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."

Comments

Sweet

[mypalmike]

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.

Re:Sweet

[fm6]

And in fact, the Wikipedia page for Contiki links to a web server running on a C64! Shall we see if we can Slashdot it?

Whenever I trash MS-DOS 1.0 on Slashdot, I get a contradictions ("arguments" presumes too much actual knowledge) from people who insist that it's the best OS that could have been implemented on the hardware available in 1981. The counterexamples I usually answer are things like CP/M (the leader before commodity PCs took over), QNX (now sold as an embedded OS, but originally meant as a desktop system), and CTOS (utterly dead now, but my favorite at one time) that all had more power and lower hardware requirements. These examples go right by people because they've never heard of these OSs. (Except maybe CP/M, and then they assume that it's the same level as MS-DOS 1.0, because 1.0 was based on QDOS, and QDOS pretended to be a CP/M clone.) I'm very pleased to learn about Contiki, even though I'll probably never work with it, since it's a prime example that you can even do high-powered OSs with GUIs on 80s-era hardware.

Re:Sweet

[NoOneInParticular]

Well, even then we might be hard pressed to exhaust the space. Remember: 2^128 ~ 10^38. With 10^49 atoms on earth, if we convert the entire earth mass into ipv6 stacks, we would need stacks using less than 10^11 atoms to actually exhaust the address space. 10^11 atoms is pretty small, e.g., taking silocon at 28 grams/mole, this will roughly translate to 10^-11 grams of chip per ipv6 stack. That's a very small chip, and no earth left to move around on.

Though I really like your take on multi-threading.

Lightbulb on the internet?

[snowraver1]

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?

Re:Lightbulb on the internet?

[Shados]

IP Addresses on everything is useful so you can ping the chocolate cake you made to see if your significant other stole it.

Re:Lightbulb on the internet?

[stoanhart]

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.

Re:Lightbulb on the internet?

[snowraver1]

Yes, a lightbulb conroller. Lets keep the lingo with the networking world and call it a "switch". We could give it a nice simple human interface and place it on the wall, about chest height. Perhaps one per room. Then all users would have to do is go to the light panel and "switch" on the light. I like where this is going.

Re:Lightbulb on the internet?

[Splab]

Gonna be real fun when the local script kiddie turns your house into a disco.

Re:Lightbulb on the internet?

[Zerth]

With IPv6, instead of using multiple ports at one address, she can use the same port at multiple addresses! It all depends on whether she likes to multiplex or be serially promiscuous.

Re:Lightbulb on the internet?

[Zerth]

About 1,000 ms from connect to 220

Although she gave me a 452 when I pulled my DATA from its envelope, she was 354 soon enough and after about 570,000 ms she 250'd,

That might be why she's been giving you the 521 to you lately.

Re:Lightbulb on the internet?

[Anpheus]

"Could you turn up the volume"
"Sure thing"
"Ok, now can you turn off the lights please?"
"Yeah, no problem."
"Ok, now the volume is low again. Could you do both?"
"Uh..." *fiddles with remote control* *picks up laptop and opens a terminal and starts coding*
"I'm... I'm leaving you for someone who can watch a movie without opening up vim. It's not you, it's... I'm just an emacs girl at heart."

Please specify OS licence

[pembo13]

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

Lightbulb?

[EdIII]

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"?

Re:Lightbulb?

[cavtroop]

How about more nefarious things, like home heating/cooling systems. Power outlets that heart monitors are plugged into. Space heaters, electrical closets.

Kill the power to the fridge. Damn, there goes $400 worth of food. Turn on someones microwave while they are on vacation, and they come back to a $500 electric bill.

Not to mention the worry about botnets. Right now, they number in the millions. If every appliance can suddenly participate, it'll be billions.

No thanks, you can keep my appliances/lights/furnaces/toiletpaper off the net. Thanks, k, bye.

The IP stack isn't the limiting factor

[John.P.Jones]

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.

Which way is this impressive?

[johnw]

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.

Actually that's a pretty good idea

[wandazulu]

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.