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World's Smallest IPv6 Stack By Cisco, Atmel, SICS

Posted by timothy on from the is-beautiful dept.

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."

6 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Sweet by mypalmike · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Sweet by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 5, Funny
      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.

  2. The IP stack isn't the limiting factor by John.P.Jones · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Lightbulb on the internet? by Splab · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  4. Re:Lightbulb on the internet? by Zerth · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  5. Re:Lightbulb on the internet? by Anpheus · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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."