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The Night the IETF Shut Off IPv4
IP Freely writes "At this year's Internet Engineering Task Force meeting in Philadelphia, conference organizers shut off IPv4 for an hour. Surprisingly, chaos did not ensue. 'After everyone got his or her system up and running, many people started looking for IPv6-reachable web sites, reporting those over Jabber instant messaging — which posed its own challenges in the IPv6 department. I was surprised at the number of sites and wide range of content available over IPv6. Apart from — obviously — IPv6-related sites; they ranged from "the largest Gregorian music collection in Internet" to "hardcore torrents." Virtually none of the better known web destinations were reachable over IPv6. That changed when ipv6.google.com popped into existence.'"
I'm glad to know that the internet will still be able to fulfill its primary purpose as a porn distribution channel when we switch over to ipv6.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
More about the hardcore torrents, please.
Who else put ipv6.google.com in their address bar just to see what would happen?
Request your free CD of my piano music.
And really, only problems I saw were the fact that it's pain in the ass to get automatic DHCPv6 working. The idea is that IPv6 stateless autoconfig (router advertisement) has a bit that tells the client if they should get ALL config via DHCP or just additional (like DNS addresses). However, no easy way to make Linux kernel execute DHCPv6 client based on the received stateless autoconfig bit.
Anyway, after statically configuring DNS servers, things were very smooth. Google et al worked, I could access entire IPv4 web via sixxs.org (just go http://slashdot.org.sixxs.org/ to access Slashdot via IPv6), I could SSH to my home servers...only things that seemed a bit odd were failing reverse DNSes on some hops when running traceroute. Jabber worked, IRC worked.
Great experience and experiment.
'Apart from -- obviously -- IPv6-related sites; they ranged from "the largest Gregorian music collection in Internet" to "hardcore torrents."'
Once you can get porn on the medium, you know it is a winner.
Finding things in IPv6 Cyberspace...
"So what's the Gregorian music website?"
It's the little azure ball to the south of the stepped scarlet pyramid of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority burning beyond the green cubes of Mitsubishi Bank of America.
I highly recommend using an Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7 computer deck.
Stay away from Sense/Net if you're a n00b, or you're likely to get iced.
-- Terry
Did anyone happen to notice which site was the collection of Gregorian music? It wasn't readily obvious from the list of sites visited provided.
my $coat->get();
oh, so they turned it off. No chaos, no destruction, just ho hum... wait a second, did you say HARDCORE TORRENTS?!? MAN, I never see that on IPv4!
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
The trouble with ipv6 is that ipv4 works so well for 90% of the population (in the same manner that 76% of statistics are made up on the spot) that nobody who doesn't really care about this won't put in an effort to make the switch. It looks like going 100% ipv6 is quite a few years off, foo.
I _really_ fail to understand the rationale for DHCPv6.
IPv6 was designed o that stateless autoconfig resulted in routable addresses.
Combine that with ZEROCONF, and you can discover everything that a DCHP server is going to be able to tell you, and more.
The only technical rationale I've ever heard is for reverse DNS, to prevent someone getting on the local net without authorization and relaying through your SMTP server, but that requires that you configure your DHCP server to only serve to "trusted" MAC addresses. It's also totally useless with DNSUPDAT, since anyone who gets an address can update the reverse in their home domain, and relay out that instead (which is more secure anyway).
So the only rationale I see is controlling access to network dialtone (a business rationale, based on the business model of selling packets rather than selling pipes - a model I happen to disagree with allowing to continue to exist).
So whose idea was it to turn on DHCPv6?
-- Terry
I assume "hardcore" refers to the technical robustness of the torrent server and the dedication of the person running it and is not meant to describe the content.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Sixxs.net lists some IPv6 web sites in its Wiki:
http://www.sixxs.net/wiki/Category:IPv6-specific_content
and there is also some other 'Cool IPv6 stuff' listed on the Sixxs web site:
http://www.sixxs.net/misc/coolstuff/
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I did, though I expected it to work since I have had IPv6 access for awhile now. I just didn't know that Google had an IPv6 site. Google's homage to the dancing Kame is pretty nice.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
Someone should fix that and the traffic would have gone back up to normal load :-)
Here is my list of sites that I was able to reach using native IPv6
using IE worked:
ipv6.google.com
www.ripe.net
www.apnic.net
www.stupi.net
www.arin.net
www.icann.org
www.nlnetlabs.nl
Failed foillowing sites did not work
www.cisco.net/com
www.microsoft.com
www.speakeasy.net
slashdot.org
news.bbc.co.uk
www.mbl.is
www.cnn.com
www.comcast.com/net
news.com.com
www.ibm.com
slashdot was missing,too, and unlike google it still is.
dp@phoenix:~/Desktop$ ping6 ipv6.google.com
PING ipv6.google.com(2001:4860:0:1001::68) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 2001:4860:0:1001::68: icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=221 ms
64 bytes from 2001:4860:0:1001::68: icmp_seq=2 ttl=53 time=214 ms
64 bytes from 2001:4860:0:1001::68: icmp_seq=3 ttl=53 time=221 ms
--- ipv6.google.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2026ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 214.969/219.185/221.367/3.006 ms
dp@phoenix:~/Desktop$ ping6 ipv6.slashdot,org
unknown host
dig ipv6.google.com AAAA
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 7, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ipv6.google.com. IN AAAA
;; ANSWER SECTION:
ipv6.google.com. 10455 IN CNAME ipv6.l.google.com.
ipv6.l.google.com. 5 IN AAAA 2001:4860:0:1001::68
ipv6.l.google.com. 5 IN AAAA 2001:4860:0:2001::68
dig slashdot.org AAAA
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
Presumably, IPv6 will itself eventually be replaced by something better.
Ok,so IPv6 works and is usable. Now what? None of the major web properties are yet on IPv6, nor are any of the major carrier networks that the users are connected to. The problem is that there is not yet any business case for anyone to be the first to migrate. It generates no revenue. Until there is an actual motive to move to IPv6, it's only interesting to geeks.
... it will really be a bad scene.
Hopefully, when the supply of IPv4 addresses runs out (in a little over two years), there will be a Chinese fire drill for everyone to migrate to IPv6 quickly. If this does not happen, things will get ugly. Address space will be bought and sold on the black market, ugly hacks will go into place to conserve space
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
With blackjack, and hookers!
The first reaction of the Mac/OS X guy was to start whining about the protocol when it was lack of functionality in his OS. Typical.
What I really want to know is, how many of the people who had computers at that conference were users who had no clue what IPv6 even was, much less how to configure their computer to use it.
It's one thing to say IPv6 is ready because a conference filled with engineers could download their pron with IPv4 turned off. It's entirely another thing to say that IPv6 is ready because it works without my mother even knowing the difference.
...From the article(or is that most disturbing?)
" forcing the IETF to proverbially eat its own dog food "
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone gets IPv6 working without any glitches, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Recently, I turned off IPv6 on all my FreeBSD servers. NOBODY NOTICED!
Everything continued to work much like it did before, except the kernels were slightly smaller, and the output of certain commands was less confusing.
Amazing, eh?
Actually, I've been doing this for years. I'm not going to even think about IPv6 until popular sites are completely, 100%, inaccessible from IPv4. Because until then, I know IPv4 will work just fine. I suspect anyone else who has half a brain is doing the same thing.
But hey, whatever the IETF folks do for fun at their par-tays is their business.
first it will be available on windows for geeks then it will be available for windows as a standard option then, they will make it default for new instalations, or turn it on by default in a service pack. panic will start, as morons everywhere find out that their internets don't work roughly 3 months later, the smart morons will have switched ipv6 off and ipv4 back on so they can continue working but eventually ms will "depreciate" support for ipv4 (by this time, the ISP portion of the net will have to be done updating it's stuff too) then and only then, will people move to ipv6 why isn't there a business case for anyone to move to ipv6? cuz microsoft hasn't made it "standard" yet, businesses can still reach their customers so they don't give a shit. incidentally, i don't give a shit, or want ipv6 either. i'll resist as long as i can. why? i LIKE ipV4. it WORKS. i'm sure it's a pain for all you server ops, but for me, having one, two, or ten computers hooked up through NAT is not so bad, at least i know how to work with it. they say ipv6 is more secure.. to be honest, i don't understand the technical details, but something tells me complexity!=security. also, that it's clear to see that not all the settings will be available to the average user. (ie one that doesn't open his settings dialog till things stop working) love it or hate it, it's the truth, and why the hell shouldn't it be?
(When it comes to Linux support for protocols, it's a popular platform for early developers, but maintenance can be an issue. enSKIP and SGI's STP code are abandonware, the real-time network driver for RTAI is infrequently updated, and the GAMMA Active Messages driver is seriously stalled in a number of areas. Many updates to Web100 have just been kernel increment updates, not bugfixes or added features. I don't recall seeing any support for VIA - which is fair enough, given it's dead - or iWarp. Linux' QoS supports RED, but neglected BLUE, GREEN, BLACK, WHITE and PURPLE the last time I looked.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Is there a list somewhere with sites that were and were not available using IPv6?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
"Hardcore torrents"? Probably a pee fetish site.
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
IPv6 has around 10^23 addresses per square meter of Earth. The only reason I can think of that we would want to replace it would be if we found a superior replacement for the entire concept of packet switching.
It won't be replaced for the same reason as ipv4, though.
It will be replaced by IPv4/NATv2. Until we start he first interplanetary network, which will require an entirely new approach - IPv4 with hierarchical NATv2.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
went to http://www.ipv6.org/ and it said that I had an IPv6 address, did a $ping6 2001:4860:0:2001::68 (thats ipv6.google.com) and got replies.
anyone else on comcast seeing this??
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
Well, you're right, I know the manufacturer's would love to sell you new routers. But I've often wondered why there is no market for 'premium firmware upgrades'. That is, let's say I've got a Linksys home router. The hardware is perfectly capable of handling IPv6 - if the firmware just supported it. Yes, I could upgrade to OpenWrt or some other 3rd-party firmware (I think I might, soon, because I've been having on-going issues that I think might be un-fixed bugs in the official firmware), potentially, but I don't see a lot of people ever doing that (voiding your warranty and risking 'bricking' your unit is pretty scary to most people).
Now, if I were Cisco/Linksys (I think Cisco bought Linksys awhile back, no?), I *think* I'd rather sell people a $15 firmware update which gives them cool new features, and which requires me to manufacture 0 new hardware (so the marginal profit is *extremely high*), than to sell them a $40-$60 piece of hardware which requires me to also pay for manufacturing, shipping, and give the retail outlets who are selling it a fat margin (so that, I bet, Cisco only gets $20-30 anyhow, with the rest going to Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's, TigerDirect, etc).
But, maybe there's more margin in hardware than I realize. Granted, they have to sell hardware anyhow (e.g. for new users who don't have their hardware to begin with), but why not sell existing customers the new firmware without requiring new hardware? I suppose it comes down to there is no established precedent for people paying for firmware. . . they expect it to be free, so the market might not, at least initially, embrace buying firmware upgrades. There are also the technical support issues of having to deal with routers that got bricked because the power went out while the upgrade was in progress or something. But if the router was designed well to begin with, it should be fairly resistant to bricking during the upgrade process.
Still. . . with a marginal cost close to 0 for the 'product', and fewer other people in the chain to split the profits with (they might have to still pay some per-unit fees, like licenses if they use a proprietary 3rd-party embedded OS), it would seem like this could be a reasonably lucrative business model.
Don't you need a public routable ipv6 address to access these sites?
A lot of people think they need their ISP's help to get IPv6 connectivity. That's not the case. If you're running Windows Vista, or if you use an Apple Airport router, you should get connectivity to the IPv6 Internet out of the box. If you're running Linux, I've writtent a short HOWTO about IPv6 under Linux.
Something I've noticed in recent months (about 6 of them) is that the quality of internet searches has decreased significantly (specifically through google). It's more difficult and time consuming to find what you want due to the large number of commercial/marketing sites out there. Great if you're looking to find a product to buy, but good luck if you want to find information or general resources.
This would be neat: if education and geek-related sites were to transition to IPv6 first (and this includes google w/ an ipv6-only search), to allow us to have our precious resources again. No, I realize it won't happen, but it's a dream. But, maybe we could have seperate namespaces (given the size of ipv6) for sites with different content types. One segment for each of commercial/commerce (ie if you're trying to sell something), community (myspace, digg, universities, etc.), one for other corporate (cnn, fox, microsoft, ibm, kellogg, etc. - including publicly available private resources, if they have any).
Even if it's just a crude segmentation, I think it'd be greatly beneficial in finding useful information online. A root level index service of sorts, to allow for better crawling and indexing at a higher level, if you will.
Then again, it might not even be possible, what with the proliferation of hosting services (like godaddy).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers