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

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.

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: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.

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: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.