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World's Smallest IPv6 Stack By Cisco, Atmel, SICS
B Rog writes "Cisco, Atmel, and the Swedish Institute of Computer Science have released uIPv6, the world's smallest IPv6 compliant IPv6 stack, as open source for the Contiki embedded operating system. The intent is to bring IP addresses to the masses by giving devices such as thermometers or lightbulbs an IPv6 stack. With a code size of 11 kilobytes and a dynamic memory usage of less than 2 kilobytes (yes, kilobytes!), it certainly fits the bill of the ultra-low-power microcontrollers typically used in such devices. When every lightbulb has an IP address, the vast address range of IPv6 sounds like a pretty good idea."
With a code size of 11 kilobytes and a dynamic memory usage of less than 2 kilobytes (yes, kilobytes!), it certainly fits the bill of the ultra-low-power microcontrollers typically used in such devices.
With my IPv6-enabled Commodore 64, I'm ready to surf both IPv6 websites.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
vibrators with ipv6 addresses
Why would anyone want to have a light bulb with a data connection? Oh the switch to the bathroom? Go to the computer, click file --> power --> lights -->bathroom. Select lights 1, 2, & 3. Click enable, then confirm. Got that?
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At least on Slashdot, it would be nice if posters specified the OSI approved license as it tends to be import for different types of software.
The FAQ says it uses the 3-clause BSD license.
I personnaly like stuff like this to be BSD, while applications are GPL
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
So does this mean that the government will now be able to control how many lights I can have on and when?
I assume this wouldn't easily integrate with Linux's current networking setup?
Not everything needs an IP address. That's just silly.
There is still the rather big issue of security. I don't think it has been addressed to anyone's satisfaction yet. Certainly not mine.
Right now the worst somebody could do is take out my computer. I could deal with that, given enough time and resources. However, dealing with the loss of my computer requires "light" and "coffee". You take that away from me and I am really screwed. Without my computer I am bereft of all the wonderful porn on the internet. Of course, I have a backup plan that involves a rather large library of tapes and magazines. Once again, I still need light!
Put IP addresses in light bulbs and other appliances and you risk a natural disaster creating a large population of pissed off men in the dark unable to "relieve their stress".
How's that for a "Ripple of Evil"?
Making the IP stack smaller will not allow low power devices to harness the power of the Internet because while it lowers the bar for technically interacting on the Internet we can't do so safely with a device that can't also implement sane security.
If a light fixture can't execute a secure authentication mechanism to determine whether it really should be turned off/on then it really shouldn't be taking those controls (or reporting its status) to IP queries. These requirements are already beyond the resources needed for less optimized IPv6 implementations this brings us back to Amdahl's law doesn't it... Don't optimize blindly.
This would be freaking awesome, if I could afford an ethernet card, ram card, and transwarp GS for my IIGS. But hey, it plays Ultima, so I'm not complaining.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Your are both wrong. The Atari 1200XL is the one to beat, with a RANA disk drive with its motor covered in aluminum foil!
This is my sig.
"When every lightbulb has an IP address, the vast address range of IPv6 sounds like a pretty good idea."
Sigh. It would be nice of the know-nothings who keep mocking IPv6 for its 128-bit address space would read RFC 4941, and take the time to comprehend what it means, before spouting off.
jhw
With a code size of 11 kilobytes and a dynamic memory usage of less than 2 kilobytes (yes, kilobytes!)
I'm left wondering whether the submitter thinks this is impressively small or impressively large. Perhaps I'm getting old, but to me 11 kilobytes seems rather large. I might be impressed by someone squeezing a stack into, say, 301 bytes, but surely you can implement *anything* in 11 kilobytes.
your lightbulb will spam you with really short emails
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Does the IPv6 standard compel redundancy, or merely permit it?
So now we have to worry about securing our lamps? Great, just what the world needed.
At the same time however, should be interesting about the time the hackers get into DoL attacks.
I'd be totally interested in a web-accessible (and controllable) vacuum however.
Microsoft - The best ad campaign Apple ever had.
...is what we need to replace X10: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.10
That, and some way to secure this stuff. Wouldn't want the neighbors to turn on our sauna while I'm at the summer cottage now would I?
.: Max Romantschuk
I'd be happier if every ACORN-registered "voter" had a unique IP address. That way when they vote in more than one state or precinct simultaneously, we'll get an IP address conflict message. Once resolved, we can use that same IP address to track their federal court docket, and even their newly laundered prison jumpsuit. Unless, of course, the result is fresh new justice department that doesn't feel obligated to follow up on pizza delivery guys that registered 70+ times.
Before anyone says so, no, I don't think pizza guy is going to try to vote 70 times. The strategy is to overwhelm the registration offices, and provide opportunities for lawyers to get more and more tangled up in each piece of the election process and in the wake of the election, should it be close. It's a DOS attack on the registration system, plain and simple. And ACORN is spoofing the traffic, on purpose.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
> memory usage of less than 2 kilobytes
Not with some nicely fragmented traffic, it's not. :)
3.243F6A8885A308D313
I wonder how long it'll take for "everything" "human made" to be assigned an IP address? I don't see why my socks or undies need an IP address, but sooner or later...
I'm waiting for RFID or something similar to get going widespread and for our houses to do an inventory of all the crap that we bring into them.
I wonder how long it'll take to combine IPv6 with RFID and these types of devices and say a 1/2 GB of storage for less than $.001
Will my bottle of equate pain reliever with 100 caplets have it's own IP address and the default value of 100 and maybe a date/time stamp of every time the lid will be removed? Will the lid ever show how many remaining tablets are in the bottle?
Will my pens each have their own IP address? What do I need an IP addressable pen for anyway? An RFID pen I could somewhat see so I could find the thing, but what info would I need to retrieve about a pen? This goes for most kitchen appliances as well.
> Go to the computer, click file ..
Now imagine that this computer is a size of a card deck, with a touchscreen. And it understands which area of the house it is in. And it automatically shows you all actionable elements in the interior - lights, fireplace, shades, speakers, etc. And it has an IR transmitter, so it also acts as a TV remote. And it has a WiFi, so it is hooked up to all networked devices in the house such as DVR and media box. And it run a SIP client that is hooked up to a landline. And a module for the cell calls. That would've been pretty sweet, wouldn't it ?
3.243F6A8885A308D313
When every lightbulb has an IP address, the vast address range of IPv6 sounds like a pretty good idea.
Right, because I want to communicate with every lightbulb in my home, and so does everyone across the globe.
Or, and I'm just spitballing here, we COULD just leave them off the grid, as, you know, LIGHTBULBS and quit connecting things together just because we can...
FYI There is a youtube demo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjztYx_F2Ko
Laugh if you will, but a light bulb with an IP address would be a good idea for an environment which has thousands and thousands of them. Any industrial plant, stadium, etc., would probably benefit from being able to generate a report based on pinging each bulb to see which responded and which didn't, and to change the ones that didn't.
One place I think this could really be useful is an airport...think of all those lights everywhere, scattered about the runways and taxiways.
I wonder if all the other IPv6 laugh at this one for being so small.
IPV6 is great because everybody's brain implant can have an IP address and skynet can broadcast a shutdown code to humans to avert the messiness of a human-cyborg war. I want to sftp to my refrigerator to see what is in there so I don't have to get up and check.
im in ur lightbulbs, hacking ur ipz.
Until it gets lost. Then I'm stuck in a cold, dark house, the TV is stuck on the weather channel, and I can't call for help. If the sucker also controls door locks, the stove, and the fridge, I'm as good as dead.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I hear that the first version of Duke Nukem Forever was written for CTOS and that Elvis, Roy and George are basing the next AmigaOS on its source code. Jesus is not available for comment.
Stick Men
i said that your zombie bot lightbulb would spam you
not flirt with you on twitter ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Someone skilled in photoshop please show me a lightbulb or socket with an ethernet port
a man drowned today in his sinking boat, but not before he had his laptop reprogram a lightbulb in his house to blink SOS in morse code to get attention. his wife and children, who did not know morse code, simply tried changing the lightbulb 2 times, not understanding the bulb wasn't faulty. the man took his last breath reading his last email message: "honey, you need to fix the lightbulb in the study"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So your standard $50 DVD player can dim the lights in your living room when a movie starts?
That's just one example of hundreds of little features that become trivial when everything in your house (not just bulbs) has a data connection.
Will I have to read a 200 page EULA before accessing the online functionality of the DVD player? Will the lights be held hostage when Sony ships a DVD or Blu-ray player with a root kit?
You don't have fragments in IPv6. You get a too big packet and have to send smaller packets.
The world will self-destruct due to the stupidity.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
While the idea of having my lights on IPv6 is kinda cool (I have IPv6 at home already), I'd be worried about security. There isn't a lot of experience with IPv6 access control out there yet, especially for tiny devices. I'm really not interested in having random users surfing my electrical appliances. Even for larger devices, would you want your iPod accessible on the Internet? I think there are more problems to solve before a totally connected world can happen.
That's cool. Now WalMart can sell us DRM enabled light bulbs. Suddenly you don't buy the light bulb, but a light license. And if the DRM server goes down, half of the country goes down.
Ok I know we are not necessarily talking about light bulbs but we are talking intelligent appliances, each with their own address so they can be connected to the big wide world.
The thing is that even a dumb NAT makes a simple firewall ensuring that items behind it must deliberately expose themselves to the Internet. Is a device with a 12K internet implementation even going to have any kind of security implemented so that only I can switch my lights on?
I really like the idea of home devices that can communicate, so that turning the tv on can dim the lights, or have the telephone mute the hifi, etc. I wouldn't even mind being able to get the heating on early as I'm returning unexpectedly but in reality, what I would look for are home automation controllers that can implement some decent security so that they know it is really me turning the oven on early for that pot roast not some mischief maker the other side of the world.
See my journal, I write things there
he had a short IPv6 stack too, but he knew how to use it ;)
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
Having an IPv6 stack does NOT incur a device with connectivity anymore then having an IPv4, nothing is specifiying how it is I am supposed to provide network access to every lightbulb here, are they going to come with teeny tiny G3 cards?
Why not use a DNA sequence rather than an IPv6 address? How many bits are there in a DNA Sequence. It seems to be encodeable in a very small space smaller than cells. It also give more important information than just subnet or vendor information.
Compliance only requires reassembling fragments two packets long. It can do this. The memory usage (assuming it's designed like uIP - I've not looked in detail) is statically configured at compile time, so if you want longer packet reassembly then you need to tweak it, but if you're running on a 6502 with 64KB of RAM you probably don't want to.
This is a really great development (and Adam Dunkels is a supreme hacker). Sensor networks and other low power applications, where you might have a few hundred devices in a house, really benefit from IPv6, but previously couldn't implement it without dramatically driving up the CPU and RAM requirements a lot.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
In your hypethetical fantasy TVs still use IR remotes whilst lightbulbs get IP addresses? Not that I'm saying its impossible - but if I've gone to all the expense of setting up a network for frickin lightbulbs, DVR's and media boxes to use I'd probably already have a TV with a WiFi interface!
I can't believe the authors of this IPv6 stack are bragging "Mine is smaller than yours!" Whatever happened to macho pride?
Any idiot could think of light bulbs. I, for one, will not be satisfied until each byte of RAM in my computer has its own IP address. While we're at it, let's give each byte of my hard drive its own address.
Reminds me of one of the stories in I, Robot (no, not the movie), in which the protagonist decides to overcoming the uncanny valley with the robots she manufactured by making robotic wildlife ubiquitous. People get used to robots being a part of life, so that then when they later see a human robot they are not put off.
Its gives us an improvement in an area we are comfortable with change, to cause us to accept wider changes.
Will the ISP give you more then 1 ip or will it be $5 per ip after the first one?
Why would anyone want to have a light bulb with a data connection?
So you can be taxed if you are using more than your fair share of energy, or are causing too much global warming, of course.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
They're more interested in slapping WiFi chips on insects and tapping into their optic nerves for the betterment of the panopticon.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I think it would probably be implemented using RFID chips; what the OP was suggesting (I think) is that the RFID tokens (or barcodes, or whatever) use the IPV6 namespace to ensure uniqueness.
Rather than having a separate coordinating authority to hand out blocks of "RFID Numbers", companies would just get a large IPV6 block, and then give a block to each product line, and then to each plant or assembly line, and then give one name to each item as it's produced. They would be guaranteed to be unique IDs and they would have meaning (someone could perform a reverse lookup and get the manufacturer, at least). It avoids having to have a separate, essentially duplicate apparatus, just to manage the separate namespace.
MAC addresses are used this way on some networking gear right now. They have the address printed right on the outside of the box, in bar-code form, next to the model number (and sometimes next to an arbitrary serial number, which is redundant).
In general I think URNs ("urn:bigco.com/model/factorycode/year/dayofyear/serialno") make better unique identifiers than IPv6 addresses would, and remove a layer of abstraction that doesn't need to exist, but the idea is still plausible, I suppose.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Why would your TV be using wireless? Wouldn't it be smarter to have it connected to a wired network (smaller risk of interference) and then your "remote" connects to a WAP and controls the TV over the network, sort of how you can currently do with iTunes and an iPhone with the Remote app?
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Sounds like you already live in a cave.
Will the ISP give you more then 1 ip or will it be $5 per ip after the first one?
Yeah, no shit. My ISP wants five bucks a month for a second IP (not even static, just "persistent", bah.) But still, IPv6 is going to eliminate any real thoughts of artificial scarcity.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
My wife does that on a regular basis without the Internet.
It won't work on my Arduino, it's only got 1k RAM.
http://www.arduino.cc/
There is technology like this already, called digitalSTROM. It works over existing wiring, sortof like ethernet over powerlines, just a lot slower of course since only simple commands need to be transmitted.
:)
They also seem to have integration with multimedia in mind since microcontroller "LEGO" bricks for retrofitting existing equipment have a separate colour for music (green).
I couldn't find a description on wikipedia, but this youtube video is quite interesting: digitalSTROM TV compact intro english version.
This is from Switzerland, but I bet the Japanese have something like this as well but just don't want to share it
Sounds like insanity to me.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Poor man's version of this is to use a USB IR transmitter. You basically position it in front of TV's IR sensor and connect to the computer with a very long USB cable (typically provided). The only issue is that some remotes use custom IR frequencies that are not supported by readily available transmitters.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
I know a guy who coded a smaller IPv6 stack. It runs on TinyOS and requires 4 KB RAM in total together with the OS. That was an year ago. Check this out: http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/mharvan/research.html
I just don't think this is good.
- My microwave oven gets spam? I want my microwave oven ordering sushi? Or cooking the platter for 99 minutes while I'm at work?
- My patio lights get crank calls in the night, flashign on and off? Me, I can sleep, but my neighbors are morons. So are their cats.
- I want my light switches to obey anyone else? Well, maybe my wife. But she doesn't need a web interface to shut the light off in the cellar.
I just forsee botnets sending their dutiful soldiers commands to try everything. If there is any justice in the world, they will also shut off the power to the damned computer too. And lose my iTunes folder in the process.
Nothing good can come of this. You heard it here...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Sounds great, until some idiotic company gets ahold of the idea, butchers the standards, and you're left wondering why you dropped the coin for this piece of junk while you get up to flip the light switch.
There are actually several implementations of IPv6 for very low power, embedded devices. Arch Rock (www.archrock.com) has developed a commercial implementation. At Berkeley, we've developed open-source hardware (http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~prabal/projects/epic/) and software (ttp://smote.cs.berkeley.edu:8000/tracenv/wiki/b6loWPAN) for low power IPv6 networking. Both the Arch Rock and Berkeley stacks support robust multi-hop IPv6 routing to support a large number of devices.
RFID makes far more sense for this.
As far as the lightbulbs go, I guess I need to go install the dhcp server on my AC breaker panel...
This is about the same size as one of the original TCP/IP stacks on the Internet, on the ITS operating system (advanced timesharing) on the PDP-10 (small mainframe) back in 1982.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
to change a lightbulb? None, actually:
:)
L = getLightbulb(ipv6address);
L.change();
There - found the real use for IPv6
And - you can do it from anywhere in the world... hmm...
So everything would have an ip address except tvs?
And because it's all globally identifiable with unique addresses there is no problem for the refrigerator company to turn off your fridge when u miss the payment or he warranty lapses, the media companies to track EXACTLY what you watch and when via your dvr - and to disable THAT because they don't like you watching this movie that seems to have no unique identifier and therefore must have been "pirated," and because it's all wifi and operates in the whitespace bands it can connect to the net from pretty much any location in the EU or the US meaning your "right to ownership" of virtually everything has just been revoked.
enough to implement any program given as input. It appears to not be running to conclusion on part of the test set. I think I'll just wait around until it halts.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Why does it need IR port ? Doesn't the TV have an IPv6 address?
There is still a active commodore 64 web server using contiki v2 online 24/7 www.c64web.com
Don't know if he will appreciate me posting the web address.
I have been looking at IPv6 every now and then since 1999, to keep up and be prepared for when I actually need it.
I even looked into migrating my home-network to IPv6 just to see how it worked. Never did though.
Almost every computer today has IPv6 installed and activated, but never used.
Who uses it?
Does anybody know a network where it is used?
There's a lot of talk about China, but the servers I have configured there used IPv4 only.
And if address space is the main driving factor, why not just expand that part of IPv4 and be done with it?
You don't need an IR transmitter when you're tv has IP and your pocket computer has wifi.
Which TV between those available or announced does have a networking support ?