Comcast Activates IPv6 Trial Users

Spacecase writes "Comcast announced the first group of trial users have been activated on their IPv6 Native Dual Stack solution. Considering the recent news about IPv4 addresses becoming scarce, this looks to be one of the better solutions to get out of the IPv4 problems."

Comments

NT

[wasabii]

It's actually the only solution.

Re:NT

[dgatwood]

NT... It's actually the only solution.

Did you leave out an "A" in the middle of that?

Re:NT

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Your assuming a false dichotomy between choosing dual stack IPv6 or choosing nothing at all.

Embedding IPv4 within the IPv6 address space and allowing for a smooth transition was another option. As a society, we have chosen not to take that option. We have chosen uncertainty, confusion, and NAT instead.

Re:NT

[XanC]

IPv4 is embedded in the IPv6 address space. What would you have done differently and how would that have made the transition smoother?

Re:NT

[elFarto the 2nd]

Specified the act of sending a packet to ::x.y.z.z to allow an IPv6 host to seamlessly communicate with an IPv4 host. Obviously they'd need to be a proxy in the middle doing the translation. Basically NAT64 or SIIT, but with a fixed address and specified early on.

Re:NT

[Phs2501]

Embedding IPv4 within the IPv6 address space and allowing for a smooth transition was another option. As a society, we have chosen not to take that option. We have chosen uncertainty, confusion, and NAT instead.

No, it wasn't; at least not without NAT (or otherwise modifying IPv4).

You can indeed embed IPv4 inside the IPv6 address space, and various techniques do that today (the ::ffff:0.0.0.0/96 socket API bridge and various NAT64 schemes being two obvious examples). But when an IPv4-only host receives a packet, it only receives 32 bits of source address. Something in the middle that is aware of IPv6 would need to keep some state to be able to reply to the full 128-bit IPv6 address. That's NAT64, and it exists. But it's definitely NAT.

Re:NT

[TheRaven64]

First: IPv4 is actually embedded in the IPv6 address space in a few places, for different tunnelling mechanisms, 6to4 being one of them. Secondly, how do you think that would avoid the need for dual-stack solutions? Even ignoring the fact that v6 and v4 packet headers are completely different, v4 hosts can't just talk to v6 hosts using magic. What do you expect an IPv4 client to do when it sees a server with an IPv6 address?

Re:NT

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still do that on your network if you want. There is nobody stopping you from setting up a 6to4 gateway on your network that translates to the ipv4 space from a prefixed ipv6 address. It should be easy to get an ipv6 allocation large enough to do that on a individial site to site basis, and still have plenty of address space for your other networked devices. The smallest bit of intelligence in your local DNS could translate A records where there is no AAAA to the prfixed ipv6 address as well. This is a non problem for those who know enough about the issue to care in the first place.

Re:NT

[tepples]

What do you expect an IPv4 client to do when it sees a server with an IPv6 address?

Not ask for AAAA records, for one thing.

Re:NT

[Chris Mattern]

But NT doesn't even support IPv6 unless you get the Trumpet IP stack for it...

But...

[MrEricSir]

...is it an enterprise-y solution?

Re:But...

[wasabii]

No clue what that means. I run it across my company. Including 6to4 on the internet heads.

Re:But...

[poetmatt]

enterprise has been doing IPv6 for years. what's your point?

Re:But...

[davester666]

You are still running Windows NT across your company?

why?

[novar21]

Sorry, at a loss. comcast should just keep ipv4 internal and proxy ipv6 externally. Don't understand the reason to complicate its implementation any more. Other than let us geeks suffer the consequences.

Re:why?

[wasabii]

The transition technologies are in place so that it can work.

Re:why?

[sirambrose]

They probably want customers to use native ipv6 so they can eventually stop supporting native ipv4. I believe they are planning to let people run ipv6 exclusively and proxy outbound ipv4 connections which seems like a better long term strategy. I don't think that giving customers a new modem and router will complicate the rollout too much.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, the entire reason they're moving to IPv6 is because IPv4 internally no longer works for them. They've exhausted 10.0.0.0 (it's only 16M IPs, after all), so moving to v6 is the only way they can keep their network manageable, without going to crazy, multi-layered NAT solutions.

Re:why?

[sjames]

Why in the world would they want to proxy v6?

I can see where they might want to tunnel v6 over v4 as a transition measure (and they are. I'm using their 6rd tunnel endpoint now).

Re:why?

[wasabii]

I should also mention that running IPv4 over IPv6 is kind of weird, and presents more problems than a proper dual stack.

Re:why?

[BitHive]

maybe you're not as much of a geek as you think you are?

Re:why?

[__aawbkb6799]

crazy, multi-layered NAT solutions.

pretty sure they're there already.

Re:why?

[zach_the_lizard]

They need to for DOCSIS 3 (at least on the modem side) anyways. DOCSIS 3 supports IPv6, so after that roll out is over with the main problem is the router from the customer end.

Re:why?

[zach_the_lizard]

I don't know about Comcast for sure, but some of the cell phone companies, at the very least, have multiple private blocks each.

Re:why?

[mellon]

Actually, NAT64 (where you make IPv4 servers out on the network look like IPv6 machines to devices on your network) works quite well, and isn't weird at all. It's arguably a better solution that dual stack.

Re:why?

[headhot]

wrong, they have been using public address space for the mgt of cable modems. Recently they have been moving the mgt to IPv6 too.

Re:why?

[WaffleMonster]

Sorry, at a loss. comcast should just keep ipv4 internal and proxy ipv6 externally. Don't understand the reason to complicate its implementation any more. Other than let us geeks suffer the consequences

When IPv4 addresses are no longer available(Coming within just months to a RIR near you! IANA global pool already gone!!) how do you propose to use IPv4 internally when the necessary IPv4 address space simply does not exist?

I can see an ISP following your advice right up until they need to fill out a new SWIP request for address space that does not exist. RIR: sorry dude.. ISP to customer: sorry dude... customer: @*(@#**!

When IPv4 runs out the only avenue for not switching to IPv6 for new users is CGN... given the choice I would rather have a monsterous IPv6 address than stay with IPv4 and go through a carrier NAT loosing the ability to connect to my stuff from the network and run my own servers.

Comcast and the rest of the world are extremely late on IPv6 deployment. Slashdots... oh slashdot... tears come to my eyes just thinking about slashdots lack of IPv6 support. It is really sad.

If you care about a global network that can accomodate everyone on the planet equally as peers IPv6 is the only answer available. I believe the developing world should have the same opportunties as the developed world.

Unfortunatly the number of naysayers who either do not care, do not want to change or do not see the big cluster*@*# on the horizion due to v4 depletion even with IPv6 deployment is still quite large.

  I don't know what to say or how to convinence people they need to take IPv6 seriously. After all it is not your problem...why should you care?

Re:why?

[digitalsushi]

They don't run a flat network on 10/8 where every 10 address is unique in the system. It's trivial to recycle rfc 1918 addresses because their external nat forms a unique tuple.

It's like how more than one company can have an 'extention 10' in their phone network. Public phone number + ext == unique.

They demonstrate how to recycle 1918 addresses in the 6rd spec, which is a pseudo wan connection (a tunnel), simply by flipping a few bits in the prefix -- this is different than the above, since the private (or real) addresses it maps to are externally unique, even though they too have been recycled.

Re:why?

[digitalsushi]

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1976240&cid=35075810

looks like i am completely wrong. :D although, they still could do it the way i described. oh well!

Re:why?

[commodore6502]

Comcast execs are sons of silly persons. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt!

I don't wanna get your $80/month bills no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in thy general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time-a! Stupid Comcast-men.

Comcast really?

[magsol]

To be honest, they're the last ISP I'd have expected to start IPv6 implementation.

Re:Comcast really?

[rritterson]

I have been a comcast customer for 8 straight years now (give or take a few months)

Had the announcement broken 3 years ago, I would have agreed with you, but Comcast is on a long, upward trend in technical competitiveness.

They were the first major ISP to go DNSSEC, I believe, and have done DOCSIS 3.0 rollouts in most of their markets (we get cheap 20/4 service here, with a 50 down option available. Some parts of the service area have 100mbps down.) They also rolled out a bunch of 6to4 servers recently. While 6to4 is not a great technology, it is useful to have ISP servers, since my IPv6 traffic (auto tunneled via an Airport Extreme) goes through my local NOC and not first to wisconsin and then back to silicon valley as was the case before.

They still lag when it comes to technical support via phone, as they assume all of their customers are techno-illiterate, but I have to give them a lot of credit for being on the leading edge when it comes to their network and network technologies.

Re:Comcast really?

[sjames]

They seem like two different operations. The behind the scenes people seem to be good, but their phone support people seem to be entirely clueless and trained to lie as a matter of policy. If they really want to be more profitable, they should try actually performing diagnostics before dispatching someone for inside support when the problem usually turns out to be on the lines outside (which requires a second dispatch to solve, the inside techs aren't equipped for it).

Re:Comcast really?

[petermgreen]

Comcast has a slightly unusual situation. They are so massive that their "control plane" network has exhausted 10.0.0.0/8. That means afaict they are now using public IPs not just for customers but for internal use as well. The space that most ISPs would use to put their customers on ISP level NAT is ALREADY TAKEN for their "control plane" network.

http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog37/presentations/alain-durand.pdf

Given that they have little choice but to go IPv6 for thier internal networks (or "federate" the network but that is a large management headache) before IPV4 addresses run out it is not that surprising that they are proposing to offer it to customers as well.

Re:Comcast really?

[monkyyy]

me to but i saw the sign ups 2 months ago

Re:Comcast really?

[DigiShaman]

They still lag when it comes to technical support via phone, as they assume all of their customers are techno-illiterate

As an ex-employee of Time Warner in Austin TX, (working TSR dept as of 2006) that's because THEY ARE! That's not an insult, it's simply the facts. And this is in Austin, TX mind you. The Business Class subscribers that call in are much more savvy however. Generally they are the IT guys calling in to get routers and whatnot setup.

Think about the automotive industry where a customer brings their car into the shop? How many automotive-illiterate people do you think they run into? Exactly!

Re:Comcast really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been a Comcast Business customer for several months now, and I have to say the difference between their consumer customer support and their business class customer support is the difference between night and day. For one thing, I am never on hold for more than a minute or two, and any technical question or anything I have, they get me to the right people the first time.

I don't pay much more for the business class, I did have to sign a contract, and I have a static IPv4 address. Can't beat it where I live.

Re:Comcast really?

[demonlapin]

What is somewhat odd is that they continue to assume that you're technically illiterate even when you've proved you're not... I had a Comcast tech (who was at least level 2 if not level 3 support) repeatedly ask me what the computer's timed-out message was... even when it was the same message over and over again... and after we had had a fairly extensive discussion about how I used DD-WRT generally but had plugged the computer directly into the cable modem to rule that out as a possible source of the failure before I had called.

Re:Comcast really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is fine, but when you have already done most of the troubleshooting and know 90% of what the problem ISN'T, and you get someone in support who is *less* technical than you, who just wants to follow a script and say *ok, now is the modem plugged in?*, it's an annoying waste of everyone's time. They should segment the people who call in into Clueless vs. Technical.

Re:Comcast really?

[Anonymous Coward]

My digital cable and my cable modem were both out one day. I also noticed some tire tracks in my yard near the pole that were not there an hour before when my stuff was working fine. I had to call one number to report my digital cable was out and another to report my internet was out. Neither support rep had any information about work in my area and denied anyone was working in the area earlier in the day. Each call resulted in a tech scheduled to come to my house to "look at" my cable modem and another tech to "look at" my hd/dvr. The digital cable guy arrived first a few days later and fixed everything without even coming in the house. He said someone working on the pole a few days earlier had installed a "filter" on the line coming into my house and it was blocking everything but regular cable. He had no idea why. He also swapped out all of my splitters and charged me $30 for the visit after he replaced all of my splitters. I had four of them and they were old and corroded but that was not the real problem.

Re:Comcast really?

[cetitau]

My oh my, (MOM for you genuises) do I see a pattern here. IT support guys at Comcast think the folks who pay their salary are bunch of idiots.... IT guys on SD think everybody but them are a bunch of idiots... This is all lining up nicely. For the IT guys, that is.

Re:Comcast really?

[Belial6]

Same experience for me. No filtering, not throttling, nothing. I think their crappy residential service was only $10 less expensive a month. If you go Comcast, go Business class.

Re:Comcast really?

[DigiShaman]

I've thought of this as well. Perhaps some sort of online competency test where the score is bound to the phone number of the person calling into tech support. When I worked as a TSR, talking with network savvy people made my job a hell of a lot easier. I could ask questions XYZ and immediately assess the situation or provide the necessary information to help them help themselves. It makes them happier, and it frees up our resources so we can assist the other customers waiting in line.

Of course, I've often had those people calling claiming to be network engineers when in fact they didn't know diddly-squat. I'm guessing they could get what they want by trying to pull that line. All it did was piss me off by wasting my time and that of others customers waiting.

Re:Comcast really?

[realityimpaired]

If they're anything like the ISP I work for, the front line tech support aren't trained to think, nor are they given any training at all as to how the network actually works. They're trained to read a flow chart (and many of them don't even read the correct flow chart). Second line for most flow charts are software people, not hardware people, and while they may have a basic understanding of how a certain change in the software configuration may affect your ability to connect to a server, most of them don't have a clue how it actually *works* beyond the OS level. It's not until you get into the network operations/test center (where I work) that they actually train people on the fundamentals of how the technology we're using actually works, so that you get people who can look at a diagnostic test and know exactly what's wrong with your line and whether it can be fixed remotely or if we need to send you a tech. (and don't expect a field tech to repair your lines... they're trained to replace, not repair. repair takes too long. they'll send a cable repair tech when they run out of spares, not before)

Re:Comcast really?

[KingMotley]

From: Trial Team
Sent: Tue 4/20/2010 9:30 AM
------
Thank you for volunteering to participate in Comcast's IPv6 trials! We're ready to take the next step in preparing for our trials, as we have now activated a trial user portal. This new portal will be used to communicate with you concerning which trial you may be eligible for, directions related to the trial you may eventually participate in, surveys related to the trial, and more. The portal will also have a web forum for asking us questions and interacting with other users.

Re:Comcast really?

[sjames]

This goes well beyond. I have had them claim it must be my modem and that there is nobody else is having a problem while I watch the bucket trucks stop across the street and begin working on the lines. Somehow, in spite of my modem being 'bad', they fixed the problem in short order.

Sometimes they claim they can check other modems on the street to check for outages, sometimes they claim that can't be done. When they do claim they can check YOUR modem, they claim that not seeing it means that it's your modem rather than their network! As best as I can determine, their mission is to get the inside tech scheduled (in the usual take half the day off from work and sit at home window) and to say absolutely anything to make that happen. They evidently have no diagnostic capabilities and no ability to see when you called that multiple people on your street have called or even that linemen are scheduled (or actually in the neighborhood).

So, take the flowchart following, remove any ability to even look at other tickets, and add in vague talking points guidelines and instructions to just make something up. I would feel a lot better about Comcast as a company if they would just instruct their phone people to admit up front that they can only make appointments, have no diagnostic capabilities, and that someone else decides if a line truck is dispatched based on the number of calls they get. That would still be incredibly stupid (and poor customer service at that) but at least it wouldn't be compounded with damned lies.

Re:Comcast really?

[realityimpaired]

To be fair, until an outage flash is sent, our front line act exactly as you describe... they usually don't know if the person next to them is talking to your next-door neighbour, and while they do have the necessary accesses to check if a tech is dispatched in your area, they usually don't have the time to do it, or the knowledge of how to do it. They have very rudimentary diagnostic capabilities, in that they can check your synch, and see if there's errors on the line, but our front line actually get in trouble if they get caught deviating from the flow chart on a QA audit.

While a neighbourhood-level query is possible with the line diagnostic tool, the ability is disabled for front line support. They simply don't have the access needed to do it. For a very simple reason: using the same tool that front line uses, I am able to query thousands of customer lines at the same time. Could you imagine the overhead and problems that would cause?

I'm surprised that Comcast doesn't have evening appointments available though... we've had evening and weekend appointment time slots for years in most of our footprint....

Re:Comcast really?

[sjames]

I am able to query thousands of customer lines at the same time. Could you imagine the overhead and problems that would cause?

Perhaps the software for the front line should limit the number of queries to a more reasonable count. The difference between one endpoint out and more than one is rather relevant from a diagnostic standpoint. The difference between 10 out and 1000 out is not.

while they do have the necessary accesses to check if a tech is dispatched in your area, they usually don't have the time to do it, or the knowledge of how to do it.

How nice that they are so willing to flush half a day of my time to save 2 minutes or less of theirs!

I don't see why they aren't informed of trouble dispatches on their screen when they pull the account up. Database queries are hardly rocket surgery. A communications company should communicate!

Never minding all of that, as I said it would at least help if they were honest about what they can and cannot do. They shouldn't tell me they checked the neighborhood and I'm the only one out when it's painfully obvious that it's not true.

I don't blame the individuals stuck following the flowchart, I blame the asshats that made the policy that guided the design of the flowchart. Ultimately I blame the executives who create the corporate culture where the asshats can think they're doing the right thing.

Re:Comcast really?

[Patch86]

They probably *are* two different operations. The tech support will be a big call centre somewhere, where minimum-wagers are told to read a script and log responses in boxes and end calls in an average of 4.5 minutes. Network development will be done by actual qualified staff in a real office somewhere, for a real salary.

Some of the poor support guys might one day get promoted to something better, and sometimes the network devs will need to support the customer facing areas of the business in some ways. But if it's anything like every company I've ever seen, the two branches will have little to do with each other.

about time :)

[youn]

may a wave of sanity run through all providers quickly this year... ipv6 is only over a decade old

and it begins

[thehodapp]

the exodus has begun..Don't hold your breath though. It's going to take a long time for these bozo ISPs to get IPv6 implemented. hopefully not 40 years long.....

Well fuck me raw...

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast???

Re:Well fuck me raw...

[halivar]

Comcast: "Well, if you insist..."

Re:Well fuck me raw...

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast: "You mean more than once a month"

Re:Well fuck me raw...

[BergZ]

Comcast: "You sure do got a purty mouth..."

They don't want to NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite the fact that everyone is pointing at NAT as a solution for ISPs, I really don't think they want to NAT at all. NAT takes processing power and would cost them money in extra infrastructure. No matter how evil you think they are, I believe they'd much rather move to IPv6 than NAT with IPv4.

Re:They don't want to NAT

[petermgreen]

Afaict the original idea with ipv6 was to go from public v4-->ubuiquitous dual stack with public v4-->phaseout of public v4.

However there is a chicken and egg situation, ISPs won't want to put users on v6 only until the majority of websites are available on v6 and a substatial proportion of website owners won't see any point in offering v6 while all their clients can still access v4. Especially as a lot of people who do have v6 have it via tunnels that add latency and reduce reliability. The result is a smooth and speedy transition of the internet to dual stack is unlikely.

So in a world of scarce IPs the ISPs will have little option but to give some customers natted v4. They may or may not give those customers v6 as well.

Re:They don't want to NAT

[jack2000]

XP and 7 support ipv6, linux distros have had ipv6 support since forever. What's your point?

Re:They don't want to NAT

[petermgreen]

XP and 7 support ipv6

XP kinda supports IPv6, afaict it only supports sateless autoconfiguration or manual configuration from the command line (no dhcpv6 and no GUI based manual configuration) and it has no support for IPv6 based dns servers. So even in the scenario that all important services are availiable on IPv6 XP users will still need some kind of v4 connectivity to resolve names.

But that is a relatively minor issue. The real problem is that desktop/server OS support is only part of the puzzle of deploying IPv6 and in many ways is the easiest part. It also requires application support (which is in the big name apps but not nessacerally smaller ones), infrastructure support (kinda shaky, a lot of older equipment is still in use and afaict many home routers still don't support IPv6) and administrative support (many admins simply don't care and won't care until they have a strong reason to).

What's your point?

The point is that the OP implied that the ISPs have a choice between deploying IPv6 and deploying ISP level v4 NAT. Maybe they would have had that choice if they had got their act together and applied sufficiant pressure to get IPv6 deployed years ago but there is no time for that now. They will have to deploy ISP level v4 NAT regardless of whether they deploy IPv6.

Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast mac l

[Joe The Dragon]

Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast still mac address lock there modems to one mac? or under IPv6 is there network now setup that you just need a switch and only a router if you need wifi?

Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[ravenspear]

Each user has been delegated a /64 block of approximately 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (18 quintillion) unique IPv6 addresses.

That seems a little silly. I thought end users were going to be assigned /48s with IPv6?

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[goffrie]

A /48 is larger than a /64 (just like a /8 is larger than a /24 in IPv4).

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[ravenspear]

You're right, my bad. I was thinking of something else. /48s were for site assignments from ARIN.

https://www.arin.net/resources/request/ipv6_initial_assign.html

Still a /64 seems absurdly large for one end user.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[kimvette]

Well, folks have thought better of this and decided that they had to plan for the day where we develop nanotech medicine, and have an IP address available for each cell-nanotech pair for an entire family, plus enough overhead to give the same for each pet.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[XanC]

The smallest subnet normally designated in IPv6 is a /64. When you use automatic addressing based on MAC addresses, then you need a 64-bit host address. Assigning each household (at least) a /64 allows everything to work automatically.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[ravenspear]

Ah I see, so really only 2^64 unique addresses are routable within that framework.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[John Hasler]

> Still a /64 seems absurdly large for one end user.

After all, there are only 18 quintillion /64s. Wouldn't want to waste any.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no *clue* how it works, yet, in spite of your ignorance, you have "opinions". Seriously, read how it works before writing stupid things.

Networks are not designed using "you need X devices connected so you get X IPs". They are designed around routing tables which have finite sizes. The smaller the routing table, the faster the router works and the more it can move through. It is also easier to manage.

IPv6 is designed with the network in mind, not some hack for a test network (like IPv4). That means you are getting /64 so,

    1. your can allow privacy on your network (eg. different IP address for each request, so sites can't track *you* reliably, etc.)
    2. no need to run DHCP - each computer can make a unique address automatically
    3. no more NAT necessity - SIP, Skype, BT, IRC, server - all work as they are suppose to work.

ISPs will get /32 networks or larger space. This about equivalent of ONE IPv4 address, in address-space. Then they will route this based on their network topology, and not simply "OMG, we are almost out of IPv4! REMAP REMAP!". Business customers will be able to get /56 or /48 network assignments. /64 is per LAN (per network). There is no smaller networks than this. PPP is /127, but that's not really a network.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Chuck_McDevitt]

Home users don't need a /48 (which is 1024x bigger than a /64). It would be nice if they did allow for subnets , and gave home users at least a /62 (room for 4 subnets). But very few home users would use such a feature.

A /64 allows for more devices connected to your home subnet than all the network interfaces ever built, or will be built in our lifetimes. There isn't any worry about it being "too small".

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Nigel Stepp]

Assigning a /48 for end users is still the recommended thing to do. Some ultra-conservative types are planning on /56 instead. I expect ISPs assigning /64s to go out of business (maybe that's hope).

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Sancho]

MAC addresses are 64-bit. By handing out a /64 prefix to the user, a bit of convenience can be achieved wherein the MAC address of the adapter is automatically used as the last 64-bits of the user's IPv6 address.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Sancho]

I had a bit of a brain fart there. MAC addresses are obviously 48-bit. Nonetheless, the same magic can happen with 64-bit prefixes, though you could obviously get better utilization with a larger prefix.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Nigel Stepp]

A /48 is actually 65536 times bigger than a /64 (2^(64-48)), but it's still reasonable to give home users that much. Only 4 subnets is extraordinarily restrictive. Think many (actually probably not that many) years down the line when you have subnets per room and such. I'd want my kitchen to be on a different subnet than my garage, for instance.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[rabbit994]

/64 is RFC recommended because IPv6 Autoconfiguration uses your NIC MAC address to generate IPv6 address for itself. The length of /64 is same as MAC address. That's why they are doing it.

IPv6 was designed to have large amount of waste built in. When you have 3.4x10^38, you can afford to be a little wasteful.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[bk2204]

Since router advertisements use unique addresses based on a 64-bit prefix and an expanded 64-bit version of the normal 48-bit Ethernet/WiFi MAC address, a /64 is generally the right size. Unless you're using something like DHCPv6, router advertisements are the normal way to get addresses on a local network.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[monkyyy]

aye, but thats still nothing to the 18 quintillion

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF are you drinking?? /48 are for business customers with multiple networks, like a hospital. Or are you saying that /64 is too small for you?? There is NO REASON for regular customers to have /64 and there is NO REASON for a typical small businesses to get anything larger than /56.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Junta]

It is really silly. They should have at least given each user 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 addresses, 18 quintillion is being way too stingy.

Only half joking, I kind of wanted at least some headroom to segment my home network if I chose. Even a /62 would have been nice.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Anonymous Coward]

The interface identifier part (lower part of /64) can be anything, but you can use a MAC by inserting FEFF into the middle of it, like so:

(Your network prefix):4:8:15:FE:FF:16:23:42

This is known as EUI-64 MAC and is not required by the protocol - under Stateless Address Autoconfig, hosts pick their own address, and under DHCPv6 they're assigned sequentially. Using the EUI-64 is a lazy convention which we really shouldn't do anyway (it's basically putting hardware fingerprints on your packets).

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Junta]

1. your can allow privacy on your network (eg. different IP address for each request, so sites can't track *you* reliably, etc.)

That's just silly. At the IP layer, they lose no granularity over today (they can tell basically what house it came from from the leading 64 bits and either interpret the last bits as finer grained data or discard as noise. All this is moot as sites track *you* reliably via use of higher-layer features like authenticated sessions and/or HTTP cookies that persist regardless of originating IP.

2. no need to run DHCP - each computer can make a unique address automatically

True, but of little practical consequence for most of the world. Most of the world lived in the default private network their linksys box gave them and the DHCP was effectively equally magic as route advertising with auto-config in v6. Note I did say most of the world, some cases required end-user tweaking that won't know, but a small minority.

3. no more NAT necessity - SIP, Skype, BT, IRC, server - all work as they are suppose to work.

Nope, that ship has sailed. Sure, NAT won't be there to mess things up but firewalls will continue to break P2P by default and things like Skype and BT will continue to need 'superpeers' that will be somewhat rare still (though more prevalent than IPv4, but only slightly). If the late 90s hadn't seen so many DoS attacks using immature IP stacks and insecure services left wide open by overly trusting OS vendors (MS largely, but other vendors not blameless), maybe firewall wouldn't be considered a must-have. Now even with solid IP stacks and generally more secure defaults, poor security practices and paranoia will not magically make firewalls disappear. One of my first thoughts was that broken P2P models would be resolved as NAT goes away, but the firewalls will generally stay. I have the power to increase my reach, so it isn't bad for me, but for automagic, zero-config routers, yeah those will still be locking people up just as if they were behind a NAT gateway.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Anonymous Coward]

In IPv6 you do not allocate "addresses" to users or to networks. Instead you allocate a network prefix which has a "subnetting capacity". The subnetting capacity is based on how many /64 blocks are contained in the prefix. One subnet is /64. Within that /64, some devices will be using randomness algorithms to generate unique addresses for autoconfiguration. These autoconfig algorithms rely on having a huge available number space so that the likelihood of two devices choosing the same address is very very very low.

IPv6 addresses are not the same kind of thing as IPv4 addresses. Many addresses are allocated but not used to guarantee that random address choosing can work. Other addresses are used to address interfaces on a device. In IPv6 there is not such thing as "my computer's address" because your computer will have at minimum, two IPv6 addresses per interface, if not more. In a typical home network some devices like printers will use RFC 4193 ULA addresses which means that Internet connected devices will have 3 IPv6 addresses per interface. IPv6 is more like an Internet version of Appletalk, than an upgrade for IPv4. Appletalk's effortless autoconfiguration was the model for IPv6's design.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[John Hasler]

No, all are routable.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[ravenspear]

Perhaps I should rephrase, yes all are routable, but since the way the protocol is going to work will see every end user getting at least a /64, doesn't that effectively cut the allocatable address space in half?

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[XanC]

Every subnet gets at least a /64. That does lead to a lot of unused addresses, sure, but it doesn't mean that there are only 2^64 addresses either.

By the way, going from 2^128 to 2^64 isn't cutting in half; it's taking the square root.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[hpa]

In other words, if you want to subnet your home network, you have to hope everything you care about supports DHCPv6 as opposed to RA. Since DHCPv6 got standardized pretty late, cuts down on the compatibility tremendously.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[mibus]

There is NO REASON for regular customers to have /64

I want a /64, so that SLAAC works. Ideally, a /60-/62-sized block, so I can subnet once or twice and still do SLAAC.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[WorBlux]

Kind of, it's like giving everybody 2^64 worth of subnet space, without all the difficulties of NAT. Thats 8 layers of heirchy with up to 256 machines on each level, or 4 layers with up to 65,536 machines. Or 4 levels with up to 256 machines and 2 levels with up to 65,536 machines. There will be availible 2^48 prefisxes to give to ISP's who will be able to have 2^16 /64 prefixes to costumers. In theory at least. In practice ISP's will get one /48 or /32 for each city they serve for the sake of sanity. Then every country can get a or /24 or /16 and still have more than enough address space to add thousands or millions of of colonized worlds communicating via quantum processes. The sake of sanity and organization is the primary reason to skip to a 128 bit rather than a 64 or 48 bit. ,

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[TheRaven64]

Depends on the site. You will get a /64 and may only use it for four machines. If everyone did this, then that would mean that, in practice, you only had 2^66 addresses. On the other hand, a university will also get a /64 and may put tens of thousands of machines on it.

A large part of the point is that it allows edge networks to grow without anyone else caring. With IPv4, lots of sites got a /24, thinking that 256 computers was a huge number. Then they grew a bit, and needed another /24. This happened a few times, and they end up with half a dozen /24s, not necessarily anywhere near each other. Each of these /24s becomes an entry in a potentially huge number of routing tables.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[TheRaven64]

You can use subnets with a /64. You can't, however, use subnets and stateless autoconfiguration with a /64. If you're using subnets, however, you probably want to do some explicit configuration, so this isn't really a problem.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[timbo234]

I don't understand this, how can you not be able to create subnets out of a whole 64-bit address space? Is this some fault or oversight in the IPv6 standard?

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[John Hasler]

You can subnet however you want but some equipment may not support subnetting a /64 out of the box.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Use VLAN then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_LAN

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[zach_the_lizard]

EUI-64 addresses are 64 bits.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[swillden]

A /64 address block isn't even a subnet, it's the range intended for use by a single host. The plan has always been that the smallest subnet block is a /48. And why NOT give out /48s? You do realize that there are enough of them to give 31000 to every man, woman and child on the planet, right? If you want to be conservative, use /48s for businesses and /56s for homes. Giving only a /64 to a home is ridiculously parsimonious.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Chuck_McDevitt]

Why would I want to have a router between the garage and the kitchen? Makes no sense to me.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Chuck_McDevitt]

No, this doesn't work, at least with normal routing gear.

IPv6 subnets are ALWAYS exactly 64-bits, and the routers know it (actually, the IP stack in the OS usually knows this). Sure, with some linux routers you can hack things up and sort of get that to work, but it really screws up more things than it can help.

I'm not really sure why I would need multiple subnets in my home, and go through the expense of having routers to separate them and separate WiFi APs for each.

If you just want "logical separation", or something to ease your firewall rules, you don't really need a separate subnets.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[Nigel Stepp]

I can imagine devices in the kitchen wanting to communicate to each other, but not wanting to hear from the garage door. The reasons for keeping separate broadcast domains in general will apply to the home when many, many devices are IP enabled. The topology of these domains could be organized automatically by the devices as well. Really no one knows what demand for IPs and subnets will be in the coming years, so it's good to think in terms that allow for growth. That's how I think, anyway.

Re:Each user gets 18 quintillion addresses?

[hpa]

The most common automatic configuration mechanism for IPv6, RA, doesn't support subnetting past /64.

Famous Last Words

[mccrew]

Each user has been delegated a /64 block of approximately 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (18 quintillion) unique IPv6 addresses.

"18 quintillion unique IPv6 addresses should be enough for anybody." -me

Re:Famous Last Words

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone gets 18quintillion addresses.... sounds like a plan to run the world out of IP's and start designing IPv7 ASAP!

Re:Famous Last Words

[ravenspear]

Everyone gets 18quintillion addresses.... sounds like a plan to run the world out of IP's and start designing IPv7 ASAP!

Not really, with 18 quintillion allocations of that size, assuming 7 billion people, everyone can have 2.5 billion addresses.

That should last for a while.

Re:Famous Last Words

[funaho]

Everyone gets 18quintillion addresses.... sounds like a plan to run the world out of IP's and start designing IPv7 ASAP!

Yes because we all saw how well "protocol version 7' worked out in Serial Experiments Lain :)

Re:Famous Last Words

[monkyyy]

"NO -__- I NEED MORE"
-most people 5 years from now

Re:Famous Last Words

[petermgreen]

Unfortunately it isn't, afaict the only widely supported autoconfiguration system for IPv6 is stateless autoconfiguration and that by design depends on a /64 subnet mask.

This makes life dificult if you want to run more than one subnet but your ISP will only give you a /64. ARP proxying may be a soloution but is likely to be quite painful to set up. Afaict the linux kernel guys are refusing to implement v6 nat on principle which rules out that option for those of us who use linux boxes for routing.

Re:Famous Last Words

[Anonymous Coward]

I've barely even managed to use my 5 (well, technically 8, but with multicast and the routers...).
I can't imagine what I'd do with even one quadrillion. Guess I'd better buy a bigger house and start collecting more machines!

Re:Famous Last Words

[gmagill]

OT but I love your sig. A pet peeve of mine, too.

Re:Famous Last Words

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine the number of home accounts comcast has far exceeds business accounts. Your average home user would probably never notice IPV6 change over, much less a NAT changeover. Put all of your home accounts on IPV6 and leave businesses with 4.

Re:Famous Last Words

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to use stateless autoconfiguration though... you can just deploy DHCPv6 (or even static addressing!) and split the /64 up any way you want

Re:Famous Last Words

[yahwotqa]

If there will be demand for it ipv6 NAT, someone will provide (and maintain) a "3rd party" patchset for Linux kernel and for whichever necessary userspace utilities.

Re:Famous Last Words

[SmilingBoy]

Actually, this is not enough. IPv6 always uses /64 subnets. The standard policies suggest that an ISP should allocate a block of /48 to /56 to each end user. This means that every end user can have 256 to 65,536 /64 subnets. Furthermore, the standard policies say that /19 to /32 should be allocated to each ISP.

I agree that it sounds wasteful, but it should be possible without problems.

Assume an allocation of /48 to each end user (actual numbers: /48 to /64). This means every end user can run 65,536 networks.

Further assume an allocation of /24 to each ISP (actual numbers: /19 to /32). This means every ISP can have 16,777,216 end users.

Finally, assume that only the 2000::/3 block of the address space will be used (as per current allocations). This means we can have 2,097,152 ISPs.

However, I think that eventually, SOHO end user will only be allocated /56 blocks as this is simply more than enough.

Importantly, manufacturers of routers and software should not make the assumption that anything outside 2000::/3 is an invalid address. This way, in case 2000::/3 runs out of space, we can have different allocation policies for the rest of the address space.

I have my IPv6 connectivity via SixXS, where you get allocated a /48 (for free).

Re:Famous Last Words

[TheRaven64]

we all saw how well "protocol version 7' worked out in Serial Experiments Lain

Actually, I suspect that you'll find that most of us did not...

Re:Famous Last Words

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused. Why can't the end user that gets a /64 divide up their subnets at, I dunno, /96? I mean, that there gives them as many subnet addresses as the entire IPv4 address space. How many IPv6-addressed peripherals do you really need to attach to your mobile phone, or even your personal home network? Is the number greater than (2^32)?

Re:Famous Last Words

[SmilingBoy]

The IPv6 protocol defines the network as a /64. This way, IP addresses can be autoconfigured with a very low chance of a collision. Agreed that /64 is very large though. I guess they wanted to make sure that all networks whatever the size can fit within one subnet.

Re:Famous Last Words

[swillden]

/64 isn't a subnet. It's the space allocated for a single host. The bottom 64 bits of the address are chosen by the stateless autoconfiguration. They may be the MAC address, they may be chosen at random, or a single host may even use a different address for every outbound connection it makes.

In related news...

[Tiger4]

Comcast reports that hundreds of users have unexpectedly lost service, with thousands more dropping connections frequently and reporting massive slowdowns. Time until restoration of service is not being predicted at this time.

Re:In related news...

[ZorinLynx]

Big heavy winter storms can do that, yes.

Good

[wasabii]

The point of this is to uncover any issues with customer equipment that prevents it. Any modern Vista or Windows 7 box by default has IPv6 enabled, and it works just fine. I know. I use it on all of my company's machines. Any devices that isn't aware of IPv6 will just ignore it. I'm expecting some poor IPv6 translation technologies on cheap routers that break with real IPv6 presence. That's kind of the only downside I can imagine.

Customers behind an existing IPv4-only NAT device won't even be touched.

Re:Good

[Nemyst]

Some software, namely DirectPlay-powered games, semi-implement IPv6; enough to detect the IP and know it exists, but not enough to actually use it properly. More often than not, that means you'll have the game trying to connect through the IPv6 stack despite being unable to do so instead of just sticking to IPv4 where available and not doing anything where not.

I'm sure this isn't an isolated case. Chances are IPv6 is sufficiently similar to IPv4 for some sloppier implementations to understand half of it, enough to screw up instead of ignoring.

Re:Good

[dbIII]

There's a few annoying and weird little quirks with IPv6 on Win7 (google will help). They should get fixed as IPv6 adoption increases. Then just because the OS works don't expect all the applications to work for a version or two.
Expect corporate networks that have to suffer such shit as Macromedia's flexlm to be on IPv4 for about another decade to allow floating software licences to work unless a competitor emerges. The obvious solutions such as running on virtual machines etc are all against the licence terms of such things that only really punish the honest.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the case with a lot of software, sadly. A large part of the problem is that systems and libraries are all updated to support IPv6, but few applications are. So you end up with situations where you do a DNS lookup of example.com and get back both v6 and v4 IPs. Your program is dumb and simply uses the first IP it gets back, which will often be v6 (a lot of libraries are configured to use v6 by default; not sure why). Then you try to connect to it, assuming you're getting a v4 IP, but you actually have a v6 one, so eventually something fails. It's bad enough that Java has both a way to prefer v4 and to disable v6 entirely, and so does Linux.

This problem is only going to get worse. Right now there are very few sites with v6 IPs in DNS, which means that this doesn't happen a lot. But as more and more sites start to support v6, expect to see this move from a minor nuisance to a serious problem. I wish I could say that this will force developers to go back and do things right, but it's more likely that they'll just put "IPv4 address" on their list of requirements. You know, like how "disable your firewall and antivirus software and plug directly into the Internet, bypassing your router" is the first thing you're told to do when you can't get an online game to work.

Re:cost?

[novar21]

Hardware always costs. Should they only role out new customers, or replacements for failed equipment? Seems logical to me, but then again.. the sooner the better I suppose.

Re:Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast ma

[borcharc]

how long ago did you use comcast? this restriction went away longer ago then i can remember. Plug new computer into cable modem and reboot, your done.

Apple base stations, some D-Links, some Linksys

[YesIAmAScript]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6to4#Consumer_routers_with_6to4_support

http://www.comcast6.net/

Apple's base stations are certified IPv6 ready, which means not only do they work with IPv6, but they have it on by default. The others might require you turn it on. Instructions on how to set up some of them are on Comcast's site.

I've had Comcast internet for two years, they haven't MAC-locked their service in the time I've had them. If you want more than one device at your house to work, you need a NAT/PAT gateway whether you use WiFi or not, as you only get a single IP address from Comcast.

Re:Apple base stations, some D-Links, some Linksys

[Joe The Dragon]

but under ipv6 they give more then 1 ip.

Re:Apple base stations, some D-Links, some Linksys

[zach_the_lizard]

Far far more than 1. It's more or less like having an internet's worth of IPv4 addresses for every IPv4 address

Re:Apple base stations, some D-Links, some Linksys

[Belial6]

Yes, according to comcast http://www.comcast6.net/ they are currently giving out 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 ip addresses to each customer.

Re:Apple base stations, some D-Links, some Linksys

[digitalsushi]

they give out a /64, which is an IPv4's space raised to the power of 32.

Re:Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast ma

[Anonymous Coward]

The article mentions that they're giving each user a /64 block of addresses. I doubt that they're assigning 18 quintillion addresses to a single router. Also, Comcast released a modified version of OpenWRT with IPv6 support.

They also support 6RD and 6to4

[Chuck_McDevitt]

Comcast also supports 6RD and 6to4 servers, so even if you don't have dual-stack, you can get on the IPv6 bandwagon.

6to4 should "just work", but 6to4 itself has some known issues with some kinds of routing (the IPv6 prefix doesn't have a routable prefix, so not everyone you can see can see you).

Their 6RD servers are few and far between, and that gives bad performance, but it work correctly. You just need to configure your connection properly for 6RD to their 6RD border router.

Windows or Mac OSX directly connected to the internet should work fine. You shouldn't even need to configure anything.

If you have a home router, it probably doesn't support IPv6, but you might be able to use DD-WRT (www.dd-wrt.org) or other replacement firmware that does. I do this, and it works fine

Neither are as nice as native dual-stack, but Comcast has upgraded their equipment for it in only in a few cities,and it also requires your cable modem to be DOCSYS 3.0.

Overall, I have found right now that using HE's tunnelbroker is better for performance than Comcast's 6RD or 6to4.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[Orestesx]

Just wanted to add that the 6RD instructions on the DDWRT wiki also worked for me on Comcast. Thanks for the tip about native dual stack requiring DOCSYS 3.0.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[wasabii]

The 6to4 prefix is routable, isn't it? I can connect to any IPv6 native stuff I've tried with it. Thought the real problem was if your packets got grabbed by something that advertised a route for it, but didn't do it properly.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[93 Escort Wagon]

If you have a home router, it probably doesn't support IPv6, but you might be able to use DD-WRT (www.dd-wrt.org) or other replacement firmware that does. I do this, and it works fine

FYI the Apple Airport Extreme and Express have supported IPv6 for quite a while now. Basically if your Airport router is square, it can handle IPv6. The older ones shaped like a Hershey's kiss do not.

I've got both types of Extreme in use at home right now - the older single band square Extreme providing 5GHz 802.11n, and the "kiss" router for some older devices that can only handle 802.11b/g. All I had to do (as a Comcast customer) was put it in "tunnel" (6to4) mode, and it was able to autoconfigure without any additional work on my part. Once Comcast offers dual stack here, I can change it over to use true IPv6.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[sinclair44]

That page notes that you need a recent enough build of DD-WRT. My router is running v24-preSP2 (build 13064) which is the newest on the dd-wrt.com frontpage. Where do I get a newer build?

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[elFarto the 2nd]

DD-WRT doesn't support IPv6. At least not in any usable sense. To get it working, you need to create the RADVD configuration file, and write a script to calculate the 6to4 address and add it to the interface. There are no GUI options for configuring IPv6.

It has less functionality in this regard than the firmware that came with the router (a Linksys WRT610N). At least that automatically configured 6to4, even if it still didn't have any GUI options.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[elFarto the 2nd]

The current routable prefix for IPv6 is 2000::/3. That covers all the currently allocated addresses, including the 6to4 block (2002::/16).

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[digitalsushi]

The 6to4 v6 prefix is routed to anycast 6to4 relay servers. it's a stateless protocol so any relay server can forward your packet. so a packet comes in for 2002::16 random bits chosen by you:host and it gets routed to random relay server X, which figures out the destination v4 address from bits 17 to 32, and drops it on the v4 internet. you get the packet a second later, handle it internally, and you're done. and the other way, you have a v6 packet that wants to leave-- a fork in the road: if it's going to another 6to4 peer, it doesnt ever need to go through a relay since you know the v4 destination already. so you just chuck the packet on the net destined for the other 6to4 host. otherwise it's a native v6 destination, you have no idea what to do with it, and forward it to that same relay server, but using its v4 anycast address this time. and it just fowards the packet for you in reverse.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[Chuck_McDevitt]

There is nothing in a 6to4 prefix that says which ISP you are using, or even which country you are in. So routing becomes a problem for sites that are IPv6 only and are not connected to the same ISP as you are.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[Chuck_McDevitt]

The normal prefixes are assigned to RIRs, who assign them to ISPs. But every 6to4 address has the same prefix, so you can;t tell which ISP you need to route to.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[Chuck_McDevitt]

You can reach any site connected to your ISP via 6to4, and can connect to any site that is IPv4 capable. But if the site is IPv6 only, and not on your ISP, there is no route known to the internet routers to send packets to your 6to4 address. 6RD fixes this issue.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[Chuck_McDevitt]

Native IPv6 should work fine if you have a DD-WRT build that supports IPv6. Sure, you need to configure RADVD, but the GUI has a place to do that. 6to4 and 6RD work, I've tested them.

You are right about DD-WRT and 6to4 or 6RD: You need to write a config script that connects. It's ugly. But most Linux's are pretty ugly about IPv6. I would be nice if they make the GUI handle this. But you can get it to work.

Re:They also support 6RD and 6to4

[digitalsushi]

The route is known. It goes "oh I am native v6 and you're 6to4... i can tell since you are a 2002: address.. i will forward you to the v6 anycast 6to4 relay servers".

When people say 6to4 isn't reliable, it's because an ISP running a 6to4 relay on the known anycast address may chose to not forward for everyone -- they might just forward for their ISP, which violates the spec -- but they can be jerks and do it anyways, dropping the packets.

Car metaphor... hrmm... ok, so the 6to4 spec says "pick up all hitchhikers in your car", and you decide to skip people you don't know. Doesn't work so hot if you pick and choose.

6rd fixes this by not using anycast routing. All the packets are unicast routed. The ISP can call everyone up in the middle and complain if the service sucks. Can't do that on a volunteer routing scheme.

DsLite is also being tested by Comcast... Ugh.

[Chuck_McDevitt]

It is looking more and more like Comcast waited too long to do this, and will run out of IPv4 addresss before people can make the transition. Dual-stack still requires you to have an IPv4 address.

So they are also testing DsLite, a system where the home user only gets an IPv6 prefix, and no IPv4 address. This connects to a NAT64 router that allows you to get at IPv4 sites, by translating your IPv6 address into an IPv4 address.

NAT64 is an ugly solution, but ARIN will run out of IPv4 blocks to give Comcast and other ISPs by the end of the year.

Re:DsLite is also being tested by Comcast... Ugh.

[Tacvek]

NAT64 (as commonly presented as an ISP level-solution[1]) is idiotic because of the DNS abuse it uses (DNS64).

DsLite seems far preferable to me based only on that consideration. DsLite is also what pretty much everybody has been expecting the whole time. Assign users routable IPv6 prefixes, and throw their IPv4 addresses behind "carrier-grade" NAT. Most users will not even notice the "carrier-grade" NAT. Those that do can pay more for the routable IPv4 addresses free up by gradually transitioning most users to the "carrier-grade" NAT.

The system also creates pressure on services that want to connect directly to clients to implement IPV6, which should help get IPv6 up off the ground. The eventual goal needs to be getting to the day that man devices have turned the IPv4 stack off completely, because every machine they want to talk to is available via IPv6, so the IPv4 Stack would be merely wasting resources.

[1] Rather than the literal meaning of the term, which would be any NAT system with v6 "private" and v4 public, which might have reasnable use cases that don't requiring abusing DNS. A DNS server should simply be serving up a text file via pattern matcihing (non-recursive), or query other servers and passing along the unedited results[2] (recursive). Any dynamic behavior (including dynamic DNS, DNS-based load balancing, DNS-based geolocation routing, dynamic reverse DNS, and DNS64) is an abuse of the system that should be avoided whenever possible.

[2] Possibly passing back all the results for the recusrive query in the case of DNSSec with a validating stub resolver.

Re:DsLite is also being tested by Comcast... Ugh.

[hedwards]

I don't know about that. Qwest has yet to even offer an open beta for that yet. And while I see references to them doing it, I can't help but think that they'll wait to provide it with their fiber, which is to say only when Google or the city decides to bring fiber in to compete with them and starts actually laying fiber.

cool i guess

[luther349]

ii just wonder what there gonna do with all there customers with old eq. they never change the hardware they give you unless it brakes or you unsubscribe from them. meaning im shure they have tons on custmers with old modems that have no support for ipv6. my windstream roughter/modem is flashable so i assume when they switch they will just enable my hardware via soft-where.

Re:cool i guess

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, your spell-check is broken, too.

Re:cool i guess

[Anonymous Coward]

Spill chicken want Fick's bud thin kin.

Re:cool i guess

[mellon]

It's pretty unlikely that they will do that. The software maintenance hassles of what you're describing are far worse than getting people to upgrade their hardware. This will generate a lot of trash, unfortunately.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they've been giving people IPv6 capable routers for years now (the last time I had Comcast was 2008 and that was IPv6 capable) and they're now ready to actually turn it on.

good at counting

[Anonymous Coward]

No one wanted to talk about IPv5 because it was missing a head and was left to fend for itself under the back porch to eat grubs through it's neck stump. Poor old stumpy IPv5.

Whaaat?

[dragonhunter21]

Comcast doing something that's useful and helpful to the internet at large?

Oh wait, now I've got it. A hellmouth must have opened over the US, and hell's frozen over.

Re:cost?

[icebike]

They gave me a SMC8014 for a business drop, and nothing in the manual suggests ipv6 capabilities. That was only 2 years ago.

IPv6 Inertia

[DaMattster]

I always thought it was a matter of economics not technology that ISPs are generally unwilling to go to IPv6. I think ISPs like IPv4 because they can charge extra for static addresses. Since IPv6 has virtually limitless addresses this kind of removes an extra profit generator. Now it would seem end users can have large address blocks and soon it might be economically feasible for uber geeks like myself to do BGP routing!

Re:IPv6 Inertia

[silas_moeckel]

Because comcast will peer with you via BGP? That 2.5k for a ASN might be an issue. Also your /64 is not necessarily static it probably will not change but it does not have to stay the same.

This is ridiculous

[ugen]

"Each user has been delegated a /64 block of approximately 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (18 quintillion) unique IPv6 addresses. "

So, effectively, they just shortened an IPv6 address to 64 bit - and allocation haven't even started yet in earnest.
This is the problem with people. Even technical people (and moreover - everyone else) will waste any resource (including artificial resource) until there is scarcity regulated by monetary means. If that's the way IPv6 will be assigned - /64 to an individual user, /32 to a corporation, /12 to interplanetary internet or whatever other cooky idea there is - these addresses will run out in a jiffy. And then we'll be trading in these and IPv4 just the same.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Nigel Stepp]

Give rfc3177 a read, especially section 4. That RFC is obsolete now, but the math hasn't changed.

These numbers are ridiculously huge, and it is intended in the design that subnets would normally be sized at /64. Thinking of that as 18 quintillion addresses is thinking like IPv4. IPv6 is different, and you think in terms of subnets. There are also (since an address is 128 bits) 18 quintillion /64 networks. If we give each person on the planet 65536 /64s (that's a /48) then we have enough for 5000 times the current world population in the current pool of addresses, which is 1/8th the full IPv6 address space. If you use the whole space, then it's 40,200 times the world population.

Re:This is ridiculous

[hpa]

This wasn't done by Comcast, but the IPv6 architects. This is pretty much the consequence of having a fixed-size address space... people will mismanage it partly because of the way we think... we are mentally programmed to hoard.

It's the class A/B/C problem all over again.

Re:This is ridiculous

[hedwards]

From Larger address space

The most important feature of IPv6 is a much larger address space than in IPv4. The size of IPv6 addresses is 128 bits, compared to 32 bits in IPv4. The address space therefore supports 2^128 or approximately 3.4×10^38
addresses. By comparison, this amounts to approximately 5×10^28 addresses for each of the 6.8 billion people alive in 2010.

It's not going to be exhausted anytime soon, and the shear number of devices that you'd need to exhaust that would be completely unimaginable. And not in the sense that we failed to imagine how many devices would be connected, but that would be more than every singe possession that everybody owns having multiple addresses whether or not they contain any circuitry.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv6 knowledge fail

Re:This is ridiculous

[Chuck_McDevitt]

You are very confused. A /64 is enough space for every network device ever built or will be built in our lifetime to be part of one home network. And you think that is too small? That you will run out in a jiffy?

IPv6 works. Subnets cannot run out of addresses in any foreseeable future. Business will get a /48 or at least a /56. They won't have a problem.

All of the IPv6 problems are in the transition.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Cerilus]

Dear God! Kettle, pot on line two!

You have *no idea* the size of IPv6. To paraphrase Douglas Adams: "if you think you know how big space is, then you don't know how big it is."

128 bits is HUGE. It's big enough that we can't reasonably brute force search it. (Source: Applied Cryptography). nmap-v6 on the entire IPv6 Internet would never finish.

Get over it. Address scarcity is over in IPv6. We simply can't breed that many humans. We could assign 1 *billion* /64s to each person on this planet, and not run out. We could conceivability connect billions of parallel universes with IPv6. We can independently address every atom of this universe. And have some left over!

I admit, the address limit is finite, but you won't see it. Your kids won't see it. Their kids won't see it. Bet you a dollar. If I lose, you can collect from my great-great-grandchildren.

Steve

Re:This is ridiculous

[arkhan_jg]

Assigning /64 spaces to users is by design. IPv6 is a 128 bit address space. The first 64 bits are used for the globally routable address space, the last 64 bits are created by the hosts. The simple implementation is the ISP gives you a single routable 64-bit address, and then you stick your MAC address (on more strictly, the link-layer address) in as the last 64 bits - and bingo, you have a unique routable 128-bit IPv6 address per machine. If you want privacy, you just randomly generate the last 64-bits, which windows does by default, and linux can do with a simple option. With a 64-bit address space to play with, you're unlikely to get collisions.

It makes network routing and reconfiguration much simpler. Your IPv6 router advertises the first 64-bit address space the client can use, and the client handles the rest. Change ISP, or tunnel broker? Just change the routable prefix, and your clients will update automatically.

Yes, it means you're 'wasting' the last 64-bit of the address space by only using it for a few users; but with 5×10^28 addresses available per person on the planet, assigning 18x10^18 per ISP end connection still leaves unimaginably large amounts of the IPv6 address space free. In percentage terms, a single /64 is still far, far, far smaller than a single IPv4 address, and it drastically simplifies routing and configuration, by design.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even worse than that (if you go by the standards and recommendations). If you have a home router and a home LAN, you will need at least one /64 for your LAN and another /64 for the point-to-point connection from the ISP to your home. But even that configuration is lame because it doesn't allow for subnetting. For that, you need a /48 for your home giving you 16 bits for subnetting. And the first 16 bits of those /48 come from a limited pool giving you a 32-bit freely allocatable address space.

The 64-bit suffix of the (nonsegmentable) LAN is simply the MAC address of the machine (with 0xfffe stuffed in the middle).

The whole scheme is unimaginably wasteful and rigid at the same time. The 16 bits of subnetting is bound to become a limiting factor in companies, even homes and all sorts of gadgets that would like to distribute their network segment dynamically across their components.

My (Finnish) ISP has allocated a /64 for me. However, it is useless (and unused) because they are keeping the gateway address of that network meaning all network nodes must be on the same nonroutable LAN segment with the ISP's gateway. Not only unwieldy but completely incompatible with the existing IPv4 topology of my home network. Since I have a static IPv4 address, however, I have a /48 network through 6to4 (and I have ended up needing three subnetworks with GRE tunneling because the proprietary firmware of my WLAN router doesn't support pseudobridging for IPv6).

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they start allocating /facepalms to people who comment on address allocation with no understanding of IPv6.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

What Comcast is saying here is that they're giving you the full address space. Of the 128 bits in a IPv6 address, 64 of those identify the network, 64 identify the host. It's written in the spec.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I would love to agree, this really isn't going to be a problem unless the human race starts breeding like rabbits and we end up with a population density so large that we need another twenty earths so that we can all just stand up at the same time.

With a /64 allocation per user, this seems to waste a lot of address.. sure, why not. But the thing is, the address space is HUGE. Sites for instance are allocated a /48, of which there are 2^48 = 281,474,976,710,656 of those. Whilst it can easily be argued that a /48 may not be quite large enough for some organisations, offering only 65,536 subnets of /64 for use, any organisation that large is going to be rare.

If the address space runs out in a jiffy, frankly, I want a lifespan that long!

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

If we had allocated 1 billion IP addresses every second since the formation of the earth, we would still have used less than one trillionth of the address space. I don't think we're in danger of running out anytime soon.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Alioth]

This is how IPv6 is designed to work, the smallest allocation given to a user is a /64 to allow stateless autoconfiguration. It's why the address is 128 bits in the first place.

The 64 bits left for the network is still incredibly huge. You may be falling for the (intuitive) fallacy that 64 bits is just twice as big as 32 bits, but it's not. 64 bit subnets mean there are 2^32 *times as many* subnets than there are entire addresses in the whole of IPv4, that's to say, you can have *4 billion* networks the size of the entire IPv4 internet today before exhausting your address space. 2^64 subnets is 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (18 quintillion) subnets. To put that in perspective, allocating by /64 means there are up to 2.6 billion subnets available for each human currently alive today before exhaustion.

So no, it's nothing like the old A/B/C classful allocations. Nothing like it at all. Not is it wasteful.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv6's design with LAN autoconfiguration automatically populating a subnet's range using the NIC MAC which is quite quick and simple to implement - and it'll fill a /64 nicely

Also, I have a few mates who *on a whim* requested IPv4 /24s and got them for free (this goes back almost ten years).
Needless to say, RIRs have learnt and publicly accessible IPv6 ranges (from RIRs) are a little harder to get.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you are saying is that your magic crystal ball tells you that ISPs will have more customers, then customers will have devices in the future?

I wouldn't be so sure..... It's not so hard to come up with stuff that you might want to monitor in your home in the future and when every sensor has it's own ipv6 address you need alot of them.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Timmmm]

The /64 is so you can do state-less autoconfiguration. I.e. your IP address is derived from your MAC address or a GUID.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Lost Race]

As much as I would love to agree, this really isn't going to be a problem unless the human race starts breeding like rabbits and we end up with a population density so large that we need another twenty earths so that we can all just stand up at the same time.

Host address allocation has nothing to do with the number of humans, since humans aren't assigned IP addresses -- network nodes are. Who knows how many network nodes there might be in the future?

Aggressively self-replicating nanobots with networking capability could easily exhaust a badly partitioned 128-bit address space in only a few million years!

Re:This is ridiculous

[jbgeek]

IPv4 thinking is going to be hard to break. :)

Here's the relevant section of that RFC:

3. Address Delegation Recommendations

      The IESG and the IAB recommend the allocations for the boundary
      between the public and the private topology to follow those general
      rules:

            - /48 in the general case, except for very large subscribers.
            - /64 when it is known that one and only one subnet is needed by
                  design.
            - /128 when it is absolutely known that one and only one device
                  is connecting.

      In particular, we recommend:

            - Home network subscribers, connecting through on-demand or
                  always-on connections should receive a /48.
            - Small and large enterprises should receive a /48.
            - Very large subscribers could receive a /47 or slightly shorter
                  prefix, or multiple /48's.
            - Mobile networks, such as vehicles or mobile phones with an
                  additional network interface (such as bluetooth or 802.11b)
                  should receive a static /64 prefix to allow the connection of
                  multiple devices through one subnet.
            - A single PC, with no additional need to subnet, dialing-up from
                  a hotel room may receive its /128 IPv6 address for a PPP style
                  connection as part of a /64 prefix.

      Note that there seems to be little benefit in not giving a /48 if
      future growth is anticipated. In the following, we give the
      arguments for a uniform use of /48 and then demonstrate that it is
      entirely compatible with responsible stewardship of the total IPv6
      address space.

So it will actually be fairly common for end users to get a /48, or 64Ki /64s. Businesses will likely get a /48 per-site. :)

Re:This is ridiculous

[Nigel Stepp]

So it will actually be fairly common for end users to get a /48, or 64Ki /64s. Businesses will likely get a /48 per-site. :)

That was the plan, but it was walked back by draft-ietf-v6ops-3177bis-end-sites-01. I still like rfc3177 and think everyone should get a /48, but who knows what we'll actually see people do.

Re:This is ridiculous

[jbgeek]

Ah I didn't catch that draft back in July. Wonder if it will become "official"?

Re:This is ridiculous

[sglines]

So I guess we won't run out this time.

SG

Slightly unrelated

[ugen]

Is there software that can NAT IPv6? Clearly anything's possible in theory - but are there existing solutions.

I'd like all my devices to appear as a single IP address to the outside world, as they do now - to maintain uncertainty.
My Google mojo does not help - any mention of IPv6 in connection with nat that I am finding, is something about ipv4 nat or tunneling.

Ideally, it'd be nice to have that built into dd-wrt

Re:Slightly unrelated

[Zan Lynx]

To maintain uncertainty you want to go from 18 quintillion possibilities to only 65535?

Are you high?

Look at what Windows Vista and 7 as well as other OS's are doing with temporary IPv6 addresses.

Re:Slightly unrelated

[ugen]

I want to go to a *single* IP address that represents all systems on my network. Same thing I am doing today with IPv4. I don't like people outside to be able to enumerate devices on my network - and using a single address is a first step (tweaking IP stacks to change signature and replacing browser agent string helps too).

I kinda expected that instead of "this is how you do this" (which is what freedom of choice of technology should be about) I am going to get the usual ideologically painted answers about how "that's not what you need".

I think I found the answer though - OpenBSD will gladly masquerade either ipv4 or ipv6. I suppose I may have to go with a slightly higher end router box (rather than the usual Linksys dd-wrt re-flash)

Too bad Linux/netfilter won't but ideology takes precedence there.

Re:Slightly unrelated

[0x000000]

You can do NAT on an IPv6 connection the same way you are doing NAT on IPv4. Also, instead of using NAT to protect resources you should be using a border firewall that has the same rules for IPv6 as you have for your IPv4. That way from the outside even if they scan one of your IP addresses it still has the proper ports closed.

Assign internal IPv6 addresses to your network, and then NAT on those. Simple.

Whatever gateway you have that is doing route advertisements for IPv6 is still the primary location for firewalling, and is still your single point in and out of your network.

Re:Slightly unrelated

[Chuck_McDevitt]

Not necessary. IPv6 has "privacy enhanced IP addresses". A random IP is used each time you connect outbound, and so anyone that records your IP will find it useless. And guessing IP addresses when even a home user has multiple quintillion doesn't work at all.

Re:Slightly unrelated

[WaffleMonster]

I want to go to a *single* IP address that represents all systems on my network. Same thing I am doing today with IPv4. I don't like people outside to be able to enumerate devices on my network - and using a single address is a first step (tweaking IP stacks to change signature and replacing browser agent string helps too).

It is possible today to recover the users internal IP address on their private IPv4 network using flash / javascript when they visit a web site.

NAT == stateful firewall without packet mangling.

Effectivly anyone who wants it gets the same information and capabilities from your users regardless of IPv4 NAT vs IPv6 firewall.

Re:Slightly unrelated

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what ugen is saying is not that he wants the pseudo-firewall effect of NAT, but the fact that an outside agent -- a nosy ISP or a national-security-letter-waving pig-ass FBI dick tapping your cable -- cannot easily discern the count of masqueraded hosts or distinguish which particular LAN host sent any given packet (provided other information leaks are plugged like HTTP user-agent, etc.).

From a criminal or civil-suit perspective, plausible deniability -- your legal defense -- gets a bit easier when the traffic from you, your roommate, your neighbor, and the occasional open AP guest are all NAT-multiplexed on the same public IP address. An individual IPv6 address for each host allows the monitoring party to easily correlate your Linux ISO torrents with your non-SSL POP3 mail checks that announce your email address every five minutes.

Re:Slightly unrelated

[cyclomedia]

As per request I'll refrain from saying "that's not what you need" but still. They wont be able to "enumerate" if you have a firewall, you don't need NAT to block incoming ports. I prepared these diagrams and post links whenever this is discussed on slashdot:

IPv4 NAT : http://cyclomedia.co.uk/blog/media/nat.png

IPv6 Firewall : http://cyclomedia.co.uk/blog/media/ipv6.png

Note the devices in the house that don't have any incoming ports. Not even ping? Note how it's the same in both diagrams? Do you get it yet?

Re:Slightly unrelated

[mnslinky]

Why the hell would you want to NAT IPv6? NAT was brought about due to limited numbers of IPv4 addresses assigned to end users (only 1 IP to most end users). With IPv6, every machine/device/etc can have an ACTUAL IP, that doesn't break some protocols like NAT does.

Re:Slightly unrelated

[Jon Stone]

You have 18 quintillion addresses to hide in. How much uncertainty do you need?

Re:Slightly unrelated

[ugen]

As poster below noted (and you seem to not quite get :) ) - this is not to protect devices that never speak to the "outside world", but rather to remove ability of sites and servers in the outside world to discern between separate devices in my network connecting to them. Poster below also brought some good reasons for doing so, although there are more.

Anonymous IP addresses do not solve this issue because for a duration of the validity of this address your computer is still uniquely identified amongst other systems in your subnet.

This did, however, give me an idea - instead of mapping all connections to the same address, perhaps a better solution, now that a 64 bit space is available, is to map every connection to a *different* address. The downside of this approach is that if system on the other end uses IP as a method to bind your session - you may have trouble using it (think Facebook sessions, although many of these systems do make some exceptions to allow multiple proxies and things like AOL buggery). On the other hand, this would make traditional tracking a bit harder - where tracking systems normally used your single IP to map to at least a household, if not an individual computer - they'll be faced with virtually unlimited number of IP addresses. I am sure in time they'll figure out how to apply a /64 mask - but until then, it's a great way to make their job more difficult :)

As an aside, regarding Flash leaking IP address of internal system - I am sure it could, but that's what Flashblock is for. I don't think any of the devices in my household are permitted to run flash by default. In fact, on the system I am typing this from, the only site on flashblock white list is Youtube - and I probably should remove that too :)

Re:Slightly unrelated

[ugen]

That was my question though - can I?
The answer I found so far is that the only firewall/netfilter/ip stack that supports IPv6 nat is that of OpenBSD. I found no mention of it in FreeBSD. I also found specific statements by Linux Netfilter developers to the effect that "NAT for IPv6" will be available "over his dead body".

So, looks like "you can't NAT IPv6" just like IPv4 after all.
"In theory there is no difference between theory in practice. In practice - there is" (c)

You're our company's computer guy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, you handle all this IP 6 stuff. Can you have it taken care of by Thursday?

Re:Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast ma

[RightwingNutjob]

You're done alright. The modem won't give you an IP address (as of Jul 10) if your MAC doesn't match what it's activated against.

Uhm, no

[Anonymous Coward]

The IPv6 allocation policies have been given a lot of work by some very smart people... in particular people who are on the front lines of IPv4 exhaustion.

In IPv6 an ISP can be given a /32. Sure that *sounds* huge (2^96 addresses!), but its only as much burden as a SINGLE IP ADDRESS in IPv4. Millions of ISPs would be no challenge at all.

Then inside of that each customer can be given a /64. Again, the "burden" of this is tiny compared to the size of the ISPs /32 block. They can serve billions of customers without worrying about needing another /32.

Getting a /64 basically means that no matter how large your organization is, you can fit within that numbering. Doesn't matter if you're a grandma or a transnational corporation, there's plenty of space in there for you.

2^128 is a truly large number... no reason not to get comfy.

Re:Uhm, no

[itsybitsy]

"Getting a /64 basically means that no matter how large your organization is, you can fit within that numbering. Doesn't matter if you're a grandma or a transnational corporation, there's plenty of space in there for you."

It also lets BIG BROTHERs track you all the easier.

"2^128 is a truly large number... no reason not to get comfy."

Famous last words.

Re:Uhm, no

[Anonymous Coward]

Every subscriber should get a /48 giving each subscriber 16 bits to allocate for subnets.

Re:Uhm, no

[Zarhan]

Getting a /64 basically means that no matter how large your organization is, you can fit within that numbering. Doesn't matter if you're a grandma or a transnational corporation, there's plenty of space in there for you.

No - organizations get /56's, or /48:s. /64 is for individual LAN segment except in some rare cases (such as proposed /127 for Point-to-point links). The size is depending on the size of your network. If you only, truly, have a single LAN then that /64 is enough. However, even small business typically has at least 3 subnets - one for workstations, one for servers, and one DMZ that's facing Internet. There may be separate subnets for e.g. IP phones and so on. So instead of ordering addressing based on number of devices, you now do it based on number of networks you intend to have.

Having a /64 for a LAN segment allows for lots of tricks like cryptographically generated addresses, anonymity and so on that were simply not possible with v4.

/. = Useless dick@Parapalegic Lesbian Conference

[b1gp0pp4]

Work as a fucking team. Stop the insanity. The argument for arguments' sake. It's terrible. Even the best of us do it. Just UNIFY!

Woah there

[fireylord]

Simplistic understanding of mathematics there buddy. A /128 minus a /64 per end user does not equate to halving the address space.

  Them there digits after them there slashes are signifying how many times to the power of the number in the same way that 2 to the power of 2 is squaring 2 and making four. It does not mean 2x128, or 2x64. Consider this: 2 e2 (ie to the power of, or rather multiplied by) = 4 2 e3 ( ie 2 multiplied by 2 multiplied by 2)= 8, 2 e4 = 16, 2 e5=32. 2 e6 = 64. therefore a /6 is 64 address spaces, removing a /3 (which is 8 address spaces) leaves 56 address spaces, it does not halve it. In this vein half of the /128 address space is a /127.

Hope this oversimplification helps, and apologies for the poor mathematical symbology there, its early morning, and I'm not really with it.

Re:Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast ma

[ashridah]

uh,. no. that's not true.

You have to wait, last i checked, 2-3 minutes for the remote end to forget your old mac address. then you plug the cable back in.

I've had to do this, when swapping from a laptop (for the comcarse support or installation tech), and then as soon as they're gone/done, i turn off the modem, plug it into my linux gateway, and wait a few minutes. then turn the modem back on, and the linux gateway gets an IP immediately.

Now people are using ipV6

[Chrisq]

Now people are using ipV6 isn't it time for someone to invent ipv7, so the uber-geeks can still tell everybody how they really should switch to the latest technology?

Re:Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast ma

[bucky0]

"data" isn't the plural of "anecdote", but where I am in the chicago area, that isn't an issue. Before my roommate and I got our router (both of us thought the other was bringing one, then we had to order one off the internet), we swapped out without an issue.

Re:Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast ma

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Simply unplug your modem for 30 seconds and it will

IPv6

[ledow]

Nobody need know or care that a client on the Internet is using IPv6 or IPv4 - ISP's can easily form automatic proxies, bridges or whatever else is necessary and nobody needs to change a thing.

Those who *want* to help can change onto an IPv6 network in about 2-3 minutes per computer (provided it's fairly recent, i.e 2000/XP, Linux 2.6 or above). Network managers can upgrade in a matter of minutes for every user behind their NAT.

The problem is... why? As has been stated many times before, when Slashdot, or the BBC, or the ordinary "google.com" site (not the ipv6.google.com test) give me some AAAA records then I will see a point to it. Until then, I have an allocated address and all the websites I want to communicate with ONLY speak IPv4 anyway. When that changes and an IPv6 route to the same website exists, there's a reason to upgrade (i.e. the transition has started), and even for YEARS afterwards, there will still be no *advantage* to talking IPv6 over IPv4 to that particular site.

Now, the Internet *isn't* just websites but the same holds. When my dedicated server comes pre-installed with IPv6 connectivity for remote SSH access, then I can start taking it seriously. Until then, there's no *point* in me spending even the ten minutes it takes to convert the systems under my control.

Publishing an AAAA address on a dedicated website server or even a whole cluster of servers is no more difficult or intrusive than publishing an A address. Until some of the largest sites in the world start to bother, what's the point?

IPv6 enabled provider

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm living in France, and my provider (Nerim) gives me dual stack IPv4 + IPv6 connection since 2003...

Speak for yourself

[ThatsNotPudding]

I happen to categorize and index every sub-atomic particle I experience on a daily basis.

Re:cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when has Comcast given people routers? I've had Comcast (and its predecessors) for 15 years and I have never gotten a router from them. They give you a cable modem with one port for network. You want a NAT router you are on your own. And my 1 year old Linksys router doesn't do IPv6 damn it.

ipv6 for smartphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this mean all smartphones will get a unique ip as well ?

It's more likely than you think.

[tepples]

Windows NT and IPv6? In wasabii's company? It's more likely than you think.

• "Windows 2000 Professional Based on NT Technology" was Windows NT 5.0.
• Windows XP is Windows NT 5.1.
• Windows Vista is Windows NT 6.0. Apply the first Service Pack and you have Windows Mojave.
• Windows 7 is Windows NT 6.1.

Or by Windows NT did you specifically mean Windows NT 4, the last one to carry

Screwing with my router?

[slaingod]

So interestingly, on Feb 1st, at 12:04AM, my network went nuts in my house. I have Comcast Business Class service and was actually on the phone with them yesterday morning, with no good results. I have a Comcast provided SMC cable modem/router, with my own DLink Gaming Lounge 4100 or something attached to that.

Basically the problem is this: When I have two computers attached to my router now, the internet becomes unusable on all the computers. I can see the ethernet lights show Gigabit connection orange, and green traffic, but then it blinks out, repeating every 10 seconds or so.

I am wondering if this trial has something to do with my problems. Or maybe it is just time for a new router...

Re:Screwing with my router?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

You'd need to be way more specific about OS's. It's likely your router is buggy or one or more of your computers is advertising itself as a IPv6 to IPv4 gateway erroneously.

Re:Screwing with my router?

[slaingod]

The computers are Windows 7, though there is an Ubuntu VM on the main computer. Any two connected to the router cause problems, but if the cable modem isn't connected the Dlink works fine (but no internet obviously), so something is happening between the DLink router and the cable modem's router. Nothing on my network changed, particularly at specifically 12:04ish AM CST on Tuesday morning.

Comcast Modem/Router: SMC8014
DLink Gamer Lounge DGL-4300

Right now I have the second computer plugged into the SMC's router ports, and it works fine, just can't see into the DLink to talk to the other computers obviously. Connecting over WiFi does not exhibit the same problems when two computers are connected on the DLink (one via ethernet the other via WiFi).

Re:Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast ma

[Ironhandx]

Just to clear up some confusion here:

A lot of ISP's used to register your mac, this was from a mentality back in the early 90s that they thought you should be paying a fee for each internet connected device in the home, similar to how a lot of cable companies wanted to charge you by number of TV's(and still do in a lot of cases). Some Comcast areas still have the old default configuration and it will take up to 48 hours for the remote end to actually forget the MAC. Some areas never had this implemented at all. Mostly its where there is old infrastructure that hasn't had anything important break in the last 10+ years so no tech has actually looked at it. So you will still get the odd person reporting that "This is the way it is" and for them, they are correct.

The VAST majority(99.99%) of Comcast customers however should require just a modem reboot.

Re:cost?

[gambino21]

Which Linksys router are you using? There is a good chance you can use IPv6.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database

Re:Where are the routers for IPV6? does comcast ma

[Anonymous Coward]

This is still the case for me, with a modem set up 16 months ago.

My wireless router is the first thing in the line after the cable modem, and when I switched it out recently, I had to spoof the mac address. Maybe I'm just the unlucky one?