Four Root DNS Servers Go IPv6 On February 4th

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "On February 4th, IANA will add AAAA records for the IPv6 addresses of the four root servers. With this transition, it will finally be possible for two internet hosts to communicate without using IPv4 at all. Certain obsolete software may face compatibility problems due to the change, but those issues are addressed in an ICANN report (pdf)."

Comments

Finally

[elsJake]

Hopefully ISPs will start to offer IPv6 as standard pretty quick, I'm getting tired of dynamic IP allocation.

Re:Finally

[tgd]

No... if that was the case, your IP would change.

IP changes, in my experience from both Comcast and Verizon FIOS, are so rare that they effectively don't happen. I've never had a change with FIOS from the day the service was fired up, and although I can't recall ever having my previous Comcast one change except when I physically moved, its possible it did once or twice.

If they want to block servers, they'd block inbound ports.

Dynamic IP addresses are used because its the only possible way to do it without having techs setting up every joe six pack or grandmothers computer.

Re:Finally

[raju1kabir]

I think many of us geeks know that you can also use methods like DHCP to configure static IPs. What you are benefiting from here is DHCP, not your dynamic IP.

Pave way for 128-bit registers?

[Besna]

First of all--this is great news. We need breaks from the past like this. Maybe we'll see computers natively handle 128-bit words. UUIDs are already there. I'm sure the custom networking hardware already has it down, but this could be something that drives it. 128-bits seems like overkill for addressing, but it could be put to use as well.

So when will I be able to connect?

[AlexMax2742]

So when will this mean that I can actually use IPv6 for connecting to servers?

Like, when will I be able to open my browser window, type in an IPv6 address, and connect to...say..google?

Re:Routers!

[Just Some Guy]

else you might as well be tunelling the old way anyhow.

What's so awful about that? OK, so it's not native, but none of your apps or services can tell the difference. The advantage is that when you do get native connectivity, you've already done your testing and you're ready for the world.

Re:Routers!

[palegray.net]

I ask this because I honestly don't know. How many routers on the net are embedded devices capable of receiving firmware updates to cope with the additional functionality? Or, how many full-fledged "router in a box" style server systems are capable of receiving software updates, or already support IPV6?

Re:No, wait, not THAT game server...

[Anonymous Coward]

The 1980s called, they've got something called "/etc/hosts" for you to try out.

Re:two of 'em, eh?

[evanbd]

Yeah, when slashdot drops it's IPv4 address, then I'll believe in this IPv6 nonsense.

OK, admit it... how many of us would go figure out how to run IPv6 if it was required to get a /. fix?

Re:About time..

[Denis Lemire]

That's odd, I can't seem to ping your toaster... Its almost like a route doesn't exist... Unfortunate!

You and your kind (those ignorant of IP networking and the concept of true end to end connectivity) may enjoy non-routeable addresses, but I happen to like the flexibility that incoming connections permit.

I could rant about all the things your lousy NAT setup breaks but arguing about this over and over again is just getting tiresome.

Re:Routers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of the problem is that, even though most routers can get software updates in the field, older models only have hardware accelerated IPv4 support. If you upgrade these routers to IPv6, they have to do everything with their puny CPU, which means the same router can handle fewer IPv6 packets than IPv4 packets.

Re:Human readability

[gbjbaanb]

IP addresses:
I can't remember my IPv4 addresses without looking them up, so I'd be no worse off than with IPv6. You'll get older too son, then you'll agree with me :)

As for web hosting providers, they won;t ever have to 'change your IP address', they'll just have to tell you it in the first place, then you're done.

In both cases, IPv6 supports auto-registration so you won't have to fiddle with it anyway. As the IETF says "Since IPv6 addresses are too long to remember and EUI64-based addresses are too complicated to remember, they are not suitable for such identifiers"

IIRC you don't need DHCP anymore with stateless autoconfiguration.

NAT:
think for a moment what NAT does. All you have is your router attached to the internet, and all your computers connected to the router. Unless you explicitly allow incoming connections to pass through, your PCs are "firewalled" at the router.

If you have IPv6, you'll still have the router. I hope that all router manufacturers will be shipping them with incoming connectivity disabled by default, just like it is at the moment. Then, you'll be no less secure with IPv6 than you are today.

You will have the benefit of being able to "DMZ" as many of your PCs as you like, not just one of them. This is best of both worlds.

I think IPv6 will be a good thing, if it ever happens. I can't see that happening anytime soon though, there's too much infrastructure out there.

Re:Er...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny...I checked recent RFC's mentioning A6 and found no technical deprecation. AAAA was even predicted to become Historic.

If there is a deprecation, it is either

1) not official
2) not technical in nature
3) not known by the RFC editor or the IETF

Unless things have changed recently, of course.

Actually, CPE is often IPv6-capable, Core isn't

[billstewart]

You've got your assertions pretty much backwards. Most general-purpose computers are IPv6-compatible, running either Windows XP (or occasionally Vista) or Linux or MacOS, though the user may not have a clue how to enable it or manage it and their ISP help desk may not know either. There are two different kinds of hardware that have problems with IPv6, for different reasons:

• Home NAT/Firewall boxes, which may not be upgradeable, and which the user almost certainly didn't save the instructions for even if they were. On the other hand, they cost $29, so you may not care.
• Big ISP routers often can't handle IPv6 well - for instance, Cisco software has supported IPv6 for a couple of years, but the routers perform as well as they do because most of the packet-routing grunt-work is done in ASICs that only know IPv4, not in the relatively slow CPUs which handle administration, routing protocols, and other applications that can't be done by the ASICs, including IPv6. Some of this is mitigated by ISPs that use routing at the edges and have a switched core using MPLS or ATM, so it's a bit more scalable, but they still need lots of IP routing hardware.
• There are other intermediate layers - cable head ends, routers that support DSLAMs, dialup infrastructure for anybody who still cares, etc., which may also have trouble, but the big issues are at the core.