Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

World IPv6 Day On June 8

Posted by timothy on from the be-sure-to-straighten-your-cables dept.

dkd903 writes "On June 8, 2011, around 300 websites will test the IPv6 readiness of the internet. The participating websites includes Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Bing. In preparation for the day, Google is notifying users to test if they are ready."

133 comments

  1. 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by Metabolife · · Score: 3, Funny

    Woot!

    1. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hoping slashdot will do something too, but I'm not holding my breath.

      $ host slashdot.org
      slashdot.org has address 216.34.181.45
      slashdot.org mail is handled by 10 mx.sourceforge.net.

      $host ipv6.slashdot.org
      ipv6.slashdot.org has address 216.34.181.48
      ipv6.slashdot.org mail is handled by 0 0. :S

    2. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by Forty+Two+Tenfold · · Score: 1

      try
      $ host -6 slashdot.org

      --
      Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
    3. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      :::::::: Post? Don't the 0000 all collapse?

    4. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by 3.1415926535 · · Score: 2

      That forces the DNS resolution itself to only go over IPv6. I think what you want is host -t AAAA slashdot.org.

    5. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by bahamat · · Score: 1

      :::::::: Post?

      Don't the 0000 all collapse?</quote>

      So do contiguous colons. What you mean is ::.

    6. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by bahamat · · Score: 2

      This is what happens when I click the "Quote Parent" button? Really slashdot?

    7. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by Ultra64 · · Score: 1

      A month ago I asked Cmdrtaco about when slashdot would get ipv6 support.

      He said he had no clue.

    8. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by R0UTE · · Score: 1

      ::1 post is how I would have put it ;)

    9. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by Creepy · · Score: 1

      It may not be slashdot's fault - my server has run IPv6 is configured to run IPv6, but my current ISP (Qwest, becoming CenturyLink... whee, another "wait and see what everyone else is doing" company, which is why my max DSL speed is one of the lowest in the nation while Comcast offers 40x faster speeds... but eew, Comcast - twice bitten thrice shy).

      The second my ISP supports IPv6, my domain will support it - I've had it set up and ready for 4 years (and 10 if you count my previous ISP that supported it) and waiting though, so not holding my breath, and Qwest themselves have said it will never happen (I told them to never say never - Comcast said they would never hand out static IPs to anyone and that is no longer true). CenturyLink has had some 6/4 tunneling in their system, so there may be hope after the merger.

    10. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by tom17 · · Score: 1

      So I haven't done a lot of reading up on The Six yet, but how would the following two ip addresses, in their collapsed form, be distinguishable from each other?

      0000:0000:1234:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000

      0000:0000:0000:1234:0000:0000:0000:0000

      Surely they would both be ::1234:: right?

      I get, however, that the above are probably invalid addresses. Does this mean there are a limited number of valid addresses?

    11. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by Trigun · · Score: 1

      You can only collapse one set of zeros, for precisely that reason. I don't remember if it is in the spec that it has to be the first set or not, as either way is unambiguous.

    12. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by CjKing2k · · Score: 1

      You can collapse any one set of consecutive zero groups, and you can remove leading zeros from each group.
      0000:0000:1234:: (0:0:1234::)
      ::1234:0000:0000:0000:0000 (::1234:0:0:0:0)

    13. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you mean :: Post!

    14. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by tom17 · · Score: 1

      Thanks guys.

      Must get round to learning it at some point. But like others have found, unless they start using it at work, I have no *real* need.

      Actually, my ISP is testing it so I may set it up and have a play. Yes. I think I will!

    15. Re:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 Post! by baerm · · Score: 1

      If you want IPv6 before lame, slow ISPs finally get it, try using tunnels through someone like,

      http://tunnelbroker.net/

      I've been using Hurricane Electric to tunnel IPv6 for years and it works well.

  2. Where is the Google test? by bunratty · · Score: 2

    What users is Google notifying? Users of the Google website? Users of Google Chrome? I went to google.com using Firefox and Chrome and did not see any notification.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    1. Re:Where is the Google test? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go to http://ipv6test.google.com/. It's pretty broken, though. It says I'm ipv6 ready, when I'm on a completely ipv4 network, with no ipv6 support at all.

    2. Re:Where is the Google test? by gnick · · Score: 5, Informative

      Try here.
      Or, for more info on test day, Try here.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    3. Re:Where is the Google test? by Spad · · Score: 2

      No, it says you're good for connecting to sites that are IPv6 enabled, not that you're good for connecting via IPv6.

      A lot of people are concerned that shoddy configuration by ISPs will mean that sites advertising on IPv6 *and* IPv4 will be unreachable by people trying to connect over IPv4.

    4. Re:Where is the Google test? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the future of the internet which I am apparently ready for is that every site will be IPv4 and IPv6-enabled?

    5. Re:Where is the Google test? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm. Yes.

      It's called dual-stack, and it's a v4->v6 transition mechanism.

      Out of sheer curiosity, why are you wasting your time posting comments on an article about IPv6 if you don't know the most basic thing about it?

    6. Re:Where is the Google test? by ari_j · · Score: 1

      Can you explain what kind of misconfiguration could result in such nonsense as being unable to reach an IPv4 site from an IPv4 station simply because the site is also running IPv6?

    7. Re:Where is the Google test? by 3.1415926535 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Safari, for example, had a bug until recently that caused page loads to fail if the site has an IPv6 address but the client doesn't have connectivity. In addition, there are a bunch of autoconfigured tunnel technologies that can cause problems. See, for example, APNIC's chief scientist's report on Teredo: http://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2011-04/teredo.html

    8. Re:Where is the Google test? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think that it is just saying that your implementation will not break horribly when attempting to reach IPv6 sites. That is the main criterion for roll out (backwards compatibility).

    9. Re:Where is the Google test? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      Yes. And when that stage is reached, we can start turning off the IPv4 stuff, because there's no benefit to it.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    10. Re:Where is the Google test? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would there be a transition when the future of the internet is that every site has IPv6 and IPv4?

      I think the point I am trying to make is that Google's headline is misleading, because most people who visit this site will assume "you are ready for the future of the internet!" means "you are ready for IPv6", rather than "you are ready for the part of the future that is the interim transition period that leads up to the subsequent future which you are probably not ready for!".

    11. Re:Where is the Google test? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Informative

      Because if the client and server both have IPv6 connectivity, many clients will connect by IPv6. As they should. The problem is that just because both have connectivity doesn't mean they have connectivity to each other - the IPv6 part of the internet is still being configured, by admins largely unfamiliar with the new technology and on hardware with had support added as an afterthought. It'll get better, but right now there are still many links that have problems. The IPv4 side has a few too, but it's had a decade for engineers to fix almost all of them.

    12. Re:Where is the Google test? by DarwinSurvivor · · Score: 1

      Not every site will have IPv4 for-ever, but the vast majority will have one for the next 10-20 years, by then most consumers will have IPv6 and companies can stop paying for IPv4 addresses (which will probably cost a fortune by then).

    13. Re:Where is the Google test? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An experiment done in 2010 on vg.no, a large news site in Norway, showed that up to 0.06% of their users could not connect to a dual-stack host, largely due to configuration problems in Mac OS X and Opera.

      The problem occurs when the computer mistakenly believes it has a working IPv6 connection, so the browser tries the AAAA record first, which either outright fails, or causes a time-out delay before it falls back to IPv4.

      These problems were fixed in newer versions, and the client loss is now at around 0.015%.

      That's pretty low, and it was enough for vg.no to enable dual stack for the main website, just as these sites are now doing for a day.

      Still, even at 0.015% that works out to quite a lot of Google and Facebook users.

      (Source: http://www.fud.no/ipv6/)

    14. Re:Where is the Google test? by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      The IPv4 side has a few too, but it's had a decade for engineers to fix almost all of them.

      A decade? Try 3 decades. You 7-digit UIDers are so cute... reminds me of September, 1993.

      --
      https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
    15. Re:Where is the Google test? by XanC · · Score: 1

      No, there's one IPv6 Internet. The problem is that sometimes clients THINK they have IPv6 connectivity but they don't. Then you get long timeouts or failures. That's what this test is trying to measure.

    16. Re:Where is the Google test? by petermgreen · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most clients will fall back to v4 if v6 fails. The problem comes when the v6 connection attempt gets no reply at all (e.g. due to routing problems, firewalls, links that are down but the system doesn't know they are down or some combination), the client will then wait for it to time out before falling back which if the client uses standard OS timeouts can take an excruciatingly long time.

      The cause of the packets not getting any reply at all may be local to the client but it could also quite possiblly be in an ISP nework somewhere. Remember the internet (whether v4 or v6) is just a (very large) set of network providers cooperating (through ICANN and the organisations it delegates to) to use non-conflicting addressing and to foward traffic to each other. Even on the better maintained v4 side it's not that unusual for two ISPs to be unable to exchange traffic for a while due to some screwup.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    17. Re:Where is the Google test? by GillyGuthrie · · Score: 1

      start turning off the IPv4 stuff, because there's no benefit to it.

      IP v 4 is 32 bit, and its dotted-quad notation is arguably more human-readable than IP v 6 (128 bit hex). Anything that is NAT'd will remain IP v 4...

    18. Re:Where is the Google test? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let me correct myself; according to these slides, the initial brokenness per the end of 2009 was at 0.2%, which means the situation has improved an order of magnitude in terms of affected users.

    19. Re:Where is the Google test? by tom17 · · Score: 1

      Actually, if you are using ipv6, then it says the following instead:

      "Yes, looks like you’re using IPv6 already.
      Welcome to the future of the Internet!"

      Welcome indeed! :)

  3. Why the 8th? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wouldn't the 6th be a more appropriate day?

    1. Re:Why the 8th? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mondays already suck enough ass, Dont add more potential for it to be even more terrible.

    2. Re:Why the 8th? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nono, wait for the 8th so the PSN can go back offline during E3 for the lulz

  4. And... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And here in Czech Republic, I'm still kinda fucked. UPC has been holding out on implementing this for years, and it's not better in Poland. Oh, well. I guess it was something to expect. I know I ain't going to be ready this year.

    1. Re:And... by yahwotqa · · Score: 1

      Just get a tunnel from sixxs.net to get hands on experience in advance. They recently established a point of presence in Prague.

  5. Not very effective by hhedeshian · · Score: 1

    Instead of just turning on IPv6 for a day, the whole collective (300 of them) should "shut off" IPv4 with a warning page that says you need IPv6. That will get the ISPs' attention. Lets face it, my mother doesn't know or care about IPv6 or I pee V6 [engines].

    1. Re:Not very effective by LordNimon · · Score: 1

      The problem is that 99% of home routers can't handle IPv6, so it won't matter if the ISP supports it. This includes routers that claim to support IPv6 but have critical bugs that prevent it from working properly.

      --
      And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
      To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
    2. Re:Not very effective by Spad · · Score: 1

      Not to mention Windows XP...

    3. Re:Not very effective by dotgain · · Score: 2

      Hrmph. Good thing I didn't skimp on the dollars and got myself a Cisco ADSL router. Oh, what's this? It doesn't support IPv6 either.

    4. Re:Not very effective by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      The primary point of the test is to determine if any significant number of users will have trouble reaching the sites via IPv4 when the sites return both A and AAAA records. If this can be shown not to be a problem there is no reason for all sites with IPv6 access (there are a lot of them) not to add AAAA records.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    5. Re:Not very effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Newer NetGear routers support it - for instance the N 750 (WNDR4000). I'm not sure if it has critical bugs though - until Comcast gets to me with their dual stack trial that I signed up for I can't really test it much.

    6. Re:Not very effective by bknabe · · Score: 1

      The problem is that 99% of home routers can't handle IPv6, so it won't matter if the ISP supports it. This includes routers that claim to support IPv6 but have critical bugs that prevent it from working properly.

      Isn't IPv4 a subset of IPv6? So it shouldn't matter if my home router or modem is compatible, if the changeover is done properly. My ISP would do the equivalent of NAT routing with my IPv4 address being part of the IPv6 address the ISP sends out to the world.

    7. Re:Not very effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which supports IPv6 just fine.

    8. Re:Not very effective by Dan+Dankleton · · Score: 1

      Isn't IPv4 a subset of IPv6? So it shouldn't matter if my home router or modem is compatible, if the changeover is done properly. My ISP would do the equivalent of NAT routing with my IPv4 address being part of the IPv6 address the ISP sends out to the world.

      Nope - IPv6 and IPv4 are essentially two similar, but distinct, protocols. This is why the transition is not a trivial thing to do.

    9. Re:Not very effective by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      If you add it as an extra protocol, yes. Not out-of-the-box support, which is what we need if the non-techies are ever to get connected. Vista and up support IPv6 by default though.

    10. Re:Not very effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Home routers are so cheap, who cares. The router market would love to bang out a few iterations of router with the big "IPv6 Supported" sticker on them. Plenty of new money to be made here and I bet many maufacturers already have a firmware version for an existing hardware model ready to release new series of routers off the back of it.

      The problem really is the ISPs, there is no point in a router vendor spending the time/money on the feature if the user does not see it as a selling point. Government should levy a tax on IPv4 address usage (where no IPv6 dual stack is provided). If you provide IPv6 only or dual stack IPv4 & IPv6 to subscriber, no tax to pay. If you continue to only offer IPv4 then tax. I use the term government tax to mean that the ISPs should not be allowed to keep the revenue.

      A temporary incentive like this would easily tip the market and the sheep will follow. The big concern with such things is that a government might get a taste of a new revenue stream to meddle with.

    11. Re:Not very effective by blankinthefill · · Score: 1

      This is what the problem has been for me. I WANT to switch our home network over to run off IPv6 primarily and IPv4 as the secondary protocol, but I have no idea what consumer routers support IPv6, or how good that support is. It appears that our current router, a Linksys WRT610N, may support IPv6, but if it does so everything about it is invisible to the router admin. (I say it may because my ISP is Comcast, and we live in the area where Comcast has rolled out their IPv6 solutions, and I am able to reach the big IPv6 test sites. However, that may just be a 6to4 conversion.) So anyways, if I knew anything about good consumer grade solutions, I would almost certainly have set up IPv6 already... but I'm severely hampered by a seemingly total lack of information.

    12. Re:Not very effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but grandparent's point is still valid - 4to6 tunnels/NAT exists, and ISPs should be using them by now - assign an IPv6 address where you can, but leave a DHCP router on IPv4 to point anyone without capable hardware/OS to the 4to6 gateway/proxy.

      Yes, over time as the world moves on it does mean the ISP would have to add fake DNS entries to its table pointing to the proxy, but really once it gets to that point they should just cut it off.

      Note that this won't be as difficult as it sounds, because most ISPs provide the hardware you use to connect anyway, so it's relatively trivial for them to ensure IPv6 compatibility for the vast majority of their users.

    13. Re:Not very effective by Ricochet · · Score: 1

      Dan is correct, at layer 2 the 802.3 frames are compatible but at layer 3 the packets are not compatible. Things like switches will generally pass IPv6 traffic with little or no trouble but routers and firewalls will ignore IPv6 traffic unless it support (and is configured for) IPv6.

      --
      Neil Cherry - Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
    14. Re:Not very effective by klapaucjusz · · Score: 1

      I have no idea what consumer routers support IPv6

      Very roughly speaking, none.

      If you want to experiment with IPv6, I strongly recommend that you get yourself a router supported by OpenWRT and reflash it. This will also give you the ability to do all sorts of things that consumer routers usually don't do, such as traffic shaping, arbitrary subnetting, dynamic routing, or simply basic router functionality with fewer bugs.

      --jch

    15. Re:Not very effective by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Cisco routers should support it, i have a 1701 and an 1801 both running ipv6 over adsl...
      Ofcourse you do need the correct IOS image.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    16. Re:Not very effective by Charlotte · · Score: 1

      Wrong. This isn't intended for your mother. This is about ensuring that the entire chain of ISPs, web hosters, etc between you and these well-known sites is IPv6 ready.

      The fact is that the "real" internet backbone (the people who provide the connectivity to the people who provide your ISP's connectivity) has been IPv6 for a while now. They are ready. Many others aren't. This will allow everyone to test things. Last IPv6 day a large number of issues were successfully identified and corrected.

      Of course, there's the people engineering part of the equation as well. My company has been really lagging in internal IPv6 capabilities. This IPv6 day has got management riled up to the point that they're all suddenly screaming for it. Technology companies hate to be seen as laggards.

    17. Re:Not very effective by rrp · · Score: 1

      The Apple Airport Extreme supports IPv6 (It us under advanced). I also supports running a tunnel for those with an ISP that doesn't support IPv6.

    18. Re:Not very effective by La+Gris · · Score: 1

      AVM FritzBox Fon 7270 with latest firmware 74.04.90 support IPv6 natively even with popular tunnel providers like SiXXS if your ISP does not provides IPv6.

      --
      Léa Gris
    19. Re:Not very effective by Cimexus · · Score: 1

      Consumer routers that I know of that support IPv6:

      - any mid-high end Billion (one of the most common brands in Asia/Pacific)
      - Apple Airport Extreme (not very common admittedly)
      - most AVN ones (very common in Europe)
      - anything flashable with OpenWRT or DD-WRT (this covers a lot of common North American ones) [not sure if this is native IPv6 or just brokered, but either way...]

      Last two routers I've owned have been a Billion 7404VNPX (a few years old but got IPv6 in a firmware update earlier this year) and a AVM FritzBox 7390 (which had it out of the box). So they are out there ... it's just a matter of knowing which ones have it.

  6. IP Your Lightbulbs! by sirsky · · Score: 1

    I got my 1.206 Septillion IPv6 addresses, who's with me?

    1. Re:IP Your Lightbulbs! by houstonbofh · · Score: 2

      Where were you last month? http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/05/17/1622255/An-IP-Address-For-Every-Light-Bulb

  7. By golly, the problem is gone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have done nothing at all on my computer to make it IPv6-compatible (Windows 7) and my router supposedly does not support IPv6 (the WNDR3700). Even so, visiting the website http://ipv6test.google.com/ tells me that "You do not have issues connecting to IPv6-enabled sites.".

    Everyone should visit this, maybe we could find out that everyone is ready and we can just cancel the whole "transition".

    1. Re:By golly, the problem is gone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's called Teredo.

      Only Vista, and 7 turn on Teredo by default. XP does not, as it doesn't have ipv6 out of the box.

      On the minus side, Teredo tends to operate in an adhoc fashion and will only be engaged if the site you are trying to connect to ONLY has ipv6. This is not reliable enough for anything except web pages and anything that doesn't need to maintain a persistent connection. No IPv6 MMORPG's for you.

    2. Re:By golly, the problem is gone! by lamber45 · · Score: 1

      Another disadvantage of Teredo is that it's tunneled over UDP (in turn over IPv4), so you have a limit of about 63,500 IPv6 addresses behind a single public IPv4 address. I haven't hit that limit at home yet...

      RFC3056, on the other hand, allows 16 bits' worth of IPv6 networks behind a single public IPv4 address. However, it won't work with older consumer-grade firewalls that only pass TCP, UDP and (sometimes, if you're lucky) ICMP.

      Neither technology is likely to work behind a corporate firewall that is actively filtering them out.

    3. Re:By golly, the problem is gone! by davew · · Score: 1

      One step at a time. Before we start turning off IPv4, we need to sort out people on nominally ipv4-only connections that actually fail to connnect to websites that do no more than offer IPv6 in parallel. That's what the google site is testing

    4. Re:By golly, the problem is gone! by Lennie · · Score: 1

      "You do not have issues connecting to IPv6-enabled sites"

      Because you don't have IPv6.

      Not because of Teredo or similair things as mentioned in other replies.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
  8. IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by cruff · · Score: 1

    I followed the link for the google test, the host name referenced returns this:

    % host ipv6test.google.com
    ipv6test.google.com is an alias for ipv6test.l.google.com.
    ipv6test.l.google.com has address 209.85.225.103
    ipv6test.l.google.com has address 209.85.225.104
    ipv6test.l.google.com has address 209.85.225.105
    ipv6test.l.google.com has address 209.85.225.106
    ipv6test.l.google.com has address 209.85.225.147
    ipv6test.l.google.com has address 209.85.225.99

    1. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by Spad · · Score: 1

      As I posted above, it's to test that you, as an IPv4 user, can still connect to the site when it's being advertised via IPv4 *and* IPv6, not that you can connect to it via IPv6.

    2. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by Ferzerp · · Score: 2

      That's because you're querying for A records and not AAAA.

      Use something like nslookup and set the type of query to AAAA.

      Non-authoritative answer:
      Name: ipv6.l.google.com
      Address: 2001:4860:800e::93
      Aliases: ipv6.google.com

    3. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by tftp · · Score: 1


      Pinging 2001:4860:800e::93 with 32 bytes of data:
      PING: transmit failed, error code 1231.
      PING: transmit failed, error code 1231.
      PING: transmit failed, error code 1231.
      PING: transmit failed, error code 1231.

      Ping statistics for 2001:4860:800e::93:
          Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)

      I wonder what exactly they are trying to achieve by this experiment. Even if someone asks for AAAA records and gets them, if the path is not configured all the way down to them not much is going to happen. If the computer gets stuck in IPv6 mode then Google will be simply unreachable. If there is a fallback to IPv4 then it there be just a delay. How will Google know about any of that?

    4. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must have a Google-white-listed DNS server. I have an IPv6-enabled workstation and DNS server, however I get no AAAA record back for ipv6.l.google.com.

    5. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What? A straight 'host' will return AAAA records (I use HE's DNS, which is why google.com has AAAA for me):

      ~> host www.google.com
      www.google.com is an alias for www.l.google.com.
      www.l.google.com has address 74.125.224.51
      www.l.google.com has address 74.125.224.50
      www.l.google.com has address 74.125.224.49
      www.l.google.com has address 74.125.224.48
      www.l.google.com has address 74.125.224.52
      www.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2001:4860:4001:803::1010

    6. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      See, for example, this: http://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2011-05/ip6test.html

    7. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by bahamat · · Score: 1

      On 6/8 there will be both A and AAAA records for www.google.com. Almost all operating systems (that is, at least every one I've used over the past year) will prefer v6 over v4 if there is a functioning stack. And a functioning stack being defined as a globally unique address on at least one interface and a route to the intended destination, although some operating systems will prefer v4 over v6 if the only global address an automatic tunnel (6to4 or Toredo).

      If you only have v4 you will not be affected by v6 day at all. This is only meant to test how many users who have a broken v6 connection.

    8. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by metamatic · · Score: 1

      You must have a Google-white-listed DNS server. I have an IPv6-enabled workstation and DNS server, however I get no AAAA record back for ipv6.l.google.com.

      Your IPv6 is broken, then.

      $ dig AAAA ipv6.l.google.com
      [...] ;; ANSWER SECTION:
      ipv6.l.google.com. 300 IN AAAA 2001:4860:8001::69

      Running Unbound on Debian, no special configuration.

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
    9. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by Jon+Stone · · Score: 1

      I wonder what exactly they are trying to achieve by this experiment

      The purpose of the experiment is to see what problems actually appear.

      If there is a fallback to IPv4 then it there be just a delay.

      I expect Google know this - they recently implemented happy eyeballs in Chrome, and I believe similar functionality is also in Safari.

      How will Google know about any of that?

      See IPv6 in Google - A Case Study (PDF) for an idea as to what Google are already measuring, and how.

    10. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by tftp · · Score: 1

      And a functioning stack being defined as a globally unique address on at least one interface and a route to the intended destination, although some operating systems will prefer v4 over v6 if the only global address an automatic tunnel (6to4 or Toredo).

      Yes, I remembered something like that, and I double-checked now and it is true. If IPv4 link works then the tunnel won't be activated.

      As I mentioned, I just use some hardcoded IPv6 addresses (2001:db8:290c:1291::4 on this box, to be changed to a routable one at some point) and that is good enough to allow my local boxes (Vista, Win7 and Ubuntu Lucid) to talk to each other. I have no router for IPv6, and since that router won't come from my ISP it means I have to build it myself, cramming a tunnel and a firewall into some Linux box. I haven't found time yet to do that, for the same old reason... IPv4 already works, and I have plenty of other things to do.

    11. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by j+h+woodyatt · · Score: 1

      > and I believe similar functionality is also in Safari.

      Wrong.

      --
      jhw
    12. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by davew · · Score: 1

      The object of the exercise is to discover the endpoints where failover does not properly occur and get them fixed.

      If you'd prefer to avoid a nasty surprise on the day, there are ways to test in advance.

    13. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by agentgonzo · · Score: 1

      Even if someone asks for AAAA records and gets them, if the path is not configured all the way down to them not much is going to happen.

      Yes, this was partly the point of IPv6 day. It's not just large websites who are supposed to get involved. It's everyone. The idea was that everyone had some kind of target date to aim at to get IPv6 capable from vendors of websites to carriers to ISPs rather than just lagging around waiting for everyone else to do it.

      Unfortunately, it's not turned out to be quite as planned and a lot of carriers and ISPs haven't bothered and we're still stuck with IPv4 for the forseeable future until we really REALLY run out of addresses and the ISPs realise that people are migrating to newer ISPs with IPv6 connectivity (like AAISP in the UK) and have their hand forced.

      Getting the majority of websites to run IPv6 is the first hurdle, otherwise no-one would have anything to browse on the new shiny internet. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, but IPv6 day was supposed to get both the chicken and the egg to play together to make a nice new expandable omelette for us all to enjoy. Hmmm, not a great analogy.

    14. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by tftp · · Score: 1

      Yesterday I followed a few links here and there, but whenever I find an IPv6 router setup it ends up being horrendously complicated, with acronyms flying around unchecked. One can understand this only if he already knows it all.

      What I need is a simple thing that can be plugged into an existing IPv4 router (taking a routable static IP address or - even better - not doing that.) I want to have IPv6 on the other side of the thing. The box should have an IPv6 firewall, a DHCP server (if required) and perhaps a DNS server for the LAN.

      With such a device it becomes trivial to augment existing IPv4 networks with IPv6. However I don't know if anything like that exists. I'm honestly unwilling to go too deep into the IPv6 networking maze myself. Networking is just one small aspect of software development, and software development is just one aspect of product development... and I develop products. I can't afford to spend much time on fiddling with bits, and I certainly aren't going to learn all about IPv6 just to visit Google. IPv6 was sold to the public as largely self-configuring, and I'd like it to really be that way. All the tunnels that I see on the Net are intended for experienced developers, not for users.

    15. Re:IPv6 day using IPv4 addresses? by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      I expect Google know this - they recently implemented happy eyeballs [ietf.org] in Chrome

      FINALLY the powers that be are waking up to the fact that using the standard OS connect timeout as a fallback timeout for interactive applications is a STUPID idea. Their failure to realise this obvious issue years ago has lead to the default advice for weird network slowness in many situations to be "try disabling IPv6"!

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  9. What to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There isn't really much a typical user can do. Wake me up when I can buy a normal consumer router that talks IPV6 to my ISP.

    1. Re:What to do? by Joe+U · · Score: 1

      Short of 3rd party firmware, there's not much going on in that area yet.

      I'm guessing they just want people to buy new routers.

    2. Re:What to do? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Or a cable/DSL[*] modem that doesn't depend on IPv4.

      [*]: Of course, DSL bridges should have no problem. But that doesn't help if your provider doesn't provide bridged ethernet.

      I run IPv6 on my LAN, but I'd be very surprised if I'll be able to extend it to the Internet without tunnelling before 2016.

    3. Re:What to do? by Dan+Dankleton · · Score: 1

      Quite a large number of providers have been enabling IPv6 over the last couple of months[1] - depending on the infrastructure in the DSL network and commercial pressures on your ISP the change may happen surprisingly quickly.

      [1] Source: IXP mailing lists

    4. Re:What to do? by rrp · · Score: 1

      You must've been sleeping for a while, the Apple Airport Extreme already supports IPv6 and has done it since 2007.

    5. Re:What to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, that makes *one* IPv6 router apparently. I bet it won't work IPv6 with the current cable or dsl modems, and my ISP certainly isn't ready to talk to it.

      And tunnels aren't really intended for the typical end-user.

      Excuse me while I find the snooze button.

    6. Re:What to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the Cable modem is DOCSIS 3.0 and the ISP isn't only peering with fail cogent, then yes it will work.
      DSL is a bit less anal about the protocol that goes over it.

  10. What services will be online? by wmbetts · · Score: 2

    Will it include just http traffic or every service be 100% IPv6?

    --
    "Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
    1. Re:What services will be online? by kai_hiwatari · · Score: 3, Informative

      It is not just http traffic. The participants include the Xbox network as well. List of participants - http://worldipv6day.org/participants/index.html

    2. Re:What services will be online? by wmbetts · · Score: 1

      Ah neat. I looked around, but couldn't actually see what services will be accessible from all the different people. Like yahoo and google for instance.

      --
      "Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
    3. Re:What services will be online? by the+real+darkskye · · Score: 1

      I'll be running IPv6:

      • smtp server
      • IRC server
      • dns server
      • ssh server

      etc.

      Obviously not all these servers will be open for anyone to have a play with, but there is already a lot of software which is v6 friendly.

      --
      Music is everybody's possession.
      It's only publishers who think that people own it.
      Fuck Beta
      ~John Lenno
    4. Re:What services will be online? by lidocaineus · · Score: 1

      Would be neat if the actual Xbox Live clients would connect via IPv6, but as far as I know, the 360 doesn't even have a v6 network stack.

    5. Re:What services will be online? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's just xbox.com that's participating, not the Xbox Live network. (This can be verified on the Xbox link on the list of participants.)

  11. Config your routers by Microlith · · Score: 1

    Comcast claims to be participating in World IPv6 day, and in response I have added the necessary IPv6 support packages to my router (OpenWRT FTW.) Currently all I get are link-local addresses, so hopefully something real will filter on down on June 8th.

    1. Re:Config your routers by metamatic · · Score: 1

      If you only get link-local addresses, you're not fully set up. You need to either use an RFC3068 anycast tunneling, or set up an explicit tunnel.

      Assuming you go the anycast route (since that's what Comcast being ready for IPv6 would imply), once your router is configured properly your systems should autoconfigure themselves with globally routable IPv6 addresses starting with 2002.

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
    2. Re:Config your routers by XanC · · Score: 1

      Participation by ISPs simply means that they'll be ready to answer support questions and handle problems if they show up. It doesn't have anything to do with actually turning on IPv6. This test is more about making sure that sites can advertise both A and AAAA records without breaking things.

    3. Re:Config your routers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a big misconception. Comcast is not promising to add an ipv6 address for everyone. The test is only to ensure that devices will still function properly when DNS replies to requests with both A and AAAA records, even if the device isn't ipv6 ready.

  12. Cogent is ruining it by bahamat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    World IPv6 day is unfortunately DOA due to Cogent being a bunch of jackasses and not allowing certain peering arrangements. There are unfortunately two IPv6 Internets. One of people who use Cogent and one for everyone else.

    Google, Yahoo! and Hurricane Electric, as well as many other sites are all on Cogent's "no peer with you" list. If you're a Cogent customer you should get on the phone.

    1. Re:Cogent is ruining it by dch24 · · Score: 1

      +1 Wish I had mod points right now

      What cogent thinks it is accomplishing by refusing to peer IPv6, I don't know. All I can do is guess, and I guess it is so they can use it as a stick to beat other networks with to get better peering agreements.

    2. Re:Cogent is ruining it by Agent+Green · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think it's a matter of Cogent trying to strongarm its position. It wouldn't be the first time Cogent has done this and it certainly won't be the last. Doing a Google search for "peering dispute", and not including Comcast (to exclude the Comcast vs. Level3 dispute since it's newer and ongoing), almost every old entry involves Cogent duking it out with someone. They win customers on price, but things seem to be lopsided enough that they get into a scuffle with a number of the other Tier-1 providers.

      Mike from HE spells it out pretty clearly from almost 2 years ago on the NANOG list:

      http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg01006.html

      I have no reason to think that their stance has changed any.

      --
      // Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
      // IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
  13. My ISP doesn't offer IPv6 by fast+turtle · · Score: 1

    which makes this test totally useless and I'm in the States.

    --
    Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
    1. Re:My ISP doesn't offer IPv6 by Fez · · Score: 1

      See my comment later in the post here. You can get a free IPv6 tunnel from http://tunnelbroker.net/ if you have a router/firewall capable of establishing a GIF tunnel. pfSense (2.0 with the IPv6 code branch), m0n0wall, and DD-WRT and friends can do this.

    2. Re:My ISP doesn't offer IPv6 by klapaucjusz · · Score: 1

      which makes this test totally useless.

      No, it doesn't. This test is about seeing what happens when providers add AAAA records. On the 8th, look very carefully for issues with your network, and if you see anything strange, file bugs with your ISP.

    3. Re:My ISP doesn't offer IPv6 by davew · · Score: 3, Informative

      The test is aimed squarely at you.

      What stops the large content providers from serving over IPv6 right now today is a level of brokenness that affects a fraction of a percent of users. These are computers or networks which are nominally IPv4 only, but have some misconfigured IPv6 setup that is actively causing problems connecting to sites. The proportion of users is tiny, but if you're facebook, that's still a lot of users. Wednesday next will expose these problems on a temporary, scheduled basis.

      If you run IT support for an organisation, it would be wise to see the results of, say, the RIPE IPv6 eye chart on your client machines.

    4. Re:My ISP doesn't offer IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neither does mine, but that's nothing that a tunnel via IPv4 couldn't fix (see gogo6 or sixxs.net...).

    5. Re:My ISP doesn't offer IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      which makes this test totally useless and I'm in the States.

      You could get a IPv6 tunnel from sixxs.net for nothing. Or you could do nothing at all and see if sites you use break from some unexpected related issue.

  14. Use pfSense + he.net tunnelbroker by Fez · · Score: 1

    I posted a comment much like this in the last IPv6 thread, but here it goes again. :-)

    [Disclaimer: I am a pfSense developer, so I'm a bit biased. For those of you who don't know what pfSense is, it's a BSD-based firewall distribution.]

    pfSense 2.0 won't officially support IPv6, but there is a branch available that does IPv6 which will later become 2.1. I'm running it on my home router with a GIF tunnel to Hurricane Electric (http://he.net, http://tunnelbroker.net/) to get IPv6 even though my ISPs do not have any native IPv6 support yet. The IPv6 support is a work in progress but is complete enough that it will do what most people want/need.

    Instructions for the setup and more info can be found on the pfSense IPv6 board here: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/board,52.0.html

    I get a 10/10 on the IPv6 tests from http://test-ipv6.com/ on all my PCs as well as my Droid X running 2.3.3.

  15. IPv6 tunnels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    which makes this test totally useless and I'm in the States.

    Plenty of tunnel brokers available if you're somewhat OS savvy:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IPv6_tunnel_brokers

  16. Broadcast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wouldn't "first" be ::1?

    1. Re:Broadcast? by segin · · Score: 1

      Since ::1 is the loopback address, and 1 is first, does that mean IPv6 is about putting yourself first?

  17. Unless Verizon plans to KEEP IPv6 on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Unless Verizon plans to KEEP IPv6 on, I am not going to bother with this. What is the point of wasting my time setting up and configuring IPv6 access if the next day, all of that work is gone down the drain and no longer functions? I am not going to waste my time with buggy software, a buggy router, and spending the time to debug them, just to use IPv6 for a day. If it stayed on for good for those users who set it up on IPv6 day, I'd have no problem setting it up and debugging it to get it working.

    TLDR: Waste of time, don't bother, unless your ISP plans to KEEP you connected via IPv6.

    1. Re:Unless Verizon plans to KEEP IPv6 on... by noahm · · Score: 1

      The point of IPv6 test day is not to test IPv6 connectivity. We know the protocol works. The point is to give the ISPs and site operators experience with running their sites in a dual-stack configuration. Even by accessing these sites via IPv4, you're taking part in this experiment. IPv4 will be around for a long time, and network operators need to know how things are going to go when some of their users are on v6 and others are on v4. Your ISP, even if they shut off end-user v6 access after v6 day, will have gained significant experience.
      It's most certainly not a waste of time.

    2. Re:Unless Verizon plans to KEEP IPv6 on... by Koutarou · · Score: 1

      Tell this to the japanese ISPs, most of whom are planning on deploying bind9.7's AAAA-filter (which only returns AAAA records if the recursive dns server gets the query via a v6 connection) for v6-day, which will mitigate most of the interesting breakage scenarios and edge-cases in the name of avoiding customer complaints.

  18. ::0 Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ;-)

  19. Re: :: Post! by Kizeh · · Score: 1

    ; <<>> DiG 9.7.0-P1 <<>> AAAA www.slashdot.org
    ;; global options: +cmd
    ;; Got answer:
    ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 339
    ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

    ;; QUESTION SECTION:
    ;www.slashdot.org.              IN      AAAA

    ;; Query time: 39 msec
    ;; SERVER: 2607:fe50:0:f201::2#53(2607:fe50:0:f201::2)
    ;; WHEN: Thu Jun  2 21:02:28 2011
    ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 34

    Kind of ironic, actually, that the geek news site has geek news about a geek event, but no indications of participating.

  20. ::1 Post! by aztracker1 · · Score: 1

    :) Hey, just keeping it real...

    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
  21. Don't need IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All you need to do is keep the population reduced to a manageable size.
    Then the number of machines/devices will drop accordingly.

    There will be more than enough IPv4 addresses for everyone.

    Birth control, sterilization, terrorism, pandemics, wars, famines and natural disasters will do nicely.

  22. Why on a week day? by Lincolnshire+Poacher · · Score: 1

    I have native IPv6 connectivity at home due to an enlightened ISP.

    However, my employer has no interest in IPv6, despite repeated cajoling. I believe this to be common in the workplace. Why spend money until it's a crisis?

    This "World IPv6 Day" will be a flop and will set back adoption.

    1. Re:Why on a week day? by Skapare · · Score: 1

      In the mean time, all the warez, tunez, moveez, and pr0n will be migrating to IPv6, where it can operate freely, unhindered by the lawyers.

      --
      now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  23. Strange Omissions by bedouin · · Score: 1

    I'm shocked to see goatse and tubgirl are not making the switch.

  24. Win an ipad2 by predicting world ipv6 day traffic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At AMS-IX you can win an IPAD2 if you predict the traffic levels correctly.

    https://amsix.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/ams-ix-world-ipv6-day-contest/

  25. And you still can't get an IPv6 ADSL router by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My ISP supports IPv6, but I can't find an ADSL2 router that supports IPv6. The suggestion at the moment is to use a dual-homed PC or ruoter with one port running PPPoE to a bridging ADSL router. Crazy.

  26. Re: :: Post! by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

    Even better:

    $ host -t AAAA digitizor.com
    digitizor.com has no AAAA record
    $

    The site with TFA isn't ready either.

  27. Slashdot by xororand · · Score: 1

    In related news, Slashdot ("news for nerds") announced a full-scale Unicode and IPv6 test, to be deployed as soon as hell freezes over.
    Seriously, the absence of both technologies on this self-proclaimed "nerd" site is shameful at least.

    1. Re:Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here Here. It's also the same for Whirlpool.net.au, the biggest geek meet in Oz.

  28. I think I can confidently state.... by mark-t · · Score: 1
    ... based on prior conversations I have had with representatives from my ISP about their (lack of any) ipv6 initiative that my ISP will *NOT* be participating. (Shaw)

    The only reason I'm staying with them is because they are the only one that services my area which lets residential subscribers have two dynamic ipv4 addresses, which I'm going to continue to need as long as ipv4 stays relevant.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  29. More spam, more porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Great. Let there be IPv6 and more spam, more porn.

    340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 potential spammers instead of ONLY 4.3 billion.

  30. Good opportunity to test by itjoblog · · Score: 1

    Some Internet Service Providers like Plusnet is currently showcasing IPv6 technology today, giving customers the chance to test out the new technology for 24 hours. Will be interesting to read about their experience and comments. check it out http://bit.ly/kVSoJE