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IPv6 Success Stories?

Posted by Cliff on from the it-will-happen-when-it-happens dept.

DonGar asks: "We've been hearing how IPv6 will save the world, and we've been hearing about how it will never happen. But can anyone give us real world results about what heppens after they convert? In particular, I'm wondering about small networks (home and/or small business). What ISP support commonly exists, and how much does it really matter? How many people are using ONLY IPv6, instead of both IPv4 and IPv6. What devices/applications/OS's cause the most problems with this? What things work, what breaks, and how much work is it to do the conversion? How hard is it to run things like web and email servers that need to reachable from anywhere? From a real world perspective, what do we need to know that isn't mentioned here?"

12 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Which begs the question... by Tuxinatorium · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's the point in using IPv6 on small private networks? It's a whole lot of work for absolutely no benefit.

    --
    Repeal the DMCA!
    1. Re:Which begs the question... by andrewl6097 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sure there's a benefit: it's cool! After I found out how /insanely/ easy it is to port things to IPv6, I added IPv6 addresses on all the machines in my home network. It's really not that much work, you just add the IP with ifconfig like anything else. Now, home networks are easy because there's no complicated switches needed(we have a hub, which doesn't really know about IP as far as I can tell given that it works fine with IPv6 even though the hub dates from when 10baseT hubs were expensive and cool).

    2. Re:Which begs the question... by andrewl6097 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Oh, and I'll also note that the IPv6 addresses I use are /shorter/ than IPv4 addresses - fec0::1, fec0::2, etc.

    3. Re:Which begs the question... by mellon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IPv6 has working link-local addresses. Right now this probably doesn't mean much, but I think it will as time goes on and people get tired of IPv4 link local addresses.

      IPv6 allows you to have more than one public IP address on your home network. You can go through an IPv6 tunnel broker to make your IPv6 network visible to the world.

      IPv6 isn't necessarily that far in the future in the U.S. For example, Speakeasy is claiming that they'll have IPv6 rolled out sometime in the March timeframe. I don't know how realistic that is, but it's certainly one of the reasons I'm sticking with Speakeasy - they seem to really have a clue. :']

    4. Re:Which begs the question... by Jahf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      1) That all works just fine on Linux, too. Has for years. If you take a look back in shared IP (aka NAT) history, you'll find Linux has understood alot of ways to do that longer than Windows. Though some complicated things may be easier to set up under Windows now than on Linux, I'd be surprised if, stacking the latest Windows against the latest Red Hat / Gentoo / Mandrake / SuSE, there was anything related to networking that Windows can do that Linux can't. Problem solved :)

      2) The average consumer is stuck on IPv4 accessories and applications right now. Of course IPv6 rolling out tomorrow won't help them today. The average consumer never makes use of a new technology immediately. The idea is to make it -possible- so that the average end user will get benefit from it in the future.

      3) IPv6 doesn't have to make it easier for trolls to evade IP bans as long as there is a standardized block size made available to individual users -or- as long as some form of CIDR-like registration is used.

      Perhaps this is a new tool someone should create. A system that lets you look up what size an IPv6 block is. It should probably point back to the ISP / company that owns the "master" block. In other words, it doesn't need to have any personal information about the person who is using that block (assuming a smaller block is assigned to it), just the range that is owned by that user so that allow / deny rules can be written properly.

      An ISP who sets up individual user accounts could have a standard size, so that they simply go in and set up in advance the information rather than having to add it each time they get a new user. If a sub-block does not show up, then people write bans against the entire ISP block, which encourages participation :)

      Coming from someone who used to have to assign and re-assign subnet ownership for an ISP, they already do work like this ... this system could be a much simpler one than what exists now for IPv4 while retaining it's value. I know of a couple of times I've had to look up a block of addresses to ban a user and this would also be valuable for things like spam-holes, etc.

      That is, assuming that routing doesn't go back to the ways before of users aquiring netblocks and then having their ISP route them (instead of ISPs aquiring netblocks and subnetting them to customers). However even if that is eventually the method (and I believe that was part of the idea behind having so many addresses in IPv6) that just makes it easier to look up block owners and ban entire blocks.

      As long as you don't mind a little bit of heavy handedness.

      --
      It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
    5. Re:Which begs the question... by gyratedotorg · · Score: 4, Informative

      we have a hub, which doesn't really know about IP as far as I can tell

      right, because ip works on layer 3 of the osi model, whereas your hubs work on layers 1 and 2. the layers dont care about eachother.

      --
      Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
    6. Re:Which begs the question... by ComputerSlicer23 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Yeah, but that first customer is really expensive.

      Also if you truely believe that "zero-cost" to add a customer, you should never go into business for yourself.

      It costs plenty to add a customer every time. More head ends, more trenchs, more cable. A lot of those are paid before you ask for service by the cable company as an investment. So technically they have already paid it by the time you get it hooked up, but that's because they footed the bill for you well ahead of time.

      Furthermore, the content that you get, costs them per subscriber. It costs them money to bill you, to do collections, to deal with you when you call and complain about service being crappy.

      Plus lots of things, like Cable have such huge costs, that they have to 5 million customers before they make a profit. Cover ongoing facilities costs.

      Billing works the way it does, because it is the most efficient way to for that good to be traded. It's a capitalist society, if you can make more money giving away cable and satalite feeds "because there is no cost to adding additional customers", then by all means go for it. I'm sure there's a VC out there if you have a good business plan.

      Kirby

  2. It WILL save the world by AtariAmarok · · Score: 3, Funny

    It just has to get in line behind flouridation, Dennis Kucinich, and hemp.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  3. I use IPv6 by Isomer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use IPv6 for my home network, so I can ssh in from around the world directly into machines rather than having to SSH into the NAT gateway, then ssh into the machine behind the NAT that I want.

    In general IPv6 was pretty painless to setup, my biggest problems were caused by the fact I was using 6to4 which means my IPv6 addresses are based on my IPv4 address, which isn't static, so it took a bit of scripting to get everything to happen correctly when my v4 address changed (changing routes etc).

    Almost all application support v6 one way or another, however notably missing is Apache 1, you need extra patches to get IPv6 support, and most apache log analysers get confused with IP addresses with :'s in them.

    I'm surprised that Distro's don't enable v6 by default. (If you have a non-RFC1918 address, use 6to4, if you only have a RFC1918 addresses, use teredo).

    I've IPv6 enabled our local LUG server (http://www.wlug.org.nz/), you get a dancing penguin for the logo if you use v6.

    1. Re:I use IPv6 by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

      My website has a few walkthroughs on IPv6 setup for a fair few OSes. If you need any more help, post back with contact details. I used to help run a UK based IPv6 tun broker.

    2. Re:I use IPv6 by jaredmauch · · Score: 4, Informative
      I'm surprised that Distro's don't enable v6 by default. (If you have a non-RFC1918 address, use 6to4, if you only have a RFC1918 addresses, use teredo).

      Most do actually. They generally configure themselves via autoconf. Here's an example from one of my systems:
      ifconfig -a
      vx0: flags=8843 mtu 1500
      inet 204.42.254.5 netmask 0xffffffc0 broadcast 204.42.254.63
      inet6 fe80::2a0:24ff:fe83:53d8%vx0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
      inet6 2001:418:3f4:0:2a0:24ff:fe83:53d8 prefixlen 64 autoconf
       It even has a v6 web server (apache) running on it. (go ahead, try to /. it ;-)

      This requires a router that sends autoconf messages (eg: a cisco or juniper router will do) as well as the various autoconf features (router discovery, using a /64 mask, etc..) unless you wish to statically configure your IPv6.

      It removes DHCP from the equation. Of course if you're like me and swap out ethernet cards periodically (assuming you're not using the privacy extensions available for starters) you do see your address shift as it's based on the hardware address.

      With posts yesterday about IPv6 being enabled by default in longhorn, and me seeing more people starting to ask for IPv6 connectivity (eg: DoD) as well as service offerings picking up, I expect it to become a bit more commonplace.

      There are a few issues. Some providers for load balancers have had troubles with dns queries. I've seen my own bank as well as some major router vendors (that have IPv6 offerings) break their servers (ftp, web) periodically for those people who are running dual-stack IPv6 and v4. They just don't understand what this IN AAAA query is, and respond with the wrong error code, or just time out.

      This tells me that we're quite some distance away from being able to see IPv6 as truly viable. I also don't see 6to4 tunneling as being viable in the long term either. We're going to see a dual-stack internet and those providers that have been reluctant to enable new technologies are going to continue on their paths until there is a compelling reason to provide the service (eg: lost sales/business, or a marketing reason "don't use XXX's internet service, you won't get access to the FULL [v4 & v6] internet".

      Mostly today it's for the (never seen here) geek factor, but in my job at a major ISP, we're seeing increased customer demand for our IPv6 service offering not only here in the US but in Europe and Asia as well.

    3. Re:I use IPv6 by Isomer · · Score: 4, Informative
      The WLUG Website is a wiki where we have posted our experiences with IPv6 (and other stuff): The site is a wiki, feel free to add questions, correct mistakes, add your experiences, or other sites you found interesting/helpful.