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Comcast Plans IPv6 Trials In 2010
Mortimer.CA writes "In a weblog posting, Jason Livingood, Executive Director of Comcast's Internet Systems has stated that they're beginning public trials of IPv6; Comcast hopes 'that these trials will encourage other stakeholders to make plans to continue, or to begin, work on IPv6 in 2010 so that all stakeholders do their part in ensuring the future of the Internet is as bright and innovative as it has been in the past.' Interested guinea pigs can volunteer at Comcast6.net (FAQ). Those who have IPv6 connectivity via other means can check out their IPv6-only web presence."
I have no ipv6 at this location and it loads just fine here, not exactly 'ipv6 only' like the Dancing Kame ...
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Pinging ipv6.comcast.net [68.87.64.59]
woops.
I can see it on my ipv6 connection, it's on 2001:558:1002:5:68:87:64:59 and seems to work :)
For those on the UK wanting an ADSL ISP with ipv6 support I recommend Andrews & Arnold (http://www.aaisp.net.uk/) who have been doing this for years now and provide native or tunneled ipv6 and full ipv6 static addresses to their customers on request.
Just a happy customer of theirs :)
ipv6.google.com is IPv6 only, and if you can reach it, you are IPv6 enabled.
We actually used this for the IPv6 test in Netalyzr as the basis of the IPv6 connectivity test. Our servers don't have IPv6, but we have a small amount of javascript on the analysis page that tries to fetch the logo from IPv6.google.com and reports success or failure back to the server.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Its pretty hard to stop someone from using a NAT. Comcast can't really tell the difference between a NAT and a single machine without deep packet inspection.
At which point you just sue them for invasion of privacy, not that you'll get anywhere but its a neat idea.
The other side to that is that your IPv6 router can deal with helping IPv4 devices communicate over the IPv6 backbone as long as the backbone does the proper bridging (according to the protocol) back to IPv4, which they'd surely have to if they don't intend to break of the Internet and become their own useless island.
In short, some very smart people already thought of that problem when designing the system.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Its pretty hard to stop someone from using a NAT. Comcast can't really tell the difference between a NAT and a single machine without deep packet inspection.
I am pretty sure there is no difference between a "normal" and NAT packet once it leaves the router. It doesn't matter how much Comcast examines it.
But there is. For one thing the TTL will be one lower than "usual". You can hide that, but there are lots of other ways to detect it.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
If Comcast actually does what they're saying on the tin, maybe the other ISPs will follow suit.
This just might be a good thing.
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.
But there is. For one thing the TTL will be one lower than "usual". You can hide that, but there are lots of other ways to detect it.
The TTL will be decremented because the packet passes through a router which is performing the NAT (Linksys, Netgear, whatever). By blocking hosts based upon TTL inspection wouldn't they would preclude anyone using a home router, or more importantly, having wireless access?
You got trapped by OpenDNS. OpenDNS is VERY agressive at wildcarding network failures:
132.219.67.208.in-addr.arpa. 18794 IN PTR hit-nxdomain.opendns.com.
So even though there is a valid name for ipv6.google.com (the Google DNS servers return a valid reply with a 0-size answer for an A query, and the whole data for an AAA query), OpenDNS instead goes "hey, lets wildcard it and return our server!"
This behavior is why I'm NOT a fan of OpenDNS.
Test your net with Netalyzr
I'm impressed that Comcast is talking about it trials publicly and engaging customers. Many service providers run stuff in private, don't tell their guinea pigs, I mean customers that they experiment on, and then just select whatever seemed convent for the service provider. Engaging people in a trials like this, seems win/win for the customers and service providers.
This is a good thing, but lets not forget how Comcast continually raped their customers and fought for a closed internet. I urge you not to give them too much credit. If nothing else it is nice to know that they are perhaps not *pure* evil.
They get to be left behind, duh. IPv4 isn't going away anytime soon. IPv6 is getting deployed. Its not going to stop.
I guess it means most companies (aka dlink, linksys, etc) have to get off their ass and add support to their routers since most home routers don't support ipv6.
Except for a few research networks, all V6 traffic runs through the same 'tubes' as V4.
So all else being equal, V6 data rates should be no different than V4.
But all is not equal.
V6 has several refinements over V4, which tend to enhance throughput.
Your ISP can easily protect you from IPv6 by giving you a NAT router, or you can get one yourself. As IPv6 gets rolled out, I expect more and more IPV6 to IPv4 NAT routers will become popular.
You ask for www.google.com, your computer does an IPv4 lookup to the router, the router translates that to an IPv6 lookup, caches the IPv6 address, and returns a valid-looking IPv4 address to your computer. When you ask for that IPv4 address, the router knows what IPv6 address it has associated with it and handles the heavy lifting for you. Just like regular NAT, except there's a protocol change too (which is pretty trivial).
Although, to be fair, you can actually load an IPv6 stack on Microsoft operating systems as far back as Windows 98 (DOS kernel) or Windows 2000 (NT kernel) and you may even be able to go further back than that. If you are concerned about IPv6 support on older operating systems than that, you'll have to opt for the router solution.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
For what it's worth, I signed up for the trial. Despite the level-1 tech support's crappiness, and the relative overpricing of their services, Comcast's network department does a pretty good on the backend. Our area has gone from 3mbps to 16mbps (with a 50mbps tier available) in 8 years, and has already completed the analog reclamation process in our area. Good on them for getting a head start on IPv6.
I presume they are going to want to do end-to-end IPv6 eventually, instead of assigning a single IPv6 address to my modem, and then continuing to use IPv4 NAT behind it. However, if they are going to do that, several things are going to have to change:
1. Router default settings will have to change. Out of the box, most home routers use NAT by default, and, since most people don't change the settings (based on the number of 2WIRE### SSID's broadcast to my house), they'll have to redo them for IPv6.
2. Auto discovery services will have to get better. I can say, categorically, that OS X is better than Windows and Linux at automatically finding nearby machines and devices that do not have a static IP/DNS A record assigned to them. The other 2 OSes will have to catch up, because, while a quartet of triplets is annoying but manageable to type, an IPv6 address will be a bear to copy down.
3. A debate between static and dynamic IP addresses will have to take place. Ideally, a device would get a static IPv6 address assigned to it and keep it forever, no matter where it roamed and went. It'd be akin to a routable MAC address. However, if we do that, we'll run out of IPv6 addresses more quickly (though still not fast), since things like phones get recycled fairly frequently. But there are several obvious downsides to continuing to use totally dynamic IPs.
Finally, as an aside, it's interesting to me, at least, how Apple Airport Base Stations do IPv6 routing automatically via a tunnel provider (as another commenter noted). Comcast doesn't support any IPv6, but when I'm connected to my router at home I get full IPv6 support transparently. Apple doesn't even mention this as a feature on the box, and it's not highly configurable either. So why did they spend all the effort to get it that way? Are they trying to stay so far ahead of the IPv6 curve no one will ever complain they're behind?
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
The idea is to keep it simple, assign a standard network size that's big enough for just about anyone and assign the same size network to everyone instead of messing around with the IPv4-style "You get _one_ IP, you over there get a /28, and that guy in the corner gets a /24, Joe was an early adopter so he's got a /16 and Steve over there had some good arguments for why he should get a /20, and lucky Dan over there has a /8..." mess.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4