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Sale of IPv4 Addresses Hindering IPv6 Adoption
hal9000(jr) writes "While IPv6 day was a successful marketing campaign, is anyone really moving to IPv6? On World Launch Day, Arbor Networks noted a peak of only .2% of IPv6 network traffic. It appears that IPv4 addresses are still valuable and are driving hosting acquisitions. Windows 8 will actually prefer IPv6 over IPv4. If you want IPv6, here's what to do about it."
Only delays the inevitable. Also all the major ISPs are working on it...
From the article:
"Transitioning to IPv6 will take much, much longer than anyone expects, mostly because there is no clear reason to move to IPv6 anytime soon."
Not everything works with IPv6 yet. Most stuff does, but most organizations still have some stuff that doesn't quite yet. It'd be great if it was all just transparent, but it's now.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
ipv6 is coming to a slashdot near you.. soon!
For sale, one barely used 127.0.0.1 ip address. $5000. First come first serve!
Part of the reason is that IPv6 has a number of security issues:
1: No NAT, so an intruder can fire up a scan and find your network topology from anywhere in the world. Only way to deal with this is to tunnel to IPV4 then back again, which is a hack.
2: No support for packet level encryption. It is mentioned, but it is an option that vendors don't need to follow or bother with.
3: Change ISPs? All your internal IPs have to change. Again, no NAT, so you can't just leave your internal 10.x.x.x network as it is and just let the routers deal with the new external stuff.
4: Unknown 0-day security holes. Just what we want... to relive the days of pings of death, land, teardrop, smurf, SYN flooding and other attacks.
IPv4 sucks, but if I'm worried about security, I'll keep my ticket to admission, thank you very much.
That last link doesn't have one spec of advice. It merely describes the problem again. FAIL.
As an individual user... why? This should be something that I shouldn't have to worry about and the change should be transparent.
There are still vast ranges of unused addresses that have not been monetized, so there's no incentive to change. The cost of conversion is higher than the cost of addresses, therefore we will keep using them and developing software that doesn't support IPv6 until costs escalate.
Beyond this, how many of your ISPs offer native IPv6? This will be a prerequisite to widespread consumer adoption.
That I won't see those same damn bots that scan the entire IPv4 range all the damn time as often.
Hope they enjoy scanning the entire IPv6 range.
Admittedly they might get better results as NAT won't be causing as many problems with detecting actual hosts.
Sometimes I just feel like messing with them.
Until some new technology that everyone wants comes along and requires IPv6, no one will care about it. It makes no sense for businesses to pay thousands on larbor to reconfigure their entire network for IPv6, and see no beneficial gain. Not to mention a lot of legacy hardware still don't support IPv6, like network printers/copiers, camera systems, security systems, etc. It also complicates maters worse when you try to network across long distances.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Each and every one of you reading this is a customer of service providers and equipment vendors. It's time to use your voice and demand an IPv6 migration strategy that you can plan on.
On my walk in to work, there is this beautiful historic stone fence with cobblestone walk way for about a 2 block stretch... and demanding an IPv6 migration strategy I can plan on from it would likely be a better use of my time...
The article does nail the obvious problem on the head... the fact that IPv6 offers no benefit anyone cares about (we've learned to work with nat and even come to love it) except a solution to a problem that hasn't actually hit yet. Thing is this is the easy part. We all _know_ why IPv6 isn't being adopted. The hard part is how do we change that.. and "call up your ISP" is a really silly answer.
IPv6 works well at T-Mobile USA https://sites.google.com/site/tmoipv6/lg-mytouch
I thought IPv4 was gone, all the IPs handed out willy-nilly for free?
Oh wait, the free market is allocating them more efficiently now that they are all quasi private property?
Better pull out the legislation to stop this and force IPv6 to go faster just cause we want it to.
I always wondered why the ISP I worked at could just be handed a /16 for free with unverified supporting documentation!
Disclaimer: I like IPv6, but I am preempting any comments proposing we stop this IPv4 "black market".
My ISP already supports IP6RD if I had a modem with the firmware updated need I'd be on it already. At least it looks like my ISP has been trying to get their supported modems upgraded. They went from only having 1 modem that supports it to now having 3 modems. In a year or two I'll ether have a new modem that supports it or I'll have a upgraded the firmware. Upgrading to IP6 will take time since their is a lot of IP4 only hardware still out there that needs to be purged.
Lots of people talk about IPv6 and how they are "ready" etc. But nobody I've seen gives exact instructions on how I would configure IPv6 for my SOHO setup. What equipment do I need? What configuration do I need to set exactly? And, after I do all of this, can I get to IPv4 places or am I in the 1% as they say?
committerbase and WHEN IDC RECENTLY Moans and groans Usenet posts. can no longer be In posting a GNAA Jesus Up The progrees. Any recent Sys Admin
I've set up IPv6 to the extent possible on my equipment and the problem is that the steps (for a newbie) are complicated and unclear. How is IPv6 going to spread if one needs a degree in networking to get it all to work?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
And in other breaking news, sale of large, luxury cars down due to availability of affordable, economical cars. Highlights at 6.
Expensive IANA wants multiple thousands to allow us, as an ISP, to provide equivalent IPv6/48 address blocks to our customers match their IPv4 currently allocated blocks. It provides no incentive for us to give back IPv4 allocations after moving our customers to IPv6
Lacking toolsI have not seen any transition tools to allow a quick and easy remapping from IPv4 to IPv6. The existing blocks and their descriptions (you do put descriptions on your blocks don't you?) should be detected and re-tailored for IPv6. Building the address block heirarchy in an IPv4 design tools and having a script to translate it to a DHCPv6 config would go a long way to easing the pain.
Missing FOSS IPv6 DHCP GUI Microsoft has had a DHCPv6 GUI for quite a while, haw hard can it be to use it as a template? Integration with the DHCPv6 LDAP objects would be a big plus
PXE not supported in DHCPv6 So you are back to IPv4 for remote boot until you can remote configure a host for IPv6
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Vista and Windows 7 "prefer" IPv6 too... Heck even Windows XP with its crappy IPv6 stack turned on prefers IPv6.
If you read the whole cnet article what has changed is network awareness sending an IPv6 only HTTP request periodically to a Microsoft server using this to judge if IPv6 connectivity is actually available.
In other words the behavior of all windows 8 systems on the planet with regards to IPv6 usage is dictated by the availability by a single Microsoft URL. What could possibly go wrong with that? Is it not also wonderful MS having their system ping out to MS servers by default periodically without anyone knowing or providing a user choice to turn it off not involving registry hacks?
With regards to IPv6 usage I just checked the interface stats on my gateway with an HE tunnel configured. Very interesting...IPv6 Internet traffic is a full 25% of overall Internet usage over the last 145 day period. This predates the June 6th IPv6 go live day by several months.
IPv6 = 32GB
IPv4 = 129GB
ISPs are still dragging their feet lighting up IPv6.. I fear we will have to wait another two years before most large ISPs get their act together on full production deployment.
The most interesting thing seems to be the "long tail" effect reflected in my actual usage.
Given current environment where just a handful of megasites are responsible for the majority of all Internet traffic by volume huge changes in traffic patterns can tip the scales on IPv6 usage rapidly while the countless millions of other sites run by the rest take just as long to switch over as the IPv6 naysayers say it will.
The "here's what to do about it" teaser amounts to, "complain to your ISP." Thank you so much. If only we had thought of that.
The article is useless.
"Oh, draft these standards. They're so naughty and complex."
The benefits to IPv6 are significant but I'd like to take apart your assertion that it "[solves] a problem that hasn't actually hit yet".
That's just wrong.
The world supply of IPv4 is empty. Gone. No more available. What about the regional registrars I hear you ask?
Asia. Empty. Dry.
Europe. Imminent exhaustion. 2 - 8 weeks until they're dry.
North America. They're better off. Instead of mere weeks we're up in the months range. 6 - 12 months.
South America and Africa. They're better off only because they have significantly lower burn rates not because they have . This will only stay low until it becomes economically viable to export IPs from these regions or until growth in internet devices ramps up like it has in China or India.
As the price of IPs rise there will more aggressive conservation strategies. You think people like NAT when they control the box just wait until Double-NAT, also known as carrier grade NAT, arrives. People have spent years trying to get NAT traversal working right, and still haven't gotten quite right, and now we're preparing to dial it up to 11.
We can either spend money and transition to IPv6 or spend more money managing the problem rather than solving it.
Headline on the original article: What to Do About the Scarcity of IPv4 Addresses
Headline on the Slashdot post: Sale of IPv4 Addresses Hindering IPv6 Adoption
Well-played.
jhw
I've seen vines, ipxspx, osi etc fall by the wayside.
Really. Nobody cares about ipv6. It's not a problem, people like you are a bigger problem.
Deleted
We all know IP4 addresses don't identify a person. Will this change with IP6? With the "an IP address for every toaster" idea, will they still be dynamic enough for plausible deniability?
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Unless you are an anal meta-administrator attempting to keep yourself employed, or a repressive government trying to keep your people firmly under your jackboot, everything should be done via stateless autoconfiguration.
Personally, I know I will not miss having to set up tons of hardware that's too stupid to assign its own address correctly.
Give all the IP4 addresses away to China and other countries where botnets tend to originate most often, and make then NAT to get on the IP6 network the rest of us will live on when we don't own any of the IP4 space any more.
Perhaps somebody has an (expert) answer here to this question: Why was IPv4 even allowed or implemented in the first place? Did this have to do with computing and/or memory limitations back in the day (1974 to 1981) that nobody every thought could be overcome or even required? I know hindsight is 20/20.
I find it hard to understand how the researchers developing the IP protocol could think that 4.29 billion address would be sufficient given the scale of possible adoption in the future. I'd have to imagine if everybody had a phone, for example, with an IP address back in 1974 -- which as I understand is the year of the first version implementation of the IP protocol -- the global population was around 4 billion according to wolfram alpha. In 1981, according to the same source, the population was 4.6 billion, which was the year IPv4 was finalized and is still in use today according to the Wikipedia entry; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol.
Now we are dealing with this IPv4 wall mess. And as far as I can tell the IPv4 is not going away anytime soon. Interesting how the telco's can upgrade networks and hardware implementation. Everyone who develops internet capable devices know most likely have implemented a dual operation mode of IPv4/IPv6 in the devices, but defaulted to IPv4. My ISP provided router has both IPv4/IPv6, but they have now documentation about future implementation or migration to IPv6.
For mobile devices, the software is controlled by the carrier and the data path is controlled by the carrier, and the apps are controlled by the carrier or the handset maker. Mobile devices don't act as hosts. And all the growth in devices is in mobile. So why aren't they all on IPv6?
If the carrier has to do an IPv6 to IPv4 translation, they can do that at their head end.
An Arbor Networks graph shows less than .2% of the traffic the company measured was IPv6. That's up from a peak of .04%, which occurred on the first Worldwide IPv6 Day in 2011; hardly a blip in a year.
That's a 5-times increase in a year.
If we pretend that we're business math students, then next year we'll see 1% -- then 5% in 2 years and 25% in 3 years -- which would be easily enough to trigger further network effects.
It all breaks down in the 4th year with 125% of traffic, but I'll just take that to mean that the remaining IP4 traffic will be encapsulated in IP6 packets by then.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Sorry, my speciality is graphics + optimizations not networking. Question for the /. crowd ...
If I have a ipv6 address how do I guarantee all my "old" ipv4 games work ?
Is this a non-issue? I realize ipv6 doesn't have NAT, but are there any special configurations I need to do on the router if I switch my entire home network over to ipv6 ?
Thanks.
There's only one scheme for encoding IPv4 in IPv6, and it isn't changing because it's built into the BSD Sockets IPv6 extension API, published eons ago. What is uncertain is how to route those addresses. Part of the "confusion" is that some lazy developers would prefer to be able to bind to a single port and receive IPv4 and IPv6 connections, especially when upgrading old software. But for this desire, there'd be no issue whatsoever. Best practice, however, is to bind to two separate ports. And if you do this there are and will be no issues to worry about concerning ports and addresses.
Likewise, people are confused about DNS and making client connections. But as long as you use getaddrinfo(), there isn't any real problem (excluding optimization obsessions).
People get confused when they think too much about it. But if they stick to the published APIs, then all will be fine. That's because if anything needs to be changed (unlikely), almost certainly it'll be done in a way transparent to those using the published APIs.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Please give me your name, address, your phone number, and your bank account number so that I can deposit this in there. And then I will call you to finish the transaction.
There's only one scheme for encoding IPv4 in IPv6, and it isn't changing because it's built into the BSD Sockets IPv6 extension API, published eons ago.
This is not true. There is the ancient ::x.x.x.x which has since been nixed. A number of NAT systems are mapping IPv4 domain to an arbitrary IPv6 prefix and fudging DNS to make IPv4 universe accessible as if it were native IPv6.
IPv4 mapped IPv6 addresses are NOT used for encoding IPv4 in IPv6 for transmission.
What is uncertain is how to route those addresses.
They have no meaning outside the socket layer of the local computer. See RFC 2553.
Part of the "confusion" is that some lazy developers would prefer to be able to bind to a single port and receive IPv4 and IPv6 connections
There is nothing wrong with being lazy if it gets the job done. What is with issue with dualstack sockets?
Best practice, however, is to bind to two separate ports.
Says U..its sockets not ports.
I predict a new market for IPv4 addresses for individual businesses. Large hosting companies will buy up IPv4 addresses in bulk from ISPs to sell to server customers, pushing the ISPs to switch to IPv6 allowing the servers to be dual stack with a static IPv4 address. Once the ISPs get onto IPv6 the value of IPv4 will drop, but still be held with some regard for a while while the remaining stragglers and ISPs with huge NATs are forced to convert for their clients that want to access private websites that would start popping up on peoples ISP connected servers.
Might not happen that way, but it seems as likely a prediction as any other.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Along with devices, ISP support and the knowledge of setting up IPv6 tunnels contribute to delays. Doesn't Windows 7 and even Vista prefer IPv6 over IPv4?
My company is already using IPv6 addresses. All of our sites have public addresses... as well as all of our desktops. All of our users now use Facebook and Google over IPv6. So... nothing will help me adopt it. Already done.
It is such a shame that SIXXS is such a pain to use though. I am NOT going to go to the trouble of writing a fucking essay (along with setting up a linkedin account) just to switch to IPv6.
>All of our sites have public addresses... as well as all of our desktops.
(Not directed at you, but your adminstrator): How is this a good thing?
If your company wants to make stuff available (whether to the public or to vendors), it should do so on specifically defined servers. What's the point of making every desktop a peer?
That's sort of cool in a university environment, where you're there to learn, experiment, and play. But not in a corporate environment.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
As far as I can tell, yes. Or at least, they do in our office.
Help me out: Is this a joke, or real?
http://www.01189998819991197253.co.uk/
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
A good working IPv4 market and the lacking need for IPv6 might explain why IPv6 is not getting of the ground. The thing that is holding me back is the lack of practical information on a IPv6 network and the connection to the internet. I have not read any practical guide that easily explains how to setup an IPv6 network, keeping in mind that I want the same level of privacy on my LAN and the easy connection to the internet. Instead of a router/modem that speaks NAT, I need a decent firewall and modem. Please don't start with NAT is no firewall. I know that, but it has been a trench surrounding my LAN that kept the creeps outside. Or at least it gave me and the other 99% that feeling and ease of mind. It are the following practical questions that keep me from IPv6; -- Now I need a decent firewall and what is the price ? -- Do I still need a router and maybe a separate modem ? -- Is there one device that does all this ? -- What will is cost ? Even when all the above is answered ... I still have to worry about the fact that some parts will blackout once I move to IPv6.
But then I have spent my hard earned cash already.
Here's what tyo do about it - ask your ISP or employer to move to IPv6. Not very convincing, not very informative, the article was more blab than useful information. What a waste - both the situation, and the article.
Instead of properly standartizing NAT they removed it, with the argument that there are enought adresses now. ... you are f**d with ipv6.
Well, if you used Nat for anything else than adress space expansion, like multihoming, topology hiding,
Why remove a well established feature instead of standartizing it properly?
Well and thats why i dont see ipv6 ever happen.
There will be 2 split worlds: ipv4 and ipv6 until one comes up with say ipv8 that merges both worlds again.
People talk about calling up your ISP and demanding IPv6 support as if it is simply some switch to be flipped.
Consider a software product that is multiple millions of lines of code built over a decade, that is required for business, but for the most part is underpinned by IPv4 data structures. This is not some simple "find and replace" operation to add IPv6 support to a product like this. The effort will take years worth of man-hours and tens of millions of dollars, and also require hardware four times more powerful to run (due to the increased size of the IPv6 data structure) - and in the end, offer no tangible new features.
Now, multiply this by not only one software package, but more likely several dozen, all of which are provided by outside vendors. Some of these V6 porting projects have been in the works for a very long time already, others are on hold - but they are all very expensive and DO NOT happen overnight.. they will happen when the cost justifys the enormous expenditure.
PR Stunts like IPv6 day are not going to change the situation.
Forget the devices as the root cause. Why do you think there aren't all that many which have support? Even industry leading, and industry standard companies are actively avoiding implementing IPv6 (at least at the forefront). I know two CCIEs who hate IPv6 and are actively doing what they can to avoid implementing it.
Why?
Because IPv6 sucks. It's a horrible idea and makes life excruciatingly difficult for those who have to actually work with it. At the technical level it has a lot of merit - but that's not what's being discussed here. Where it falls flat on its face is how horribly unwieldly it is for common applications and uses.
This is, of course, exasperated by the fact that software packages don't support IPv6 yet - never mind devices. IPv6 has a bigger hill to climb than Y2K did.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I'm a big proponent of IPv6, but I agree w/ your second bullet. Site local addresses weren't all that difficult to implement, so there was no need to overhaul that. Somehow, it made no sense to have IPv4 compatible addresses and IPv4 mapped addresses, so it makes sense that one went. However, there are still things very much in flux, like whether to have a variation of NAT or not for things like load balancing, the issues over routing tables, the variation in assignments by ISPs of /48, /56 and /64s, and so on. There are new scopes such as sites and organizaitons, and yet, I've not seen the advantages of this get touted. Also, the fact that most 'IPv6-ready' hardware is only tuned for IPv4, but runs IPv6 slowly doesn't do any good to IPv6 causes. All these are much bigger barriers to IPv6 acceptance than IPv4 addresses in the black market.
The biggest barrier to my deployment of IPv6 is the edge switches and the wireless controllers. Support for first-hop security features for IPv6 is going to have to wait until we get around to paying for some rather substantial hardware upgrades, and IPv6 by itself does not justify that cost. Even if we had the money now, the actual feature sets are still not mature in the wired edge switches yet. In a competently secured campus network one does not allow old ARP/IP spoofing tricks to work, and doing so relies on the switch hardware and the wireless platform which must integrate with the DHCP servers by snooping traffic and using it to build port level access lists. IPv6 has analogous tricks that also need to be sqashed at the switchport/AP level, and while self-service address autoconfiguration seemed like a good idea to the IPv6 standards community they just don't cut it in a security-aware environment, so this support must include DHCPv6 snooping, which is still rare to find in switch feature sets these days. These are the features campus administrators will block on.
Someone had to do it.
The reason IPV6 is not taking off is about money. If you are a legacy IPV4, you pay a $100 fee (at least until 2013) per year for your class C IPV4. In spite of the massive increase in the number of addresses, the price for an equivalent IPV6 looks like it jumps to be over $1200! Why would you change? If you want people to go to IPV6, offer them the equivalent of their current IPV4 at the same price they are paying. Converting legacy users is about money--just don't gouge them when they move to IPV6 and they will join the party.
Even if we had the money now, the actual feature sets are still not mature in the wired edge switches yet. In a competently secured campus network one does not allow old ARP/IP spoofing tricks to work, and doing so relies on the switch hardware and the wireless platform which must integrate with the DHCP servers by snooping traffic and using it to build port level access lists
I find this security argument against IPv6 amusing.
IPv6 is on all yer systems already whether you have deployed IPv6 or not.makes no difference.
IPv6 can be used to "spoof traffic" with impunity already.. Default host policy is to prefer IPv6 whether you have the money to pay for a new switch with RA Guard enabled or not.
You are acting as if you have some kind of choice to make between IPv6 and a secure network.
If most bother to RTFM they can cobble together a poor mans ra guard using existing filtering facilities in their switches.
The DHCPv6 comments are bullshit for the most part as it is bootstrapped from RA.
know two CCIEs who hate IPv6 and are actively doing what they can to avoid implementing it.
Why?
Because they are idiots? There is money to be made by network engineers from forward looking organizations pushing IPv6 adoption.
Because IPv6 sucks. It's a horrible idea and makes life excruciatingly difficult for those who have to actually work with it.
Blah blah blah...the horrible idea was limiting the size of the Internet to 2^32 addresses before most of us were fucking born. You can either piss and moan about ancient history or be part of the solution.
Where it falls flat on its face is how horribly unwieldly it is for common applications and uses.
For all "common applications" care IPv6 is the same shit as IPv4. Only difference address portion of the header is lot bigger.
All programming/socket APIs work the same way. TCP and UDP are unchanged.
It is possible following best practices for socket programming to support IPv6 with no code change or without even knowing what IPv6 is.
The OS vendors have gone out of their way to make this shit as easy as possible for application folks. I've been there done that... if you think it is "horribly unwieldly" it is time to find a management position.
This is, of course, exasperated by the fact that software packages don't support IPv6 yet
All the ones I care about do.
never mind devices. IPv6 has a bigger hill to climb than Y2K did
At least we agree on something.
IPv6 is on all yer systems already whether you have deployed IPv6 or not.makes no difference
Tell that to my router, as you try to get off your segment.
If most bother to RTFM they can cobble together a poor mans ra guard using existing filtering facilities in their switches
IPv6 traffic on the older models of most popular brands of switches cannot be filtered. There are no ipv6 PACLs and no nbar-like facilities on mid-level access switches, only protocol, MAC and IPv4. What features are available are closely tied to the CAM logic, and so depend greatly on the hardware.
The DHCPv6 comments are bullshit for the most part as it is bootstrapped from RA
If you are an idiot and allow self-configuration, it is.
If these features are so unnecessary, then why are they starting to appear in the newer model switches?
Someone had to do it.
IPv6 is on all yer systems already whether you have deployed IPv6 or not.makes no difference
Tell that to my router, as you try to get off your segment.
Who said anything about routers? We were talking about switches. IPv6 is already supported by all hosts on your network. If you do nothing about IPv6 all hosts on your network are vulnerable to spoofing whether you use IPv6 or not. ARP security is not going to prevent a bad actor on your network from operating an IPv6 proxy and spoofing all of your traffic over IPv6 while operating a tunnel to get past your router all because some "idiot" clicked on the wrong email attachment.
IPv6 traffic on the older models of most popular brands of switches cannot be filtered. There are no ipv6 PACLs and no nbar-like facilities on mid-level access switches, only protocol, MAC and IPv4. What features are available are closely tied to the CAM logic, and so depend greatly on the hardware.
I said "poor mans" .. this means hard coding filters that match specific fields of the upper layer packets.
The DHCPv6 comments are bullshit for the most part as it is bootstrapped from RA
If you are an idiot and allow self-configuration, it is.
DHCPv6 addresses are signaled by setting the Managed bit in a router advertisement whether you are using SLAAC or NOT. If you control the router advertisements you control DHCP.