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Cisco Linksys Routers Still Don't Support IPv6
Julie188 writes "It's 2011, IPv4 addresses are officially exhausted, and the world's largest router maker, Cisco, still doesn't support IPv6 in its best-selling line of Linksys wireless routers. This is true even for the new E4200 router released just last month (priced at $180). The company has promised to add IPv6 to the E4200 by the spring. But it has not been specific about if and how it will offer an IPv6 upgrade to the millions of other Linksys routers currently running in homes and small businesses."
Yet another reason I'm glad I've always recommended against Linksys to friends and family. Shoddy equipment in the past, and no preparation for the future now.
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
dd-wrt FTW
What motivation would Cisco possibly have for providing firmware updates to old, cheap routers?
Go easy on them, Cisco is such a small company and really there was no way they could have seen this coming.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Pardon me if this sounds amazingly ignorant, but why does the average person or small business need IPv6 connectivity? Aren't most ISPs going to do the 4-6 translation for these people?
As well, last I checked Linksys home/small business products don't even support subnets larger than a class C anyway, so anyone using these products probably doesn't have more than 250 devices, let alone enough necessary to require IPv6 internally.
Apple, Netgear, Dlink, etc are offering support for it.
This is why no one wants to switch yet. If the users can't access your sites businesses are not going to judge it very cost effective to make them available on v6.
Just run a Linux Distro on it like DD-WRT http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/IPv6
The firmware it comes with is crappy anyway...
*narf!*
Considering most OS's out there support IPv6 (Vista, 7, Linux, Mac OS X) and most have it defaulted ON out of the box, why not add the capability? I don't know how many of the Linksys routers still run a version of linux out of the box, but it wouldn't be hard to add in, and allow the home network to run on IPv6 (or drop back to IPv4 if need be). Not that it's a huge deal, but it's not so much future proofing as it is something already in your home, on your network, just under/not utilized.
I have an old Linksys router and put OpenWRT on it. It supported ipv6 just fine with that firmware on it but ran out of disk space as soon as I tried to add qos support. I went back the the stupidly expensive Cisco branded router that's full of bugs..
When did people develop this sense of entitlement that every little cheap-ass consumer product they buy ought to be future-proof?
Last Sunday during the Super Bowl when Ozzy and The Bieber told them it should be that way.
How often do you think people swap out their routers? I've been using same one since late 2005 and see no reason to upgrade (no, 802.11n is not enough of a reason).
Gone!
They do at least on the WAN side.
meaning it's not going to connect on the big-wacky side of the interwackytubes thing. it's going to be on a 10 network or a 192.168 network and fed by NAT from some host that has bgrp to the real thing. non-story. now, Foundry or Cisco that can't work on IPv6, that's news. 2007 news.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Seriously, they sell this stuff here and KNOW that those that bought this chinese junk, will be forced to buy it again within another 2 years. Totally sick.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You will when your ISP mandates IPv6. See how that works? There needs to be some reason for them to keep making new consumer gear.
Considering most OS's out there support IPv6 (Vista, 7, Linux, Mac OS X) and most have it defaulted ON out of the box, why not add the capability?
Because it would cost Cisco money to do so, and they would get no financial benefit out of it. Those routers were never advertised with IPv6 support, so why should they be upgraded for free?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
The problem isn't the expectation of being future-proof, the problem is the very small value of "future" (now a moving target per the manufacturer).
Not really.
Something like 90% of end users are running behind nat already. (Ok, I pulled that 90% figure right out of my ass, but you get the point). I know entire State agencies that are using their perfectly good world routable IPs ... (wait for it)... Behind a NAT!!!
Its not the way the net was designed to work, but we've been using it that way since dirt.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
So if one is just using the trusty old ip4(only) router on the personal side (PAN/LAN/whatever) of a comcrapstic cable modem then even when/if Comcast goes ip6 one will be ok? ...is that what yer say'n? (and can we have that notarized? [wink])
We're number 1 ... so we don't give a rat's ass.
I'm not talking about older units, I'm more so talking about the new(er) units out now
Ironic that literally the first page I open after flashing a Cisco-Linksys router w/DD-WRT, and finally getting online, is this thread. DD-WRT for the win. IPv6 and so, so much more.
Prefix delegation. You can't expect ISPs to configure static routes via SLAAC assigned addresses on customer router's WAN interfaces for the prefixes the customer is going to use on the LAN interface.
I run a v3 (or was it v4?) router w/ Tomato (http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato/) firmware. Given the nature of GPL firmwares, wouldn't it be possible just to enable IPv6 support in the router? Correct me if I am wrong, this should not be a hardware issue at all, right?
Disappointing a company as large as Cisco to not enable support for IPv6 for the Linksys routers out there. Perhaps this is a sign for other router manufacturers like Buffalo to step up and be the first.
~ Old Warriors Society
DD-WRT
As someone who wanted to test his home router with Comcast IPV6 testing, I was sorely disappointed with the firmware running on my router. Appearently the version I have USED to have some IPV6 support, but recent revs have either broken it, or stopped supporting it.
Cisco doesn't care about Linksys brand. It was simply a marketing decision to buy the company to promote Corporate products. I won't buy Corporate Cisco equipment if I can ever help it. My company is replacing Cisco with much less expensive HP gear and can't be happier.
Do you hear that Cisco, your Microsoft style tactics will let your lessor rivals overtake you.
If you have existing Linksys gear, see if DD-WRT works on it. If it does, you'll get MUCH better support and it is IPV6.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/IPV6
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Name servers and NTP servers can be propagated via ND options as long as the client OS can pick up on those options.
DHCPv6 is primarily interesting for prefix delegation.
A slashdot member posted in 2005 (almost six years ago) that he was using a LinkSys router for an ipV6 trial.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
Those routers were never advertised with IPv6 support, so why should they be upgraded for free?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
In the case of home broadband such as cable or DSL, the modem (which is a technical misnomer, but still the accepted name) is, in its simplest description, just a way to adapt digital network traffic from a cable or land line to ethernet. On the user end there still needs to be a device to accept the IP address assigned by the ISP, whether it is a computer, web router, etc. There do exist combination cable modem / routers which do all of this as one encased device. Cisco/Linksys is a manufacturer of these, in fact. I have also used Qwest DSL modems in the past which also had a router built in. But as a standalone unit, a modem cannot hold an IP address.
/* No Comment */
You will when your ISP mandates IPv6.
The ISPs have another alternative: refuse to offer connectivity except via NAT unless you're using IPv6. If you're content with being a second-class user, you can continue to use your crappy Linksys. Your call.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
This is really irresponsible on Cisco's part. I don't care about their monetary considerations, adding IPv6 support into their Linux derived routers wouldn't have been all that hard or costly for them.
Their refusal to enable IPv6 support is having a bad effect on IPv6 adoption. I don't think most people realise how bad IPv4 exhaustion can be. IPv4 exhaustion puts a cap on internet growth, which in turn retards economic growth.
Seriously Cisco, fuck you, just fuck you.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Cheap gadgets not being future-proof I can understand, but this is a $180 gadget not being 10-years-ago-proof...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Waiting until the very last minute to take action does seem very human-like, after all. The future? Nope! Wait until the catastrophe strikes.
Sounds like a great way to sell more routers. Most people won't understand the details. If some Geek Squad goon says "you need to upgrade your router to support the New Internet(TM)." Most people will pony up the $50 and move on.
Instead of spewing hate, we should be lauding Cisco on their capitalist business savvy. They are going to make loads of money selling people new gear that they otherwise wouldn't need.
I doubt APNIC will be the first, as they got three /8s (two requested and one of the final five) out of the final issuance from IANA. Barring a change in their issuing policy, ARIN is going to be the first to run out, followed by APNIC, then RIPE. LACNIC and AfriNIC are probably good for at least a year.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Considering most OS's out there support IPv6 (Vista, 7, Linux, Mac OS X) and most have it defaulted ON out of the box, why not add the capability? I don't know how many of the Linksys routers still run a version of linux out of the box, but it wouldn't be hard to add in, and allow the home network to run on IPv6 (or drop back to IPv4 if need be). Not that it's a huge deal, but it's not so much future proofing as it is something already in your home, on your network, just under/not utilized.
Exactly. Maybe they are building planned obsolescence into their products. Soon people will need to turn in replace their old routers and replace them with new IPv6 routers but the strategy could backfire since D-Link and others already support IPv6 on their inexpensive wireless N home routers
My linksys E3000, with whatever factory firmware it had from oct 2010 has IPV6 functionality. (Tested using http://v6.testmyipv6.com/ and http://test-ipv6.com/faq_opera.html, and I can see ipv6 cisco and google sites).
The e4200 might not, but that certainly doesn't mean none of them do.
You mean, people paid money to Cisco for features they still haven't gotten yet? Did Cisco book that revenue yet, or did they defer booking it until the feature will actually be delivered? Inquiring accountants who remember the Enron scandal want to know!
jhw
So we can see the problem coming... so instead of doing something about it now and being ready, you advocate doing nothing? Perhaps a little short sighted? (Especially since ARIN, APNIC and RIPE will probably run out of IPv4 addresses this year)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
So you think we should all just STFU and get busy cramming those landfills full?
Of course, my Linksys supports IPv6 just fine. I re-flashed it years ago.
No. people paid money to Cisco for features they got, now they've changed their minds and want different features!
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
And when will that be? My ISP doesn't yet support IPv6, yet we're supposed to be worried that they'll drop IPv4 soon?
Support SETI@home
So when that happens in several months, all routers in uncle Joe's and aunt May's homes will be magically replaced by the new product Cisco might start selling by then, right?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
$180? For a linksys router? Seriously, if you're spending that much maybe you should look for a higher quality brand.
Support SETI@home
> 99.9% of those Linksys routers will have no need to run IPv6 in their effective lifetime.
Yes, because there are so many of them that ISPs will be forced to support them. They will do so by putting all their customers behind LSNAT. This has nothing to do with any sense of entitlement. None of us are going to buy these things. Our neighbors are.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This reminds me of that dilbert strip where Dilbert says that if they build their code perfectly the first time around they would make 10% in return in investment, but they can make 40% back if they make something cheap that requires paid updates. Getting back on topic though, I think there are some models where you can install custom firmware that might support ipv6. I don't know enough about ipv6 to tell you if it's going to be a software or hardware issue, but any time that there's a major upgrade in the infrastructure of -anything- you're pretty much required to buy new hardware. Think of it when we'll transition from DOCSIS 2 to DOCSIS 3. You won't be able to reach the speeds of a DOCSIS 3 with a DOCSIS 2, it's only natural to upgrade. Though, routers tend to only last a few years anyways so it's not that big of a deal. I, myself am a netgear fan after having so much trouble with linksys in the past, but I'm going to be stuck buying a IPV6 router soon since my ISP is offering their consumers to do the switch right now. I'm not going to do it until websites are fully supporting it, I know my website doesn't support it yet (though I hope it will be supported by next month) so anyone with IPV6 might not be able to access it or much of the web elsewhere, at least that's what I hear =/
Often, specifically (if not only) for newer WiFi technologies and when frustrated with their Internet connectivity. Regardless of the fact the real problem is with their ISP and/or computer itself.
Fact is, most consumers never upgrade the firmware on their boxes. The only time it's ever touched is either when setting up a new one, or Geek Squad does it for them. Thus, they get replaced, not upgraded.
Welcome to our ignorant throw-away society. Facts of life.
Life is not for the lazy.
THIS.
I get one IP address from my ISP. My LAN is behind a NAT firewall, all running IPv4 and will continue running IPv4 until I personally have more than the thousands of computers IPv4 private addresses can handle or there is any advantage to running IPv6.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Perhaps. I can pick up ~12 routers from where I'm sitting (at home) and all but one is a broadband-company issued router. The SSID is always insight_xxxx and secured, the other is belkin54g.
So from what I can see, no one manages, or buys, their own router anyway.
Gone!
The IPv4 exhaustion issue is trumpeted as a reason to provide IPv6 support. But the exhaustion is purely at the NIC level at this point. It hasn't reached a single end user yet. It'll take years for people to start caring about this much. By that time, the current product line will be swapped out for new gear.
It has been reaching users for many many years in the terms of ISP documentation requirements. This is why residential customers get a single IP address if their lucky.
I didn't RTFA, but I know the summary is inaccurate. I saw some other posts about others with Linksys routers with IPv6 and am here to tell you I am one too. I have a WRT610N and have been on IPv6 in the home for a couple years. Comcast turned on the IPv6 for me recently too.
-]Phreak Out[-
More money doing it that way, why would the corp's do it before it's needed when it can induce another hardware upgrade cycle at higher profit margins?
When did people develop this sense of entitlement that every little cheap-ass consumer product they buy ought to be future-proof?
IPv6 has been out a lot longer than my router. It's not about being future-proof. It's about being present-proof.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
They may have three /8 blocks + what they had before, but look at their consumption.
SSC
Why on earth would you want DHCPv6? Router advertisements and SLAAC is much easier
Here is your list of reasons... http://www.iana.org/assignments/bootp-dhcp-parameters/bootp-dhcp-parameters.xml
Plenty of people buy routers, however they often hire someone else to set them up. Either professionally, or through family and friend associations. But you're right, rarely are they "managed". They're often set and forgotten about until such time needed.
I couldn't break down the numbers for you, but more and more ISPs offer WiFi support with their leased equipment. I know U-Verse provides an all-in-one 2Wire modem/router device with an SPI firewall and WiFi capabilities. Those are the only ones that get managed with periodic firmware updates. Other then that, those bundled cheapo Netgear wgr614 units that come with your Cable Co ISP package never get managed or updated.
Life is not for the lazy.
http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/rir.jpg
APNIC will be first.
I bought a Linksys 802.11n wireless router a year ago because enough of my neighbors had upgraded to louder wider-band 802.11n gear and my 802.11g was getting disconnected too often. I finally got around to checking the IPv6 functions, and no, there aren't any, Cisco/Linksys don't say anything about IPv6 in the support pages for the hardware, and googling for it tells me that DD-WRT should work ok. Snarl.... The Cisco web pages seem to imply that the "Restore to Factory Defaults" function doesn't actually restore the operating system to factory defaults, it just resets the network settings and password, and they don't seem to support downloading the old firmware release for that model because they haven't come out with an upgraded one so why would you need that?
Of course, one reason I had bought Cisco (besides the sale price at Fry's) was that the last Netgear router I bought (an 802.11b wireless thing) was a cretinous piece of junk, and while I've liked their Layer 2 hardware for decades, I haven't wanted to touch anything at Layer 3 or above from them until I've got some reason to assume they've Got Better. (It was nice hardware, and a long time ago, so they probably do fine today. After I ditched the Netgear, I got a 3Com 802.11g that gave you a choice of using routing or just raw Ethernet bridging, and the bridging was clean, dumb, and reliable, and I may decide to run IPv6 wireless on it.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The impression I got is the ISPs supply the routers and preconfigure them with the users details but beyond they they just ignore them until/unless the user calls up for tech support. Some of the big ISPS may have a way to push out updates remotely but I bet many don't.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Argh! Another IPv6 story..... ...and we're NOT out of IPv4 addresses....
Imagine being in a grocery store watching as the last bag of marsmellows is snatched by a customer just moments before you.
Not preparing for the obvious future before it happens is like megafoodco getting rid of its supply chain.
Unstead of waiting a few hours or coming back the next day for someone to restock the shelf you get to wait a month for the stay-puff marshmellow man to make a fresh batch of marsmellows and ship them to your grocery store via snail express.
Believe it or not there are people who actually get paid to look ahead and make sure their organization is prepared for the future. Some consumers often do as well.
I swapped out my router a year ago, precisely because of 802.11n. Too many of my apartment neighbors had upgraded to higher-powered wider-bandwidth 802.11n, the local spectrum was getting too crowded, and my laptop kept losing connections to my 802.11g, so it was time to upgrade. And no, there's no IPv6 support on it, even though it's less than two years old. It's tempting to do DD-WRT.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Come on now... its been out for 10 years or so now, i'd hardly call a requirement for continued network connectivity post 2010 to be considered an "advanced feature".
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
> It hasn't reached a single end user yet.
What do you think is the reason for dynamic IPs? Why do you think many consumers now get an RFC1918 address from their ISP?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I think you missed the point. If Cisco is delivering new features in free-as-in-beer firmware updates to those older routers, then those people paid for those features when they bought the product initially while Cisco hasn't actually delivered them yet.
Some of us remember the Enron and Worldcom financial/accounting scandals where that was one of the ways they hid the salami: booking the revenue now for features you don't actually deliver until N years from now. It was called fraud back then... wonder what the kids are calling it these days.
jhw
Are you saying you have native (dual stack) IPv6 at home or do you have 6RD or 6to4? With the latter two, your router is responsible for tunneling your local, real IPv6 through IPv4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6to4
With native IPv6 (dual stack), your router actually just forwards (bridges really) IPv6 packets between its two interfaces.
Comcast has turned on 6to4/6RD for everyone nationwide, but I don't think native IPv6 (dual stack) is turned on yet for many (Comcast mentions one persion in Colorado having it as of two weeks ago).
As you can see from the wikipedia article, the WRT610N supports 6to4. But I do not believe it supports native IPv6.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
What is likely to happen is that unless you pay extra that one public IP is likely to be replaced by a private IP behind an ISP level nat. IF the ISP has IPs to spare they may run a NAT that is friendly to traversal techniques but as the IP crunch really bites they may choose to run a NAT that is unfriendly to traversal techniques to get a larger number of customers behind one NAT (or they may run a NAT like that simply because it is what they happen to have).
If you only use traditional client server protocols then don't worry about it. If you use anything that requires nat traversal techniques and/or requires incoming connections you should be trying to determine your ISPs plans and/or making contingency plans ASAP.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
No they won't drop IPv4, period. The upgrade is supposed to happen, but nobody knows when. The reason for the upgrade is, as people keep on mentioning and warning for the past years, that there are no more IP addresses for v4. IPv6 can already work with IPv4 out of the box: it translates from 192.168.1.1 for example to ::ffff:192.168.1.1.
Soon, ISPs will have to NAT people. If you are browsing the web, it usually won't affect you at first. If you want to do online gaming, SSH, telnet, or access any IPv6 only site, then you will run into problems. Eventually there's going to be reports of intermittent internet outages and problems connecting if nothing is done.
This is the issue, and it needs to be taken care of, or connection issues will arise.
I think you missed the point. If Cisco is delivering new features in free-as-in-beer firmware updates to those older routers, then those people paid for those features when they bought the product initially while Cisco hasn't actually delivered them yet.
No they didn't. They paid for what the specs on the box said. If the box said IPv4, they paid for IPv4. If it didn't say IPv6, they have no entitlement to IPv6 functionality. What Cisco may or may not do, for free, outside the scope of the purchase, doesn't retroactively entitle people to more than they paid for. If the goods didn't match the spec, they'd be entitled to a refund, and maybe a class action lawsuit. Neither of which would, in any shape or form, preclude Cisco from recording revenue from units sold.
If what you suggest were actually the case, then a company would be unable to earn any money from a product until they EOLed it, and stopped distributing patches.
Some of us remember how to draw relevant parallels too. There's a difference between recording revenue for services/goods you haven't sold, and goods you have sold which later need an update.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
True... I doubt that most residential ISP's will require the use for IPv6 for another five years or so. I'm sure that Linksys will have updated firmware for the newer/popular routers long before then.
If not, how much do you expect an entry level wireless router to cost in 2016? I'd bet $25 online, or $30 at your local Walmart or Target.
This is probably the 6to4 tunnel technology that is working for you. Linksys enabled that by default starting with the W610N router.
They still lack support for native IPv6 on the WAN side. So even if your ISP deployes native IPv6 you will not be able to take advantage of it. Instead you will still be surfing on a tunnel technology that does not always work as well.
I still think you're missing the point.
If Cisco sells you a box that has feature set A and books every cent you pay for it as revenue at the time of sale, then later gives you an update that extends feature set A with feature set B, which has a non-zero marketable value and for which they are not charging you any money, then they are not being truthful in the reporting of their revenues to investors. As a shareholder, I might prefer they didn't lie to me about how much money they are really making each quarter by hiding the costs of delivering features to customers in future quarters and not reporting them to me.
The key question is whether they recognize the revenue they received in exchange for delivering both feature sets A and B at the time of your purchase, when you received only feature set A and not B. Unless they deferred recognition of those revenues until later, that means the revenues associated with the value of feature set B were reported to investors before they were actually produced and delivered. This may seem trivial at the level of ones and twos, but when it goes on at the level of millions of units, it starts to make investors pay attention.
Now, if Cisco plans to sell you the firmware upgrade that adds feature set B, then they will be able to claim you're paying market value at the time of delivery, and their books will be clean. But if they give it away for free when it's clearly a new feature of non-zero market value but the market isn't getting a chance to mark the value appropriately, then that suggests an accounting irregularity and grounds for an investor lawsuit.
One assumes they deferred the revenue or they're preparing to amend their reports after the fact and hope none of their investors sues over it.
jhw
I was surprised that TFA stated that the Netgear WNR1000 supported IPv6 since I keep my firmware up to date and have not noticed support. Turns out that the version with IPv6 support, 1.1.2.28, does not appear in the router firmware update page but can be found in the knowledge base at: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18631/kw/ipv6%20wnr1000
It is a new update as of Feb 3, 2011 and its listed as being for the WNR1000v2 - no mention of the more recent v3. IPv6 compatibility is not mentioned on the product page or the spec sheet.
The strange thing about this is that IPv6 and home routers are a perfect match. With IPv6 and automatic (or very easy) 6to4 configuration, home routers can provide access to inside machines (modulo firewall rules, of course) without using NAT. This means out-of-the-box support for your favorite P2P application. That could be a killer app for IPv6 (if you get IPv6 working you can download your torrent for many more places!). (Of course, there must be more 6to4 gateways as well for this to work properly)
IPv6 isn't a killer feature today. They won't sell a lot more routers by adding it. However, in the future when people need the feature, they'll sell a ton more routers to support it.
Why would they offer it now and miss out on all the future business?
No, you've missed the entire point.
The OP was saying that people who bought IPv4 routers are entitled to a free upgrade to IPv6.
I said that as long as the device was sold as IPv4, Cisco was under no obligation to upgrade their device.
Then you enter the discussion and say that Cisco may be committing accounting fraud for releasing a firmware update they haven't written, to add a feature they never advertised, and begin a long-winded and entirely off-topic dissertation on corporate accounting.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
This is too funny: you realize this is Cisco we're talking about here, right? The company that still requires obscene steps and wads of cash to get security updates for a paid-for product?
I don't mean to flamebait, but seriously. Cisco is one of the most frustrating (large) companies to deal with in this regard. Smaller companies try to do the same things, but ultimately those behaviors turn people off their products. Why is Cisco still bannered about as the end-all, be-all for networking equipment, given that:
* feature for feature, their switches are inferior in many ways to their competetors
* Cisco products have less fabric provisioning than, say, HP switches, which cost a fraction as much (off the top of my head, 30% less fabric at 4x the cost)
* Less usability built into the devices themselves (limited interface feature set). This applies to the 'home' routers, too: the Buffalo home routers are comparable to the Linksys (in some cases, 'identical'), cost less, and have better firmware. And lately, the radios have been better, too (for wireless).
* Getting upgrades for an old Cisco is difficult and costly. "Old" usually means "not a couple years new and doesn't have a current service contract".
I mean, seriously: it still costs how much for a Cisco PIX 50x? We're not even talking about something recent; 501s still sell, new, for over $150. It's no small wonder that small businesses buy things like Sonicwall devices given the alternative in 'name brand networking equipment'.
You can argue that it's worth the money due to comprehensive support, lifetime this or that, or what have you. For most people, upon careful examination, the truth is that Cisco isn't a good value decision.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Because we have become accustomed to software upgrades improving an old product. We have become accustomed to the idea that the product will be designed with software (even firmware) upgrades available that will fix old problems and make the product better going forward. NASA has been doing this with their space ships and planetary rovers for a dozen years. If its computery, or operated by a computer, there is an expectation that software upgrades will make things better. Oh, and my linksys router is only about 3 years old. I expect that my computer stuff will last about 10 years. Thats 7 more years. IPV6 is here now (or here soon). Every new site coming along (very soon) will be on IPV6. According to netcraft, thats a couple million sites this next year. My ISP is still using IPV4, but at some point (possibly before my router has hit the 10 year mark), IPV6 doesn't come through. Oh, and also, you can yap about 'future proof', but people are still yelping about COBOL, and I think it should have died about 40 years ago. Even Grace Hopper (one of the designers) said a few years after it was out, that if they thought it would be around more than 6 months, they would have done a better job of it.
More money doing it that way, why would the corp's do it before it's needed when it can induce another hardware upgrade cycle at higher profit margins?
Either a 'hardware upgrade cycle' or a mass exodus to a vendor with mature IPv6 support.
It has been reaching users for many many years in the terms of ISP documentation requirements. This is why residential customers get a single IP address if their lucky.
Uh.. residential customers got a single IP address for the past 10 years, when exhaustion was but a dream.
Back in dialup days, there wasn't enough bandwidth and home networking was unheard of anyways, they only needed one IP.
The practice carried forward into the broadband era... some broadband ISPs will allow multiple IPv4 IPs if you pay extra for each additional dynamic IP however.
"More IP addresses" was seen as a market segmentation thing, an opportunity to charge users more $$$.
It remains to be seen whether broadband users will even get a /64 in the IPv6 internet, let alone a /48 that IETF recommends.
When did people develop this sense of entitlement that every little cheap-ass consumer product they buy ought to be future-proof?
We're not talking future-proof here. IPv6 is here, now, and yesterday.
Usually consumers have a reasonable expectation their product be present-proof. If it claims to be a router, it should meet current versions of the internet standards, in regards to node requirements for routers.
when is the toaster manufacturer going to send me a free upgrade?
When you desolder the IPv4-only board you installed on your toaster, send it back, and ask them to upgrade it to the IPv6-only version for you. (Shipping and labor not included)
I run plenty of services all tunneled through a single SSH port. If that didn't work I would be upset.
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It sounds like you are relying on accepting incoming connections to a ssh (or any other) server on a home connection. Initially your ISP will probably let you keep a public v4 IP for some token extra cost (or even free on request) but over time expect that cost to gradually ratchet up as the market value of v4 IPs increases. Or your ISP may decide to be nasty and say that to get a public v4 IP you have to upgrade to a significantly more expensive "buisness" connection.
If this service is important to you then you should be making enquiries with your ISP and/or making contingency plans sooner rather than later. It's always better to have plans for dealing with a problem than to have it thrust on you with no warning.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Linksys is not a Cisco name brand, they're a subsidiary of Cisco. If you want Cisco brand equipment you should buy Cisco.
I can break down some of the numbers for you: linky link
Unique wifi networks in DB: 31,592,538
Unique networks w/ location: 30,576,668
Unique wifi locations in DB: 1,211,718,307
Unique cell towers in DB: 25,696
Networks with crypto: 16,194,355 (51.2%)
Networks without crypto: 8,295,965 (26.2%)
Networks crypto unknown: 7,102,218 (22.4%)
Networks with default SSID: 3,181,785 (10.0%)
New unique networks today: 35,224
New today with location: 35,221
New yesterday with location: 38,447
By manufacturer:
Linksys 2846742 9.010%
D-Link 1365841 4.323%
Cisco 1225600 3.879%
Dell 909165 2.877%
Netgear 849644 2.689%
Belkin 486015 1.538%
2wire 458674 1.451%
Symbol 322504 1.020%
Apple Computer 243631 0.771%
Kid-proof tablet..
99.9% of those Linksys routers will have no need to run IPv6 in their effective lifetime.
Sadly, probably true.
i asked my ISP about IPv6 last week and they replied:
We do not have a definitive timeline for the launch of IPV6 addresses anywhere in the Shaw system. We do have plans in place to minimize the impact of IPV4 Exhaustion and provide IPV6 connectivity but the details are not yet publicly available.
---
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Wait until the catastrophe strikes.
The only catastrophe that is likely to strike is that all customers of a major ISP will find themselves one day on a 10.0.0.0/16 subnet, behind the NAT at the ISP office. And most of them will not even notice until their Skype connections start failing. Then it will be Skype's problem.
Of course a /16 NAT would be a bit ambitious, considering the number of available ports at the NAT box, but a /24 is perfectly doable even if all 254 client IPs are in heavy use. That adds another 8 bits to the IPv4 space, and that ought to be good for about 254 more Earths at this moment.
And if for some reason you don't like the NAT then ISPs will gladly sell you, for an arm and a leg, a static IPv4 address. Businesses will be OK with that, and residential customers wouldn't care. ISP's NAT will be Skype-aware, and that covers pretty much all the needs of a typical consumer.
This is the classic example of proprietary vs. open-source offering. Linux has it already, and so one can build a Linux based router which contains already its support.
then they are not being truthful in the reporting of their revenues to investors.
that means the revenues associated with the value of feature set B were reported to investors before they were actually produced and delivered.
I think they are in the clear as long as they are not contractually obligated to deliver the feature set B. This is very common in today's smartphones - just see how every OEM drags their feet with Android updates. In other words, they are good as long as they don't have to write in their books "Future liability - must spend money to design feature B."
hope none of their investors sues over it.
Well, if they sell "an infinitely upgradable router with this roadmap of future updates" in 2010, and expect to work non-stop on nothing but free, new features for it until year 2020 then I'm sure investors would have something to say here. But as long as the updates are done as part of a regular support cycle it won't be a problem. In most cases new features are just backported from other products, not written from scratch. There is also such a thing as "sunk cost" - if you have 10 firmware guys working support, you don't care too much *what* code they are producing, as long as the wolves are safe and the sheep aren't hungry.
I don't think they care.
Sorry for quoting your posting title to start, but I'd like to add to what you've already touched on here...
Internet switches are far easier and cheaper to produce and with the advent of IPv6, it will be economically feasible for an ISP to provide multiple addresses for a single residence. In this way buying a wireless switch will be much more plausible and cheaper for the user. I.E. something like this:
Step 1: Refuse to support upcoming IPv6 standards.
Step 2: Prolong purchasing of IPv4 routers and similar devices when addresses are in short supply.
Step 3: Continued profit.
We all know that this business model will not last forever and I am certain Cisco does also - they are not a bunch of idiots. But in the same sense, with few ISP's showing an active desire to switch to IPv6 (not talking internet backbone Akamai, Level 3, etc) and a continued profit from IPv4 routers, there is really little incentive other than ethics to support the new standards. (And common sense which is a rare commodity)
It'll take years for people to start caring about this much. By that time, the current product line will be swapped out for new gear.
My thoughts exactly...plus when we finally make the switch, it will be the Cash-For-Clunker-Routers - think of all that potential profit! Shoot... they may even be able to buy futures on their resistance to a natural internet progression. (jokes)
(I really hate playing the devil's advocate, but the market and laws must create an incentive, we know how "morals" work...)
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
Something like 90% of end users are running behind nat already. (Ok, I pulled that 90% figure right out of my ass, but you get the point).
If you are talking about consumer NAT routers, that's not the same thing as NAT on the ISP level, that will cause a lot more issues.
Its not the way the net was designed to work, but we've been using it that way since dirt.
Strange, I barely remember NAT being around until the 2000s. Hell, when I was still in college about ten years ago (oh how time flies) the university actually had entire computer labs set up with globally routable adresses and ran all traffic through a firewall that only allowed ssh and a few other things in from outside the university network while other machines on campus or on the student-run network for student apartments (which connected to the internet through the university's internet connection but wasn't administered at all by university staff) had pretty much full access without resorting to private addresses, wonky VPN setups or anything like that.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
I've been dabbling with PFsense and it's also nowhere near dealign with IPV6. Great programmers involved, great software, but they just don't have the manpower, being open source donationware. I suspect all the routers ISP etc companies are going to have a huge race with all the ipv6 stuff. No looking back now.
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Lots of ISPs offer ipv6 though, or you could always get a free tunnel from he.net or similar.
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APNIC will be first this table is current data and a current prediction.
Note the ARIN actually has the highest stock of IPs at the moment at 6.26 /8s as compared to APNIC's 5.78 /8s. Also ARIN are only setting aside 8 million addresses for IPv6 to IPv4 connectivity whereas the other NICs (except the much smaller LANIC) are setting aside a full /8.
This may mean that America's interconnects between IPv4 and IPv6 end up going via Africa!
NAT on that level will cause so many customer complaints and support issues, that the problems and support issues introduced by phasing in IPv6 will seem like a piss in the Nile.
Yes, really...
I just got an IPv6 tunnel running, and I can tell you that (after setting up the initial tunnel, which end users will not need if the ISPs just do proper RA) getting my machines set up was a lot easier than getting proper IPv4 connections working, especially since I don't have to bother about that really crappy portmapping stuff in the NAT-box anymore. IPv6 firewalls are ridiculously simple to work with.
I would not be surprised if support costs after the initial transition period dropped by at least 50%.
You should also not discount the network effect. Presently, many people rely on having access to a friendly techie (sibling, child, best friend or whatever) in order to set up their Internet connections. When these techies start recommending that they switch ISP to someone who do support IPv6, the un-profitability of not having support will most likely be felt quite substantially.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Well, Linksys wasn't able to fix a fatal wi-fi flaw in the WAG160N ADSL gateway I bought a couple years ago. It would not keep up a connection to ANY wi-fi device for more than a few minutes at best. Over and over, new firmwares and settings tweaks promised hope... but in the end they never did fix it and a lot of people who bought this model were left in the cold without a fully functioning product. I wasted 6 months on this piece of crap before finally shutting off the wi-fi for good and getting a separate AP to handle wireless duties at home (an Apple Airport Extreme, which by the way has been flawless).
As a result, I will never touch another Linksys or Cisco product. Linksys, at least, do not stand behind their products. They should have issued a recall for this model, it clearly has a hardware or un-fixable software defect but they never admitted fault and obviously never will. On a side note, it has actually been a decent and reliable router, if I discount the wi-fi non-functionality. It's still in use today as my ADSL gateway.
There are no usable /8 blocks remaining. If you are talking of the reserved blocks that are currently not in use, they are not usable as many systems will just drop packets coming from those addresses.
APNIC is burning through a full /8 in something like 3 months, and allocation in general was twice last year compared to the year before. Reclaiming the class A blocks would do nothing to prevent the inevitable, just delay it by perhaps a year at most, while at the same time cause massive disruptions for those who have them. In order to reclaim them, you would first have to convert those organisations to other IP blocks (guess what, that takes time, a lot of time). By the time they where done converting their networks to the new IP-assignments, we would already be out of addresses in many parts of the world.
While the idea looks nice at first looks, it is unfortunately neither practical nor would it give anything but a couple of months extra time before we run out again.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
IPv4 actually 'ran out' a while back, we passed the 5 billion devices connected to the (4 billion address) internet back in August '10. Massive NAT and restrictions on public IP address allocations means that IANA ran out quite a bit later. The restrictions are set to get even more severe but most of the NICs won't actually allow their reserves to completely run out for years. I'll just be nearly impossible to be allocated any addresses.
So Cisco are seeing that the current product line will continue to work as long as the ISP will provide any sort of super NAT'd IPv4 address. Only during the end game a few (perhaps five perhaps twenty) years from now will the end user IPv4 devices stop working and will 'mom and pop' have to do something.
Companies are different; Cisco's VPN software, used by many companies, doesn't work with multiple users behind a NAT. Any server software; including Cisco's needs a public address for the clients to connect to. IPv4 exhaustion is already hurting Cisco and their customers for the E4200 router.
PS: I personally have 14 devices with "Local Internet addresses" (talk about an oxymoron!) behind a single IP so I think that 5 billion is an underestimate. ... I think I may have miscounted; a laptop with WiFi has two IP addresses. ... except this one doesn't ... except when it runs Windows ... virtual machines too !!!!
Not really.
Something like 90% of end users are running behind nat already.
Existing users won't be affected much: what works for them now will work for the foreseeable future. But that smartphone you're going to buy a year or so down the road -- it's quite possible that it will be IPv6-only on the cellular-radio side (3G or whatever the provider uses for data).
Why? Existing mobile data networks are a mess, addressing-wise. There aren't enough public IPv4 addresses to go around, so you get a private one. Not only it's NATed to hell and back, there is a chance that it will clash with the address received on the WiFi interface when you're connected to your home or office network. So you get creative solutions like using bogons... Shudder.
It's so much easier with IPv6. No possible address clashes. No need for gross kludges. Yes, NAT64/DNS64 is necessary if your destination is IPv4-only, but that is actually a nice carrot for web sites and content providers: "enbale IPv6 on your customer-facing servers and our users will reach you directly, without workarounds".
So IMO the IPv4 exhaustion will affect end users rather soon, just not necessarily in the way that will be visible to them.
I have had several ADSL lines over the years, and always had a /29 or /28 block of v4 with them...
This is becoming increasingly hard to come by on new installs, although i still have my old addresses on one line.
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The issue with most VPNs is that they are based on ipsec, which was originally part of ipv6 and therefore was never designed with NAT in mind...
Ofcourse, there are always tunneling type vpns such as openvpn or pptp which only require a single tcp or udp connection.
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Because IPv6 is not some future technology, it's been with us for over 15 years...
Because every major OS has supported ipv6 now for over 10 years...
We're not asking for ipv8 or whatever might exist in the future, we're asking for support of a 15 year old standard that everyone else manages to support just fine.
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If that's fraud, how about the sony behaviour of selling you features now and then taking some of them away later?
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Or they could argue that the market value of a software update is zero because it's already possible to get ipv6 and other features for free by using one of the free linux based firmwares.
It's also been commonplace for years that many software updates would be released for free, even when they provide new features.
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They were sold as routers. I see no reference to IPv4 only even in the latest router described as "the ultimate wireless home router".
Model: Linksys E4200
Technology: Wireless-N
Bands: Simultaneous 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz
Transmit / receive: 2 x 3 (2.4 GHz) and 3 x 3 (5 GHz)
Antennas: 6 Internal
Ethernet ports x speed: 4 x Gigabit
USB storage port: Yes
Software setup: CD Install
Cisco Connect software: Yes
Support: 24/7 Award-winning Online Support Resources
90 days Complimentary Assisted Support
Warranty: 1 year hardware limited warranty
OS Compatibility: Windows, Mac
Minimum System Requirements: Internet Browser: Internet Explorer 7, Safari 4 or Firefox 3 or higher for optional browser-based configuration
PC: Wi-Fi enabled PC with CD or DVD drive, running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1 or later, or Windows 7
Mac: Wi-Fi enabled Mac with CD or DVD drive, running OS X Leopard 10.5 or Snow Leopard 10.6
Package Contents: Linksys E4200 Maximum Performance Wireless-N Router
CD-ROM with setup software and resources
Ethernet network cable
Quick Installation Guide
Power adapter
You mean you *don't* have a local caching DNS server in an SMB envrionment? One that could either avoid that 6-second timeout directly and/or make sure that only the first EVER hit on www.example.com in the entire company is delayed during the course of its entire operation? And where you can easily blacklist, edit and play with DNS settings to prevent other breakage (such as non-existinent-DNS-redirection that some ISP's practice on a whim?).
Or are all of your clients accessing external DNS to resolve domains each and every time?
Actually, as this is a router and not a plain switch, they might do the forwarding in hardware, not in software.
This is a somewhat common problem with actual (old) backbone routers, be they by Cisco or anyone else. Though I suspect home routers will do everything in software, anyway.
...no one forces them to support IPv6 in old hardware.
Sure, it sucks if you bought a home router just recently, but you spending extra money has a _lot_ of PHBs drooling in anticipation.
You could run OpenWRT/DD-WRT on your current Linksys to fix this.
Or get an Alix board or RouterBoard if you want to tinker.
But, to be honest, this is your own fault. Don't buy stuff that is obviously not able to fulfill near-term needs. About a year ago, I went for the Fritz!Box 7390 as I knew IPv6 was in the works for that one. Yes, it took some time to research and verify, but hey. Vote with your wallet.
As an aside, TP-Link has very good support for open firmware, as well. They even allow you to flash over their admittedly crappy stock stuff with OpenWRT from their own web UI.
An ISP selling "Internet Access" and providing only a NAT'ed address to their customer is in excuseable, I think we all agree on that. I don't think NAT is alway evil. Even in an IPv6 world I might still wan't to machines to say appear to be on the same subnet, that can't be physically put on the same segment for instance. Yippes you'd need to NAT twice to make that work! Is that use case evil?
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To be honest, I don't know what I'd want a home router to do with IPv6. A firewall would be nice, I guess. And maybe automatically setting up 6to4, and giving out 6to4 addresses?
But if the ISP is handing you a /64, then all it really needs to do is be a passthrough bridge. Each machine gets it's own real honest to goodness public address. Cable modems would certainly need to support it.
(does not hold true for PPP-ish services)
99% of the population can't use IPv6 natively anyways due to most ISP's not offering IPv6 addresses as an option. When this changes, I'm sure Cisco can release a firmware update that enables IPv6 functionality. Personally, I'd rather them spend their time releasing new features and bugfixes for features that I'm already using, than features that look good on paper, but won't actually ever get used in practice.
All you just did was illustrate why globally routeable addresses are important. Consequently, routers were invented for the problem you are describing; to connect multiple networks.. If you need two hosts to appear on the same subnet and they are not, you should explain to us why it's needed, cause otherwise I bet you're doing wrong.
> you should be making enquiries with your ISP
What good would inquiries do? My ISP, like most big corporations these days, has no idea what they are going to be doing next quarter. They will promise anything and renege on those promises at the drop of a hat as the middle managers who made the promises roll in and out of the company.
Part of my disaster planning is the assumption that all of my vendors are lying to me.
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"[...]And before you say it, there is NO security benefit over a properly configured stateful firewall."
I can't tell if I'm just becoming a cranky old man prematurely, or am just tired in general of the overall cultural trend of trying (and succeeding a distressing proportion of the time) to get the public peeing itself with fear over everything, but wussy, feeble, namby-pamby "OMG THE INTERNET! IT CAN SEE MY COMPUTER! QUICK! COWER BEHIND THE NAT WHERE WE'LL BE SAFE!" crap lately just irritates the hell out of me.
Every major modern operating system seems to come with a built-in firewall now (usually configured in an overly-restrictive, better-safe-than-sorry mode, which is probably appropriate for "consumers" but annoys me personally) already, and I rarely if ever seem to hear about security problems affecting end-user computers that can be initiated from outside the user's box (i.e. by initiating an unsolicited connection from outside) any more. Most of the security problems these days seem to be users downloading things semi-intentionally (e.g. malware), which the NAT does absolutely nothing about.
I may be too cocky, but typical firewalls don't even seem to be that useful any more for "consumer" machines that don't normally run server processes. Unless I am mistaken, most of the time the only useful function a firewall has for a "consumer" machine is as a digital diaper for network-incontinent processes (i.e. malware again, sending spam or otherwise making OUTGOING connections for nefarious purposes - again not blocked by NAT).
With IPv6, we finally have a shot at getting out of the state where nearly everyone's "virtually social" interaction on the internet is done standing behind a locked door, peaking through a keyhole and trying to make exchanges with visitors through the mail slot while wearing an Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie to keep the mind-control packets out. I don't really mind so much any more if other people like living the virtual portion of their lives that way, but I'm completely sick of being expected to do so myself.
(I feel like I should insert a rambling story about how in my day we had to connect via SLIP or a dial-up shell account and we didn't have none of these newfangled firewalls getting in our way, ended with a "GET OFF OF MY LAWN, DANG KIDS!". But I will restrain myself.)
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The box says "Linksys by Cisco", that alone tells you that it is not a Cisco router.
NAT on that level will cause so many customer complaints and support issues, that the problems and support issues introduced by phasing in IPv6 will seem like a piss in the Nile.
100% of residential customers are already behind one layer of NAT. Another layer won't change much. And if the customer wants a certain port forwarded through ISP's NAT into his own router (which then he can configure as he does today) then the ISP will set up an online service page, where for a measly sum of $1/mo you can buy such a service. If necessary they will move you into another NAT pool. This is trivial technically, and is a money maker financially.
On the other hand, IPv6 transition requires the ISP to replace most of their hardware and software, and if they have routers in people's homes then those also have to be scrapped and replaced. Then a tech has to be sent to each customer's home to analyze their network and give upgrade recommendations. I still have two XP boxes at home, and I'm typing this into an XP box at work - those beasts don't do IPv6 properly, and they are already out of maintenance by MS. That's not millions, that's billions of dollars. Compare to writing a custom NAT software... a work for one geek for a month.
I'm presenting this from the Devil's Advocate position because that's the position that the ISP's business people are in. They won't do IPv6 for the love of it. They will do whatever brings the most profit. And at this time it is most profitable to milk the IPv4 cow because scarcity of resources is where fortunes are made.
This was before they released the 'L' version. I owned a WRT54G for 1 day. I had heard what great routers they were, and decided to try one. Unknown to me, Linksys had totally redone it just before I got mine. I got revision 5, which was, I think, VXWorks based with half the RAM, when what I thought I was getting was Linux based, which was revision 4. Nothing on the packaging indicated this vital difference.
That revision 5 WRT54G was garbage. Couldn't so much as ping Google reliably. If a ping came back at all, it was after a 10 second delay. Switched back to my ancient Netgear RP114, and everything worked again. And that WRT54G went back to the store for a full refund.
My current router is a Netgear WRN3500L -- has the all important 'L' on the end, which I hope means its reliability is acceptable. Needed another in a hurry when my rather crappy SMB Barricade 7400 died. Made a list of brands and models I felt were acceptable, and that was the only one on my list that I found locally. And I can flash it with OpenWRT or DD-WRT if I wish. Won't help if the hardware doesn't hold up, of course, but so far it's been mostly good. Just one game client is no longer able to communicate, and I can't see how the router could be queering that. Even sniffed the packets, and didn't see any obvious problem. But the client worked fine with the old router. Perhaps there was a change on the server side coincidentally about the same time as I got that new router?
I am amazed at how awful most of these commodity routers are. Very hard to find one that isn't crap. Linksys changing everything under the hood like that is just par for the course.
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