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Apple Under Fire For Backing Off IPv6 Support
alphadogg writes "Apple Computer came under fire for back-pedaling on its support for IPv6, the next-generation Internet Protocol, at a gathering of experts held in Denver this week. Presenters at the North American IPv6 Summit expressed annoyance that the latest version of Apple's AirPort Utility, Version 6.0, is no longer compatible with IPv6. The previous Version, 5.6, offered IPv6 service by default. While home networking vendors like Cisco and D-Link are adding IPv6 across their product lines, Apple appears to be the only vendor that is removing this feature."
Apple is secretly working on IPv7, where there's just a single light-weight packet type, and is exclusively available on the AT&T backbone (at a premium rate).
I'm sure slashdot readers are entirely unaware of what goes on when a program is rewritten. And naturally assume that when it happens, 100% of all features and abilities are reproduced without any complications in a couple months. Just look at photoshop - its been such a breeze to rewrite for adobe.
I'm sure no company would ever think about building a rewrite with enough features and polish to ship, then add in feature parity as updates later.
Actually, the expertsare divided on whether IPv4 addresses will be exhaused. There may be many more addresses hidden out there. Before this is properly investigated it is too early to take action on IPv4 exhaustion. The idea that addresses are running out is only scare-mongering spread by the left-wing media. We should focus more on the controversy and less on IPv6 support.
Every big firm wants, above all, to get rid of the quaint notion that the Internet is a network of intelligent peers. Much better to have dumb terminals all locked in to your service.
Sticking with IPv4 and the resultant multi-NAT hell is a good technical step in this direction.
It's like Google pretending to champion IPv6 then setting absurd conditions for their IPv6 services. So ISPs which offer native IPv6 by default, such as England's Andrews&Arnold, have to jump through artificial hoops before they're "supported". And it's no coincidence that half of abusive SixXS is half-run by a Google employee.
Oddly enough - and this'll get me the mod to oblivion - only MS has historically shown neutral support for IPv6, neither trying to control it nor eschewing it. That's because, I expect, Microsoft was traditionally about the powerful desktop and local server (running NT, of course). Now it's jumped on the cloud bandwagon, who knows?
I'm sure the functionality will be added back in.
Airport Utility 6.0 follows the recent trend of Apple making all of their software neutered versions of iOS versions (Lion to a certain extent, iCal, Address Book, etc)--so the comments here http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/30/apple-releases-redesigned-ios-like-airport-utility-6-0-and-an-airport-base-station-bug-fix/. So, they went from a useful program with a standard interface (old version) to one with a pretty UI that lacks major features.
The trend has been for Apple to add MOST features back in at some point, so hopefully it continues. I can't imagine Airport Utility will stay this way forever.
I just keep an old binary around...
They did not remove IPV6 at all. They new confit utility (v.6) doesn't let you configure it, but they say so right in the docs that it is one of th feature the new version does not yet support. They also give you a download link the previous 5.6 version if you want to configure those rarely used features. IPV6 is even enabled by default.
There I said it. The lack of adoption and the lack of knowledge have made it a tremendous burden with absolutely zero benefit to our organization. I'm fine with running ipv4 into the ground. I just don't care anymore. I hate ipv6.
You know, I've been waiting for it to become "mainstream" for over a decade now. Constantly, people have said "It's coming! It's coming!". Support has been added to just about everything. The problem is still that all those pesky web sites that people want to reach haven't converted. I went cruising through the IPv6 migration sites, they show the dozens of sites that are available.
Here's a quick look.
So, if you just switch over, you can't use google.com, unless you remember to use ipv6.google.com. You can't reach Slashdot. Try all the sites you frequent. Of my daily reading list, the only one that works by its normal name is xkcd.com. Most of them are big sites.
I'd expect to see ISP wide NAT deployed before IPv6. IPv6 is a novelty that may get adopted sometime in the future, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I guess I'll try one more time. Whether in this *specific* case it's a good or bad thing, remember that most of us are running small IPv4 networks. IPv6 adds needless complexity and simply isn't needed.
I just wrote an article on this for an industry trade magazine. One gem of a quote came from a vendor who makes audio-over-IP remote equipment (i.e., remote broadcast from a site away from the studios). He said, and I quote, that his company is IPv6-ready at the hardware level, but hasn't added it yet, because -- here's the quote -- "not one single customer has requested it." In fact, those who have added it get support calls from people: "why is this so slow?" "Why can't I connect?" The answer? Disable the IPv6 unless you KNOW you need it! :)
Remember: the shortage of IPv4 addresses is on the PUBLIC INTERNET. (An extremely important distinction.) A small business with maybe 10-20 devices on an internal network doesn't care about IPv6. At all. Now, those of you with hundreds of clients on a large network, might indeed want it. But for most of us, all we'll need is an IPv6-capable router/modem at the Internet gateway. Inside the facility, who cares?
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
MS seen as backpedaling on it's support for 64-bit computing over Windows 8 only supporting 32-bit CPUs in tablets.
Come on people, this isn't backpedaling, it's a completely new version of a utility that in it's initial release supports what's in use in 99% of installations. Those who are actually using IPv6 can use the older version until this one adds support (probably in the next release).
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
IPv6 makes VPN a lot easier and more reliable. Many small businesses care about that so that their employees can work while at home or traveling.
I don't anticipate that ipv4 dies off as slowly as many people suggest. ipv4 is easy to understand, and addresses fit within the average technicians short term memory. Just try to remember ipv6 addresses, you brain will melt!
IPv4 never has to go away. It can be used forever in internal networks.
IPv6 Addresses can be remembered if you select your local bits rather than let the slaac monster pick them for you. Google via IPv6 for example: 2001:4860:8005::68 ... Almost the same length as an IPv4 address!!
IPv6 lets you have some hexsp33k fun..
Face book:
2620:0:1cfe:face:b00c::3
cisco dog food ipv6 day:
2001:420:80:1:c:15:c0:d07:f00d
SPRINT!!! OMFG...
2600::
IPv6 allows us to finally get rid of NAT by having the router request several public addresses which are handed out to the individual computers.
The "not needed" mentality doesn't solve anything, especially because they could have just added an option to disable IPv6 instead of removing it.
Inside the facility, who cares?
Patronizing, are you? What makes you think you may prescribe the type of internal addressing (size of RAM, internationalisation, etc.) to anyone and everyone?
I for one do care. Be it to work with IPv6 islands in an IPv4 shop, or student and research work. Maybe someone wants the same IP address wherever she goes?
It can be understood from your post that you say "as long as the Apple box allows a connection; by whichever means and difficulties including eventual downgrades and encumbrances, I will defend its weaknesses to the very end".
Though you could have said so.
IPv6 is actually very easy to remember when done right. Further, we have DNS for address resolution - how many of the websites you visited today do you know the IPv4 address for?
For an enterprise, once they get their allocation, it's really not that bad. I will make up an allocation as an example:
2600:123:b000::/48
With 5 more octets left (octets isn't the right term, but divisions seperated by colons), you can do a large amount of intelligent numbering, and even just reuse all of your VLAN and IPv4 numbering right inside your IPv6 addressing.
For instance, if you have a server network at 172.16.2.0/24 and it is vlan 203, you can assign 2600:123:b000:203::/64 (with the nodes getting ::172:16:2:yyy), so a given server node with 172.16.2.105 would be 2600:123:b000:203:172:16:2:105 . It's wasteful, but with IPv6, who cares?
If you have more than one site, then each site should get you your own /48. When applying for addreses, you should do so for all sites at once. We have a /44 (x:x:b000 - x:x:b00f) as we have 9 sites. We can then assign each site based on their site numbers (2600:123:b001 - 2600:123:b009). We use 2600:123:b000 for infrastructure, and still have 2600:123:b00a - 2600:123:b00f left over.
So, site 3, vlan 405, network 172.24.5.0/24 would be assigned 2600:123:b003:405::/64 with nodes having 2600:123:b003:405:172:24:5:yyy. For workstations that use SLAAC and/or DHCPv6, you don't care about the last 64 bits and you rely on DNS. But you still know the site and VLAN if you use the same numbering. 2600:123:b002:464::/64, which is site 2, vlan 464.
All the IT staff has to do is learn that 2600:123:b000 - b00f is our assignment and explain the rest of our addressing plan. It's actually rather natural to do it this way and makes a ton of sense.
Oh, and personally I would skip doing any decimal to hex conversion where it can be avoided. For instance, I would not make vlan 165 be A5 (the hex value), but rather just 165. This does mean you'll "waste" something like 37.5% of your address space - but again, who cares? I'll take readability over maximum use any day.
You don't "switch" to IPv6, you add IPv6. Nobody expects IPv4 to go away any time soon. What everyone's talking about is supporting IPv6 plus IPv4. So all your old sites work, but you can also reach any new hosts that have IPv6 addresses only directly, and get the benefits of avoiding NAT. Those hosts will likely be mobile customers at first, since that's one of the first places where ISPs are having to use v6. As for those users, they will be able to talk to IPv4 sites via DNS trickery and IPv6-to-IPv4 NAT, or just via plain old IPv4 NAT.
I don't believe, for a second, that all addresses in companies or homes need to be public addresses!
Not every IPv6 address is a "public" address - private addresses can be assigned to a local subnet, very much like RFC1918 addresses, except now called Unique Local Addresses.
and, of course, there is some security to NOT being directly touchable on the net.
I don't WANT my address to be easily and directly reachable
Second of all, I can only assume by "directly reachable" you remain the loss of NAT/PAT. Again, Unique Local Addresses invalidate your statement. Furthermore, NAT/PAT can still be implemented. Not that it gives you any security whatsoever today.
running ipv6 is about as useful, to home users, as running BGP.
You do know that BGP is a routing protocol and IPv6 is a routed protocol, right? Please take a moment and read through the Wikipedia page on IPv6. Maybe even try running it for a week or two in a virtual environment?
So this is probably another speed optimization as packets are 96bit smaller...
Actually, an IPv6 packet can be smaller than an IPv4 packet. The IPv4 header contains a lot of garbage not required by IPv6. See for yourself.
Secondly, IPv6 addresses can be concatenated. Only if you're using an extremely complex IPv6 address will your router need to process a large source or destination header.
That's what firewalls are for. The fact that NAT and firewall often go together in IPv4 does not mean it has to be that way. Just set your IPv6 firewall to deny by default, and you'll have the same security setup you usually get with NAT+firewall on IPv4, but with more flexibility.
Apple didn't back off on anything. The version of Airport Utility discussed is the pretty, dumbed-down version of the application intended for folks who just barely understand what a router is about. It matches the similar version deployed on iOS.
The "previous version" isn't. The feature-complete 5.6 was released at the same time as the simple version, and has the same support for IPv6 as it ever did.
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
I guess I'll try one more time. Whether in this *specific* case it's a good or bad thing, remember that most of us are running small IPv4 networks. IPv6 adds needless complexity and simply isn't needed.
No, NAT adds needless complexity and simply isn't needed if we could all just start using IPv6! Incomplete appliance support is an extreme hinderance to that.
Remember: the shortage of IPv4 addresses is on the PUBLIC INTERNET. (An extremely important distinction.) A small business with maybe 10-20 devices on an internal network doesn't care about IPv6. At all. Now, those of you with hundreds of clients on a large network, might indeed want it. But for most of us, all we'll need is an IPv6-capable router/modem at the Internet gateway. Inside the facility, who cares?
I happen to work in broadcasting, so I know your anecdote is a bit of an edge case. Few people in broadcasting even use DNS or DHCP, much of the time, IP networks are simply replacements for whatever proprietary bit of telco comms preceded it.
But of course no end user asks for IPv6. The mere idea that an end user should need to care about what happens on the transport layer for improvements in transport layer tech to be a Good Idea is flabbergasting. These things are supposed to be transparent. Technicians should realize they have a social responsibility to implement it, because the net gain is dependent on almost everyone getting it into place, so it can reach a critical mass so that we don't have to deal with the gigantic, internet-breaking kludge that is NAT.
The main point is: There should be no distinction in addressing, there should be no NAT. One address should be able to reach another address no matter what network each host is on. That's kind-of why it's called an inter-net.
toresbe
"can be smaller", but won't.
IPv4 header: "Variable length of 20-60 bytes, depending on IP options present." (if you don't use any options, 20 bytes).
IPv6 header: "Fixed length of 40 bytes. There are no IP header options." (if you don't use any options either, 40 bytes)
IPv6 is terrible if those "20 bytes more" are relevant for your application.
Src: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r3/index.jsp?topic=%2Frzai2%2Frzai2compipv4ipv6.htm
5.6 is not the previous version! 6.0 and 5.6 were released simultaneously! The problem lies with their product naming, not versioning. That is, 6.0 really should have been called Airport Utility Lite or something like that. 5.6 could have been Airport Utility Pro or something like that. 5.6 is very much the latest version. Want all the features? Use 5.6. Want a simplified interface? Use 6.0.
I was really puzzled about this, so I went to 'investigate' the issue a bit. Turns out Airport is not a router, but a sort of wireless switch (no modem). So this is probably another speed optimization as packets are 96bit smaller and your home network probably isn't filled with more than 4294967296 devices.
The first thing that comes to my mind is how in the hell this is going to work when you want to access the internet in such a configuration. The utility or physical Airport station probably converts this. I don't think Apple is that retarded...
If you investigate further, you'll see it's just the Admin tool that lost support when they rewrote it, and it has nothing to do with the actual Airport device. Just like Final Cut Pro X, I'm sure Apple will re-add features over time.
E pluribus unum
You're breaking the internet because you don't understand it. There's not really a nicer way to say it. Every host is *SUPPOSED* to be addressable. It's called the end-to-end principle. The fact that NAT prevented unsolicited connections was a consequence of its design, not a feature. Firewalls do it better, and with more control. They even do it by default! The reason the iptables authors are religiously opposed to it is because the internet isn't meant to be like that, and there are perfectly good solutions (in iptables!) to do what you want without a broken end-to-end principle.
For what it's worth, I've been running IPv6 at home for a few years without the slightest trouble. My clients get NATted IPv4 addresses, and a public IPv6 address. They have the same security, since the firewall prevents unsolicited connections. But since it's a firewall and not shitty NAT, I have three SSH servers on port 22 and two webservers on port 80 that are publicly routable. Try doing that with NAT
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
:) As one of the original authors of some of the software that makes this Internet run (you probably are using it too, at least indirectly) I have a vague idea :)
Not every host is supposed to be addressable. There is a very specific reason private non-publicly-addressable subnet ranges were created, for example. So, your claims are false - you simply don't know what the Internet is "supposed" to be like.
And IPv6 can do better, without all the ugly side-effects of NAT: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4941.txt
Kill all hipsters.
The v6 address space is so enormously huge, you can't enumerate all hosts. Even if you could, it's trivial to block ping scans at the firewall in the same way as unsolicited connections. Furthermore, the Privacy Extensions (made possible by the address space!) give you a different address every few minutes, for the same net effect (it's the same prefix, but a different host portion every time, which is analogous to one NATted public address).
Regarding your earlier post, the internet is in fact supposed to have end-to-end connectivity. Private address spaces were supposed to be non-routable, organization-internal addresses using the IP as a convenience - not bridged to the "real" internet with a nasty hack. The nodes in the middle are supposed to be "dumb", since that's how IP was designed to function. I don't know what software you wrote, but it doesn't change the facts. And yes, I have read the papers.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
The Airport Utility 6.0 actually has a whole lot less administration features than the 5.6 utility. In fact Apple has a download on their site for 5.6 if you want to use some of those features that are missing. As far as I can tell 6.0 is pretty much a Beta version. It's got an entirely different interface philosophy than 5.6 and most other router administration panels. I suspect that a lot of the missing functionality will be added soon, including ipv6.
Turns out Airport is not a router, but a sort of wireless switch (no modem).
Your terminology is not quite standard.
So this is probably another speed optimization as packets are 96bit smaller and your home network probably isn't filled with more than 4294967296 devices.
My comparatively ancient and underpowered WRT54G manages IPv6 just fine.
But more to the point, the Airport Extreme itself is perfectly capable of routing IPv6, so your point is moot. It's just that IPv6 support is no longer included in the configuration utility.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
existing solutions work just fine with ipv4.
Really? Because I had to renumber my home network because I happened to conflict with one of my employers non-routable networks. I had established a peer VPN with an associate, but he had to renumber his network to do it. There are numerous departments I have had to deal with, but I can't connect to all their VPNs at the same time. Why? Because half of them used 10.0.0.0/8 as 'their' network.
I don't believe, for a second, that all addresses in companies or homes need to be public addresses!
Even if you believe that, ULA in IPv6 is really quite nice. Instead of conflicting with everyone using 10.0.0.0/8 because everyone likes having a fake class A, I have a 1 in 1^40 chance of conflicting with private addresses.
I don't WANT my address to be easily and directly reachable.
Everyone knows the address of the white house. That does not mean a gunman can walk through the front door just because he knows where to find it. Firewalling rules are still viable even if you aren't NATing.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Just because a host is not directly addressable does not mean it should not be able to actually communicate with hosts outside. But I certainly don't want it to be "visible" or known.
Just like I don't want anyone to be able to tell by looking at my home from the outside what brand of refrigerator I have or what's in my stove or dishwasher (even though they are connected to public utilities too), I don't want anyone to be able to (easily, at least) tell what network-connected devices I am using in my home. It's a basic tenet of privacy and security. Providing any type of unique per-device addressing defies this objective.
Think of it in terms of real world addresses. My house has one, but not each bedroom or item of furnishing. They are "things within the house" and the only way someone gets to talk to them is by mailing a letter to "Attn. : Commode, John Doe, 123 Main st, New York, NY 10001".
I don't think Apple is that retarded...
I'm sure I'll be modded flamebait for this, but I take it you don't have much dealing with Apple products in a support capacity. They can be pretty retarded. Little things like:
* Improper grounding on wifi cards in the macbook air
* Driver/kernel integration with DHCP
* Signed binaries becoming corrupt requiring a full reinstall (or similar)
* Removing features and adding steps to perform basic tasks while calling it 'streamlining'
* Removing compatibility for no apparent reason (eg. samba removal)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers