a good idea for anyone with ONLY an ipv6 stack (anyone?), but for us dual-stackers it's really just causing privacy and accuracy issues.

MOD PARENT STUPID.

[OverRated]

If only people would actually make sense when they posted a /. comment.

It's good to dream, isn't it?

Re:MOD PARENT STUPID.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you don't get it doesn't mean the rest of us don't.

Slashdot's IPv6 Address

[superyooser]

Could be

h t t p colon slash slash slash dot dot slash dot dot slash dot dot org

:-P Just gimme the hex digits.

Stupid question...

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to IPv5 ?

Re:Stupid question...

[flink]

It was an experimental protocol that never made it out of the lab. At least that was what my networking prof in college told me :-P

Re:Stupid question...

[sepluv]

It is called the internet stream protocol (SP) apparently (see RFC 1819).

Re:Stupid question...

[matt_fk]

If I am not mistaken, your professor was correct.

I don't understard

[Anonymous Coward]

Why doesn't the IP get changed automaticly as part of the IPV6 protocol. It seems stupid.

Re:---BOYCOTT IPv6---

[Viol8]

ISPs already control the nodes. Unless you know some other way of connmecting your home PC to the net? If so please let us all know.

IPv6 is like the Chicken and Egg story

[lemmen]

Everyone knows the Chicken and the Egg story (which came first), with IPv6 it's the same:

*) IPv6 is ready to deploy, however not much ISP's are supporting IPv6.
*) ISP's are not supporting IPv6 because there are no customers who uses it.
*) Customers aren't using IPv6 because there are no applications who uses it.
*) Software developers aren't creating software because nobody uses it.

As you can see there's a loop. The main thing is to break this loop and this project is a step in the good direction.

I'd like to encourage all ISP's to actively implement and promote IPv6. And you as 'consumer' can also promote IPv6, play with it even when you ISP doesn't support IPv6 yet (with IPv6 Tunnels for example).

Just my 2 cents.

Re:IPv6 is like the Chicken and Egg story

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the way IPv6 needs to be adopted is it needs a niche to break out in. The early adopters of the internet were Universities and Government. IPv6 needs to carve out its initial market in the same area. The improved security, for example, would be of high interest in areas of government.

Over time greater adoption will happen, but you need to start in a niche and grow from there.

Re:IPv6 is like the Chicken and Egg story

[Anonymous Coward]

Software developers are creating IPv6-compatible software and people are using it. ISP's don't want to spend massive amounts on new routers when they can already provide service to people with IPv4. In Japan there is not enough IPv4 address space so many businesses and even homes have IPv6 routes (and copious amounts of bandwidth).

IP6 is too complex for general acceptance.

[Viol8]

Lets face it , unless you've got a Phd in networking chances are that some facet of IP4 routing , setup etc still confuses you. This goes for network admins too. Now multiply the complexity of ip4 by 10 and you get the nightmare that is IP6. I've tried to set up a home ip6 network that linked out to the internet but , oh my god , what kind of idiots invented this system? I'm sorry , but even computer admins are human (yes its true) and we REALLy don't want to have to mess around with 128 bit meaningless entries in routing tables that were complex enough with 32 bits! Yes ip6 does some autocofiguration but someone has to set up the system so that some host does the autoconfig. Ever tried it? Don't , not unless you want to end up in a padded cell. Even networking protocols should be designed for people to be able to use and I'm afraid with ip6 that simply hasn't happened. Back to the dsrawing board guys!

NAT - eliminated?

[GT_Alias]

Yeah, the need to use NAT due to a shrinking IPv4 pool would be eliminated...but what about the people that use NAT for home networks running over a common cable/DSL connection?

If you wanted to eliminate NAT, the ISP would have to provide an IPv6 address for every network interface in your house, and I'm going to assume they would tack on some sort of surcharge for each additional address. So I doubt NAT would go away, b/c if the majority of the home users can buy a single Internet connection and split it between multiple machines, what would be their incentive to fork out the cash for multiple addresses?

Also, what about the logicistics of bringing multiple static IPv6 addresses into a house? How would that work...a router in each home? I've never had that one explained to me.

Re:NAT - eliminated?

[Goonie]

If you wanted to eliminate NAT, the ISP would have to provide an IPv6 address for every network interface in your house, and I'm going to assume they would tack on some sort of surcharge for each additional address.

Why would they have to? They could hand everybody on their network 16 (or 24) bits of subnet and still have untold billions of addresses left over.

You need to get your head around that with IPv6 there will never again be a shortage of IP addresses (with the assumption that mere stupidity rather than insanity prevails in handing them out). 128 bits is rather a lot :)

Re:NAT - eliminated?

[David_W]

If you wanted to eliminate NAT, the ISP would have to provide an IPv6 address for every network interface in your house, and I'm going to assume they would tack on some sort of surcharge for each additional address.

Why would they have to? They could hand everybody on their network 16 (or 24) bits of subnet and still have untold billions of addresses left over.

Although that's how it should work, the problem is they will find any excuse to charge more for a service, and multiple IPs is a way of doing that. Anything they can tightly control and squeeze some cash out of, they will.

Re:NAT - eliminated?

[Tmack]

Nope, you would probably be given a subnet rather than a single address. Any address within that subnet would be routed by your ISP through your cable/dsl modem (which is esentially a router iteself) to your lan. All you have to do is give your machines an address in that subnet and point the default gw to the gateway address of the subnet. Thats what subnet masks are for, breaking larger address blocks into smaller networks. In IPv4 you could get a netmask of 255.255.255.252, in which case 66.66.66.0 might be your network addres, 66.66.66.1 is your gateway addres, 66.66.66.2 is the one you put on your computer, and 66.66.66.3 is the broadcast. The next person wanting 1 useable addy would get network 66.66.66.4. Someone wanting 5 useables would have a network like 66.66.66.8, netmask 255.255.255.248, etc. There are other restrictions (a subnet has to start on an address divisible by the number of addys in it) but generally your ISP would handle them along with BGP and other routing stuff. IPv6 is similar, just adds more features.

TM

Re:NAT - eliminated?

[HermDog]

You need to get your head around that with IPv6 there will never again be a shortage of IP addresses (with the assumption that mere stupidity rather than insanity prevails in handing them out). 128 bits is rather a lot :)

Yeah, and 128 bits "ought to be enough for anybody."

Re:---BOYCOTT IPv6---

[Anonymous Coward]

802.11b wide area intranets with some nodes having internet connections.

With enough wireless and local loops ISP's will be a thing of the past.

Re:---BOYCOTT IPv6---

[Shade, The]

Are there any wireless networks about today that don't use the TCP/IP protocol over 802.11b?

Re:I\'ll guess I\'ll admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that IPv4 addresses were running out is most ofton sited as the reason for the development of IPv6, but the real reason is the size of the default-free routing table. That\'s the routing tables that the big Tier-1 ISP\'s have to carry.

Several time in the 90\'s the entire Internet backbone crashed because there were simply too many routes/networks in the backbone tables. The routers didn\'t have enough memory to store them all. IPv6 was developed to help solve this problem by introducing a sort of \"super-aggregation\" scheme.

As an example, the current size of the IPv4 default free table is about 150,000 routes (or so.) The current size of the IPv6 default free table is about 400 routes. Those 400 routes represent about 2^18 more networks than the IPv6 routes do. (And that\'s generously assumming that all of the IPv4 routes represent /16\'s, which is obviously untrue.)

Thus, we can represent by far more networks with fewer prefixes in IPv6 than in IPv4. The default-free routing table is small, the backbone routers are happy, there are no more crashes due to running out of memory, AND you get all of the extra features that IPv6 provides free of charge. ;)

Impressive!

[FrostedWheat]

I just setup IPv6 last night on my main box after reading the previous article. I was able to ping and irc, tho I didn't think Mozilla supported IPv6. Guess I was wrong :)

Tis very cool! Everyone give it a go! If all those who read Slashdot got onto the IPv6 network then that would be a huge boost! And we need IPv6 to be successful!

Oh, and Slashdot should consider setting up ipv6.slashdot.org - it's not that difficult!

IPv6 Quick links..

[Anonymous Coward]

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/

Re:IPv6 Quick links..

[leoboiko]

I think NetBSD's Introduction to TCP/IP Networking has a pretty good intro about IPv6, even if you do not use NetBSD.

MacOS X and IPv6 and other OSs

[Midnight Thunder]

Even if your local network infrastructure does not support IPv6, all installations of MacOSX 10.2 have and IPv6 stack. The following is taken from doing an 'ifconfig' at the command line:

en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULT ICAST> mtu 1500
inet6 fe80::230:65ff:fed6:b164%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
inet 192.168.1.100 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
ether 00:30:64:d6:b2:64
media: autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>) status: active

From what I can tell MS-Windows is still a little behind, as can be seen from this page. As for other OSs I am not aware of their support status. If you do know, a reply to this post would be handy to most.

Re:MacOS X and IPv6 and other OSs

[CodeWheeney]

Actually, it looks like Windows XP comes with some sort of IPv6 Support: A quote from Microsoft Research

Windows XP - In October 2001, the latest desktop edition of Windows was released, bringing the reliability and performance of the Windows NT kernel to a much wider audience. Every copy of Windows XP, Home Edition and Professional, has an IPv6 stack based on the research that we started, released as a Developer Preview primarily for application porting. The stack is very easily manually installed from a command line just by typing "ipv6 install".

Re:MacOS X and IPv6 and other OSs

[endrek]

MacOSX supports ip6 because it is based ontop of BSD, which supports ipv6. Linux also supports it.

Re:MacOS X and IPv6 and other OSs

[Sentry21]

From what I can tell MS-Windows is still a little behind, as can be seen from this page.

There is an experimental IPv6 stack for Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 (which will not install on 2 or 3), but there will never ever ever in a million billion years be a production-quality stack for Windows 2000, because of issues with people not spending $200 on XP.

XP comes with a development IPv6 stack included on the CD, and Service Pack 1 comes with a production-quality IPv6 stack. Windows 2003 will include a production-quality stack as well, as will CE XP and .NET and any of their other newer OSen.

As much as I disapprove of MS for not bothering to support IPv6 in 2k, and despite knowing why they did it, I still encourage people to upgrade if the choice arises, if for no other reason than you won't have to upgrade again later to support IPv6.

Oh, and write your ISPs.

--Dan

Re:MacOS X and IPv6 and other OSs

[maggard]

MacOSX supports ip6 because it is based ontop of BSD, which supports ipv6.

Bzzzzt!

MacOS X is "based" on a modified Mach kernel; it also has added support for BSD compatability and conventions, uses some BSD & modified-from BSD tools

That's vastly different from "based ontop of BSD".

Re:MacOS X and IPv6 and other OSs

[Dahan]

Even if your local network infrastructure does not support IPv6, all installations of MacOSX 10.2 have and IPv6 stack.

Anyone know how to get OSX to do a rtsol on startup? I'm sure I can add my own startup script to do it, but seeing that Apple touts IPv6 support, I was thinking the system scripts should have some way to enable IPv6 autoconfiguration.

From what I can tell MS-Windows is still a little behind

Is it really considered "a little behind" when the current version of the OS comes with IPv6? As the page you linked to mentions, Windows XP comes with it... you just need to install it. Too bad Mozilla doesn't support IPv6 on Win32... I had to use Internet Explorer to check out this sixxs.org stuff.

IPv6 implementations for various OSs

[Midnight Thunder]

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.

Re:IPv6 implementations for various OSs

[TheAwfulTruth]

Unfortunately, like most of the net, that site is at least 6 months out of date. All currently shipping copies of Windows XP contain a PRODUCTION quality IPv6 stack, and all Windows XP installs with SP1 installed also have it. Not the tech preview stack as they indicate "Windows XP" has.

Why does anyone (not you I know) bother to maintain a list like that if they aren't going to keep it up to date? Old information (that is not dated as old information) is less than worthless.

How many address will IPv6 have over IPv4?

[freeefalln]

does anyone know any exact numbers of how many addresses IPv6 has over IPv4? Someone here commented that IPv6 would never run out of addreses to give out. Granted, we may never have enough machines to use all of the addresses that IPv6 would make available, but does anyone know the limit?

Re:How many address will IPv6 have over IPv4?

[Assembler]

Here's the number of IPs of IPv4 vs IPv6:
256 ^4 = 4,294,967,296
256 ^ 6 = 281,474,976,710,656

Re:How many address will IPv6 have over IPv4?

[Anonymous Coward]

you on crack?

IPv4 is 2^32
IPv6 is 2^128

So
IPv4 = 4,294,967,296 (as you said)
IPv6 = 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,45 6 (not as you said)

Re:How many address will IPv6 have over IPv4?

[Assembler]

yup, you're right
posted w/o thinking, i guess

Modified URL format

[Midnight Thunder]

Because IPv6 numeric addresses use colons as opposed as part separators, the URL syntax has had to be ammended. The following is now a legal URL (the squared bracket isolates the numbered IP addresss, so the port number is not confused with the IP addresss):

http://[66.35.250.150]:80/

Last time I checked this worked with Mozilla but failed will MS Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows.

Re:Modified URL format

[patrikr]

Doesn't work in Opera 7 either.

Residential == /128

[yerricde]

IPv6 is great and it will allow those who DONT want to be behind NAT to get a "real" IP address

Unless the IPv6 ISP specifies in its contract that all residential users get a /128 (single address).

it's important because

[sirshannon]

now you will have to buy an domain name of some sort for everything because your IP addresses will be too long to remember.

Re:it's important because

[Richard_at_work]

not really, they are very easy to remember, certainly no harder than ipv4 addresses. as soon as you learn your range address, your fine.

Re:---BOYCOTT IPv6---

[Viol8]

You're assuming people will run these for free when hundreds of thousands of people are using their bandwidth. They won't. While they remain effectively small , local connections with a few people on fine , but after that generosity of the people who run the node connected to the wider net will soon wear thin and they'll start istart barring certain connections or start charging. Theres no such thing as a free lunch my friend.

IPv6 is BullShite

[Anonymous Coward]

With everyone hiding behind firewalls and proxies, who
needs a larger address space? Just make
the companies who are using class A,B,and C addresses for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING give them up and get on RFC private addresses and NAT segments.

The whole Internet is partitioned out to people who
don't WANT their machines to be addressable.
So be it. Just use the IPv4 address space for
gateways and websites that need to be public.

With all the other things we have to work on
like email authentication, DNS sludge, and
other problems, why do we need to spend time
on IPv6?

IPv6 won't eliminate NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously are not a Comcast customer. If you want additional IP addresses, they charge something like $7.95 per month extra.

The arrival of IPv6 won't eliminate their desire for this extra charge. I'm sure Comcast isn't the only one.

The dark lining

[0x0d0a]

- ... supports QoS features.

So does IPv4 -- it's just that no one actually *uses* them.

The main thing that I *really* don't like about IPv6 is that, while it isn't a mandated part of the protocol, it seems that the overwhelming direction being pushed is to make the last 48 bits of your address your MAC address. Which *really* has nasty privacy implications -- 'slike a universal cookie, visible to everyone, that anyone can see (not just http servers).

Stop the madness!

[Pii]

You're right about a 21-bits part, but you're butchering the rest of it.

For starters, classful routing on the Internet has gone the way of the Dinosaurs, and good riddance. CIDR saw to that (Classless Inter-Domain Routing), and when BGPv4 became the standard, all was right in the world (Because it implemented CIDR, by carrying Netmask along with the route entries).

In casual conversation today, we still use terms like Class B, or Class C address space, but they don't refer to the actual Classful network boundaries of yore. Today, when someone refers to a Class C address space, they simply mean a 24-bit address space. Likewise, a Class B means a 16-bit (/16) address space.

You say your netmask is 255.255.248.0. This represents a larger address space than a Class C, which has a mask of 255.255.255.0 (or /24).

Your address space is the aggregate of 8 Class C networks. Your network is configured to utilize the first and second octets, and the first 5 bits of the third octet as the network address, leaving the remaining 3 bits of the third octet, and the entire fourth octet as the host address.

That represents a network segment consisting of up to 2048 hosts (Ok... 2046 since you toss the first and last as the network address and the broadcast address.).

In short, your network engineering staff ought to be shot, because damn, that's a really big subnet. There's just no good reason to have that many hosts on a segment.

It's possible that you guys don't have anywhere near that many hosts, but if you do, without even looking, I can tell you that your network is a bit of a show. I hope you have your highly-loaded servers on their own segment, because the number of broadcasts must be tremendous. Even in a switched environment, those broadcasts must be propegated everywhere, and every machine in the network has to stop briefly to examine each and every one.

Your organization should look at some Layer-3 segmentation...

Re:Stop the madness!

[Screaming Lunatic]

That represents a network segment consisting of up to 2048 hosts (Ok... 2046 since you toss the first and last as the network address and the broadcast address.). In short, your network engineering staff ought to be shot, because damn, that's a really big subnet. There's just no good reason to have that many hosts on a segment.

I forgot to mention that this is my home ADSL link. I wouldn't be surprised if all of those addresses were taken up. Each customer gets 2 IP addresses. That means about 1000 customers in my neighbourhood that use the same end office. I use DHCP to get a dynamic IP address, but the phone company probably tries to get each end office responsible for one subnet.

Remeber this Canada. Everybody here has broadband. So there are probably 1000 customers in my neighbourhood.

In terms of classful addressing and classless adressing, you are dead on.

Login ?

[The Mgt]

Anybody here able to login to Slashdot via SixXS ? Works fine otherwise, just can't login :(
Just call me Anonymous Coward.
(Before anyone quibbles, this comment posted via IPv4)

What the heck?

[Lovejoy]

OK, My geek quotient is so low, it's ridiculous. Can someone point me to an English explanation of what IPv6 is? I looked on Sixx.org and googled for FAQs and got language like this:

"Where do I get my own 6bone handle?"

I looked whatis.com and got a semi-English explanation.

So now I understand that IPv6 lengthens IPs from 32 to 128 bits and packets can be prioritized. Is that the heart of the matter?

Anybody have a good FAQ?

Do I need a 6bone handle?

Is that some kind of raunchy joke?

[OT:] Chicken and Egg

[mccalli]

Being essentially sad, I've thought about this for a while.

The answer is that the chicken came first. Reasoning? A something-other-than-a-chicken mated with a something-else-other-than-a-chicken to produce the first mutant chicken embryo. An egg then formed around this embryo and it was hatched out.

So there. Definitive argument. Honest. No really, it is...

Cheers,
Ian

Obviously I don't know the spec...

[WhiteDragon]

I thought that there was a reserved range of IPv6 addresses that corresponded to IPv4 addresses. In other words, I thought that IPv6 was a superset of IPv4, and all the old IPv4 stuff would still work. Now I know.

Re:NAT - eliminated?-To serve or not to serve...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Although that's how it should work, the problem is they will find any excuse to charge more for a service, and multiple IPs is a way of doing that. Anything they can tightly control and squeeze some cash out of, they will."

There's also that "Think about is : when every single workstation has a routable IPv6 address, everyone will have the potential to serve."

Right now ISPs don't want people serving, for bandwith and other reasons. This is of dubious benifit.

Gateways/caches should _NOT_ change the user agent

[ClarkEvans]

SixXS-IPv6Gate/1.0 (IPv6 Gateway; http://ipv6gate.sixxs.net; info@sixxs.net)


Bad! Many sites go through painstaking effort to be compable with all sorts of user agents, giving plain HTML when one is not recognized. By re-writing the user agent these people prevent this magic. Not good. Instead it should add it's own key/value pair, much like SQUID or other cache/gateway.

What are you talking about?

[Pii]

And, praytell, why would ISPs need to spend massive amounts on new routers?

We're talking about a software code upgrade on existing routers...

ISPs are utilizing either Cisco or Juniper in their cores (If they're using something else *chuckle*, it's time to change ISPs).

You can get IPv6 support from each company.

• Cisco
• Juniper

Why do people assume that this is going to require a capital investment?

It's no wonder you didn't sign your post.

[Systems Guy] != [Network Guy]

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't expect a Systems Administrator to understand the intricacies of routing protocols, nor would I expect a Network Engineer to know how to convert an Exchange box into a stable mail platform (In fairness, I don't expect an MCSE to manage that feat either, but that's not the point, and will probably be interpreted as a cheap shot.).

You don't need to examine the routing tables on your routers. You don't need to understand how it all works. You simply need to ask your Network Guy what values to fill in the GUI Point-and-Click slicky-boy panel.

In return, we won't try to edit the registry, or prevent Exchange from being an open relay. We'll ask you to do it. (And when you can't, we'll figure that out for ourselves too.)

Lastly, I object to your use of the term "Network Admin." What is a network admin? I here MCSEs referring to themselves as Network Admins all the time, but do they actually administer the network? No... They maintain some servers that happen to reside on the network, but the connection ends there, as near as I can tell (No pun intended.).

The fact that you have a login on a machine that is on the network does not make you a "network admin."

It makes you a Systems Administrator, at best, but that is far too demeaning to actual Systems Administrators, who are responsible for the care and feeding of Unix hosts.

I recommend that you refer to yourself as MCSEs, because in addition to being a far more accurate description of the kind of thing that you actually do, it also does a good job of downplaying the expectations of those who are forced to interact with you, or seek your counsel.

If I had a nickle for every time an MCSE assured me that they configured their networking settings correctly, citing the fact that the GUI control panel accepted the values they entered as evidence, I'd be a wealthy, wealthy man.

It's bad enough that actual network guys have to spend about 80% of their time proving to guys like you that the problem is not the network, but rather:

• Your misconfigured system
• Your misunderstanding of the workings of the application you are trying to configure
• Your misidentification of the TCP/UDP port numbers that need to be allowed through the firewall
• Your failure to correctly sniff out the difference between a network outage, and a DNS outage
• Your inability to determine that the network is up, but that the site you are trying to view is down...

I could go on, but I think you get the point...

Re:[Systems Guy] != [Network Guy]

[Viol8]

Actually you bonehead , my machines are all Linux and FreeBSD and I happen to have worked as a sysadmin , network admin controlling cisco routers and a unix network programmer and I also happen to have a computer science degree so why don't you take your Standard Issue MS Bash (tm) and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.

Sorry to tell ya : NAT is virtually DEAD ...

[Anonymous Coward]

NAT does not add any kind of security in you network. It only adds security potential trouble and administration issued.

Having no NAt under IPv6 does not prevent you from having a Firewall. But because there is no more trouble with not routable services, DMZ address plan, etc ... it is much more simple to monitor !

IPv6 do sign the end of the NAT. And no, this is no good reason a NAT should be kept on a LAN if you can go IPv6. NAT was just build to solve several IPv4 issue regard adress plan and IP shortages ... but solving stuffs on one hand it adds headaches and flaws on other.

Proxomitron

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that Proxomitron does not support http over IPv6.
Turning off the proxy allows me access to the IPv6 slashdot while turned on it doesn't.

how do i nkow

[endrek]

How would I determine if my ISP supports ipv6?

6to4 to the rescue

[Wesley Felter]

Don't use a tunnel; check out 6to4. A little Googling should turn up instructions for your OS.

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv6 has so many flaws, why is this important?
It is not surprising that it worked, so why
is this newsworthy?

IPv6 is just like ATM or old X.400 addressing,
such a pain to implement, and so piggy, there
is a reason that it's not getting implemented
quickly.

Of course, the OS and Network manufacturers will
be happy to take your money when that big upgrade
comes up.

Am I saying we shouldn't fix the IP address problem? Nope. I'm saying that this is not
the right solution (IMO)

dr. u

No chicken and egg

[CoolVibe]

You see, ipv6 is being seeded at the moment. Vendors and application developers are being ushered to use the new standard ANSI library calls/definitions like getaddrinfo() and PF_UNSPEC.

You see, if you use the new calls, your app will work just as fine with ipv4, and it will automagically also support ipv6. Heck, the host OS doesn't even need to support ip6, as long as it supports the newer ANSI standard calls. At least, when you recompile the app on a ipv6-capable box it will support ipv6 automatically.

Developers need to stop using the old stuffy gethostbyaddr()/gethostbyname() calls and (struct hostent *) structures and switch to (struct addrinfo *) for their resolving and socket binding needs as soon as possible.

So no, no chicken and egg. ipv6 is being sneakily seeded into the apps. When the OS switches over, presto, it works. Yay.

Easy IPv6 Howto Needed

[Sir Logic]

This is all fine and good. And I would love to set my machines up with IPv6...

What I would like to do is give each of the machines on my network a static IPv6 address directly routable to the internet.

What I have is network of linux and windows machines behind a NAT debian box connected to the internet with a dialup internet connection with a dynamic IPv4 address.

What I have been unable to find is a simple how-to that addresses this situation...

Is there one out there? Or does somebody need to write one? There needs to be a simple way to set up IPv6. If there is, let me know... I'd set up all my clients machines with IPv6 also if I knew how to do it easily.

It's not that complex.

[pHDNgell]

Yeah, I've tried the autoconfig. I've got a bunch of computers at home on IPv6, on two subnets (802.3/3u and 802.11b) with an IPv6 router/firewall with three interfaces. Here's my config (subnets changed to protect the innocent):

default:\
:raflags#0:rltime#3600:\
:pinfoflags#64:vltime#360000:pltime#360000:mtu#150 0: ether:\
:mtu#1280:tc=default:

# interfaces.
ex0:\
:addrs#1:\
:addr="3ffe:0b80:xxxx::":prefixlen#64:tc=ether:

tlp0:\
:addrs#1:\
:addr="3ffe:0b80:xxxx:1::":prefixlen#64:tc=ether:

Behind that sits a variety of MacOS X, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc... systems. All of which are working fine.

beware HE

[bill_mcgonigle]

I used to host with HE, but then one day my credit card company got bought up by another (my # and exp stayed the same) and that caused some code to be generated that their billing software didn't understand. So, instead of calling or e-mailing me about it, they deleted my account and all of my files, and had to launch an 'investigation' to get me reactivated. Not having the time to wait for their 'investigation', I switched.

so i might be an idiot

[Maudib]

but what the hell is IP6?

-phill

Re:Gateways/caches should _NOT_ change the user ag

[fuzzel]

Fixed, it will now prepend it, it will now look like:

SixXS-IPv6Gate/1.0 (IPv6 Gateway; http://ipv6gate.sixxs.net; info@sixxs.net) Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)

This should be compliant with RFC2068.
The biggest reason for having it is simply so that people checking the logs notice that a IPv6 gate was used and that is the whole idea, to make them aware that there are clients trying to reach them over IPv6!

Notez bien that the contact address isn't mentioned on the page and in that string for nothing. It's not there for spam harvesters :)

Re:Uh oh...

[fuzzel]

I foresaw that problem and to avoid all you trolls it nicely links shows www.disney.com
Most trolling people prolly belong there anyways as they should be 10 at most.

Though I have to admit, even when you are way above the 10 mark (double, triple and more ;) you will prolly enjoy Disney much more then the URL you originally intented to go to.

Ofcourse not every variation nor odd site can be filtered out, but hey.. it's a proxy.
And at the moment only clued people have working IPv6 ;)

Re:---BOYCOTT IPv6---

[Anonymous Coward]

I connect to the university. The university is connected to other universities. The universities are connected to schools and schools to government buildings, foundations, museums, etc.

At some point all these, connect to some big ISP node of course. That's what the ISP wants because all the interesting stuff is found in the university servers, while the ISP content is horribly b0ring.

It's part of the country infrastructure.

I dunno if in US all these get their connection from ISPs. This is probably an illusion AOL has
created.

IPv6 will have the same fate as ATM and ISDN.

damn

[pixitha]

ping slashdot.org.sixxs.org Bus error thats a bad sign, damn IPv4

Shortage of IP addresses???

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that long term we need IPV6 to take care of addressing issues, however... right now there are millions of available IP's out there, if IANA would let them go. Take a look at http://www.arin.net and do a whois on many of the Class A domains?? A good chunk of them are "reserved" status and not in use at all. Examples are domains that are 23.x.y.z and 27.x.y.z Where I work, we just got a new effective full class C (we aren't that big)from our ISP who got a portion of a Class A from IANA.

The Knights who says "Ni"

[jyang]

For people uses IPv6, how can they tell ".sixxs" is author originally intended or appended by gateway?

Re:The Knights who says "Ni"

[fuzzel]

Everything under sixxs.org goes over the IPv6gate and thus actually is the domain in front of the sixxs.org part.
The sixxs.net domain is used for the rest of the system. The page containing the information about the IPv6Gate is on http://ipv6gate.sixxs.net .
And so is the main SixXS site containing the broker information and other tools like Ghost Route Hunter.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Gateways/caches should _NOT_ change the user ag

[Anonymous Coward]

This is still wrong; you should use a Via: header.

hopelessly inefficient

[raboofje]

Of course this is a fun service provided by the frienly sixxs folks, but it's obvious that when used on a large scale it's not exactly practical: *.com.sixxs.org and friends seem to CNAME to ipv6gate.sixxs.org, which means your request will be sent to sixxs, translated and forwarded to the ipv4 site, and the result translated at sixxs and forwarded to you. Even if the site is a local machine (with globally routable address), and sixxs is very far away from you!

If you want to make heavy use of this kind of things, there are several other interesting and fun ways to reach the ipv4 internet from an ipv6-only network. One is to use a dns proxy that returns 'special' ipv6 addresses even for names that usually only have an A record, and then translate packets going to such addresses to ipv4 packets (in a way very similar to NAT) on the dual-stack router.

I've documented some of my experiences/experiments with this (modest, but practical) at http://ipv6.bzzt.net.

Broascast ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Who uses broadcast nowadays ?

I forsee more people sounding like Gollum ...

[gfreeman]

goatse.cx.sixxs.org

My precioussssss.....

apt-get install radvd...

[raboofje]

I didn't have many problems, using a debian box as the router/firewall for my home network. autoconfiguration is a matter of 'apt-get install radvd' and editting a ridiculously simple configuration file... and I'm just a student, I actually barely had any experience with ipv4 routing when I started this.

Re:apt-get install radvd...

[Viol8]

Install slackware and try apt-get and see where it gets you.

Slashcode fix needed for URL's of IPv6 addreses

[Anonymous Coward]

The above comment shows up in my browser as:

http://[3ffe:0501:0008:0000:0260:97ff:fe40:efab]/ [3ffe050100...fffe40efab]

The logic to pull the name of the site out of the URL just mangles these addresses!

Re:---BOYCOTT IPv6---

[serial frame]

For some reason, I get a hard-on every time I think of wifi community networks and IPv6 within the same train of thought. They go perfectly hand-in-hand...associate with a network, and boom, the router nearest to you gives you a prefix delegation with which you can give yourself an address in. Seamless, especially for ad-hoc networks.

Am I alone in thinking this?

Last Post!

[alpg]

According to a recent and unscientific national survey, smiling is something
everyone should do at least 6 times a day. In an effort to increase the
national average (the US ranks third among the world's superpowers in
smiling), Xerox has instructed all personnel to be happy, effervescent, and
most importantly, to smile. Xerox employees agree, and even feel strongly
that they can not only meet but surpass the national average... except for
Tubby Ackerman. But because Tubby does such a fine job of racing around
parking lots with a large butterfly net retrieving floating IC chips, Xerox
decided to give him a break. If you see Tubby in a parking lot he may have
a sheepish grin. This is where the expression, "Service with a slightly
sheepish grin" comes from.

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...