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X Might Be Ready For IPV6

Posted by timothy on from the bajillions-and-bajillions dept.

makapuf writes "According to linuxtoday, the X Consortium has published enhancement proposals to let X and IPV6 interoperate. This is surely a relief for the masses here that longed for X support for IPV6. Or the contrary? The proposal can be found here."

2 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Verry wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You are so wrong, my presription glasses had to be wiped clean.

    The purpose of IPv6 is: fix some flaws within the design of IPv4 and expand network addressing.

    If you think IPv6 is a waste of time, you wait when the global networks start using IPv6 for the same strengths they needed and IPv4 did not provide.

    If you think IPv6 is a waste of time, you wait when you need an IPv6 X client to connect to your server and VPN is not an option.

    If you think IPv6 is a waste of time, you wait when even streaming media or realtime data requires IPv6.

    LOOK: IPv6 has strengths that IPv4 doesn't have and never will be able to have, with exception to workarounds on the application layer. Don't knock IPv6, it is a Good Thing(TM).

  2. Re:IPv6 is just a backbone technology by Phil+Karn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    There are a few important situations where IPv6 is already The Right Answer.

    First on the list is accessing servers behind a NAT. Wouldn't you like to connect directly to the multiple Linux boxes behind your NAT box without having to first log into the NAT and out again, or having to set up ad-hoc port forwarding kludges? Configure 6to4 on your NAT (easy if it's a Linux box) and you can establish a direct logical end-to-end IPv6 ssh connection even if the path in the middle is IPv4 only. Works great for me. I have been maintaining my parents' network in exactly this fashion for some time now.

    Also on the list is VoIP. Look at all the hassles involved in running H323 from behind a NAT. (SIP may be more NAT-friendly, I haven't investigated it yet.) If only H323 supported IPv6, life would be so much easier.

    But the real killer app for IPv6 will be cell phones. If cell phones are to implement true VoIP, there is simply no alternative to IPv6 because there are simply far too many cell phones in the world for the number of available IPv4 addresses.

    Basically, IPv6 is all about wiping out the NAT plague and restoring the end-to-end model that originally made the Internet great. That's exactly opposite to the claim you make in your subject line. If you don't use NATs, or if you're unimaginative enough to think that you'll never need to do what they make difficult or impossible, then you probably won't be excited by IPv6. But eventually you'll probably discover why IPv6 is inevitable, even though it will have to coexist with IPv4 for a very long time.