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US IPv6 Usage Grows To 3 Million Users

Posted by samzenpus on from the growing-and-growing dept.

darthcamaro writes "There is a myth that IPv6 is only for those in Asia, but that's not true. According to new data discussed this week at an IETF conference, there are more IPv6 users in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world — coming in at 3 million. From the article: 'George Michaelson, senior R&D scientist at APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre) has a reasonable idea of what the current levels are globally for IPv6 adoption, thanks to some statistical research he has been doing. In his view, IPv6 is now a reality in terms of adoption. "I think you're used to us standing up and saying 'woe is me, woe is me, v6 isn't happening,'" George Michaelson, senior R&D scientist at APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre) said. "But it is actually happening, these are not trivial numbers of people that are now using IPv6 on a routine basis."'"

95 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by arnoldo.j.nunez · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As of June 2012, I noticed I had an IPV6 IP address. The MAC address of my wireless card was used in the actual IPV6 address itself. However, I am not sure what I can really do with this. The IPV6 address is more cumbersome to remember. Can I reasonably expect any tangible benefits as a guy who doesn't really do much IT related activities (i.e. web surfing, email, etc.)?

    1. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Severus+Snape · · Score: 2

      I would just be lucky you have an IPV6 address, very surprised AT&T are that far forward in giving ordinary users one. Kudos to them I guess.

    2. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by fm6 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why do you need to remember it at all? I certainly don't have any of my IP addresses memorized. When I need it, I usually end up cutting and pasting.

      The whole point of this DNS thing is that you're not supposed to need to IP address day-to-day. Anything else is sloppy administration.

    3. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 2

      Probably not, for you. For companies that host complex websites, and that go through complex load balancing and proxy setups, it's invaluable for assigning SSL keys to particular IP addresses and using IP based virtual hosting instead. This solves an enormous number of complex and subtle configuration conflicts with web servers and load balancers.

    4. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by DarwinSurvivor · · Score: 1

      Is it only your router that has an IPv6 address (acting as an IPv4-IPv6 bridge), or is it actually giving all the internal devices public IPv6 addresses?

    5. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I suspect you're just seeing a link local address, like fe80::f6ce:46ff:fe30:12c5. This isn't routable. It's much like a 169.254.x.x link local address. You can talk to other nodes on your wireless, but nothing beyond a router.

      Most likely you will have to replace your CPE device(s). Your DSL modem and/or your router (if they're two different devices) will have to be replaced as the manufacturer doesn't support it anymore and won't release an update to add IPv6 support.

      This is the case for Comcast - you have to replace your cablemodem. If you have a router (and you should), you'll most likely have to replace it as well.

      Hardware vendors should be massively promoting IPv6 as it means more sales.

    6. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by SammyIAm · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, I can confirm that at least with AT&T's U-Verse service that I've had a routable IPv6 address since probably February or March. They'e been rather quiet about the roll-out (I found out through some forums), but it seems to be legitimate.

    7. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Malf.me · · Score: 1

      Back in April of 2012 I similarly randomly discovered I had IPv6 support. For me it was via RCN. Thanks to a friend's SSH server with a misconfigured fail2ban install and several failed login attempts over IPv4 I found myself connected over IPv6.

      To answer your question I have yet to find a truly practical benefit. At the moment you can view a few IPv6-only test sites but that's about it for normal users.

    8. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by fm6 · · Score: 2

      Slashdot needs a "sniping": downmod for people who write a nasty rebuttal without bothering to explain why they disagree. In this case, you might consider sharing why it's so difficult to manage a network so that nobody needs to know IP addresses.

    9. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by desertfool · · Score: 1

      Amen. I know IP addresses of many things across my network. Not going to happen when we go to v6.

      --
      Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
    10. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by desertfool · · Score: 1

      I still can't get a v6 address capable circuit for my testlab at work from at&t, without buying their 'managed service' along with it.

      I'd rather spoon out my own guts that let at&t manage any part of my network. So not happening yet.

      --
      Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
    11. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by neonmonk · · Score: 1

      I concur.

      However, I don't think IPv4 is going anywhere for internal network management. I see no reason for internal servers to be using IPv6.

    12. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by jbolden · · Score: 1

      If you mac address was being used, then likely you are auto-configuring and you have a whole /64. What you can do with it is start having functioning end to end services between the various internet enabled devices in your house and the outside world.

    13. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by fm6 · · Score: 1

      Explain to me why you need to know all those IP addresses. Is there a good reason these nodes don't have names?

      The fact that IPv6 addresses aren't suitable for casual use would seem to be a good thing, in your case, since your IT people will be forced to take the time to assign names to everything — which they should do anyway.

    14. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Zuriel · · Score: 1

      Oh, the DNS server isn't working properly? I'll just SSH in and fix it. By connecting to it over the network. Using DNS.

      Relying on DNS works fine... until it stops working fine, due to software bugs or hardware failure or whatever. Being able to remember the IP address of your gateway, DNS server, web server, etc off the top of your head doesn't sound very useful, but network admins don't need to be told that they'll miss it.

    15. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by fm6 · · Score: 1

      Fine, in emergencies the IP address is something you need to know. But recall that I said "day to day use". We're talking about admins that just use IP addresses for everything because it's too much trouble to assign names.

      I'd actually argue that the admin shouldn't be memorizing this stuff, even with IPv4. If it's only recorded in somebody's head, information has a way of not being available when people need it.

    16. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by bbn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The IP address of your gateway is always fe80::%eth0. Like this:

      ~$ ping6 -c1 fe80::%eth0
      PING fe80::%eth0(fe80::) 56 data bytes
      64 bytes from fe80::216:3eff:fe36:5f25: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.798 ms

      --- fe80::%eth0 ping statistics ---
      1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
      rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.798/0.798/0.798/0.000 ms

      (slightly different syntax on windows)

      Not that hard eh?

      And nothing stops you from assigning easy to remember addresses to your stuff. In fact since you have little to no constraints, you can make up schemes to your liking. Your webserver could be 2001:db8:531::1. Your decide the ::1 part. You quickly learn that first three parts as it never changes it is "you". The prefix is also usually not any longer than a IPv4 address.

    17. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by bbn · · Score: 1

      You just need to configure your network with DHCPv6 instead of autoconf. Or use static configuration. Then you are free to name your stuff prefix::1, ::2, ::3 and so on. Or any other scheme.

    18. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by pspahn · · Score: 2

      Congrats on your most recent +5 comment.

      I don't deal with IP6 yet, but I do know that the day is coming.... likely to be determined by the powers at Century Link. I will never remember the specifics of your post, but I will remember that there are "localhost" type defaults and my Google search time will be reduced from 10 minutes to 1 minute.

      Time is money and money is beer... so I guess I owe you a cold one. Swing by Denver (GABF is coming in October) to collect.

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
    19. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Jeremi · · Score: 2

      I see no reason for internal servers to be using IPv6.

      You're probably right, but I have to say that fe80::foo link-local addresses are really handy for auto-configuring devices on a LAN, since they are guaranteed unique and also guaranteed never to change. The IPv4 equivalent (169.254.*.* self-assigned addresses) is a can of worms by comparison.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    20. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by dissy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why don't you have the IP entered in your connection bookmark? Both puTTY and SecurCRT store connection profiles, where you can put the IP instead of hostname for critical servers.

      Bash has aliases and shell scripts to call ssh. Even windows CLI has batch scripts.
      If "ssh ns1" doesn't resolve, I can run "~/.ssh/ns1.sh" easily enough, which contains the "ssh <ip>" command.

      Also if your DNS regularly goes down, I'd guess remembering addresses is the least of your network troubles.

      You can already use the alias fe80::%eth0 for your gateway. Best part is you only need to remember that single address, unlike IPv4 which requires me remembering many different "x.x.x.1" addresses used as the gateways right now.

      You can even organize it identically to your IPv4 layout. You still only need to really remember 1-2 numbers that will change depending if you use a /24 or /16, and a single prefix that never changes.
      Anyone managing larger than a /16 is already going to have the entire thing documented in a management system or at worse a wiki. Excel will not cut it at that size.
      Basically put, if you have an IPv4 /12 or larger network, you already have software that manages the addresses for you. Nothing will change there with IPv6.

      At home I have a /24. That means 3 octets are assigned and fixed already. Gives 253 usable addresses. Most of your IPv6 address will also be assigned.
      Instead of x.x.x.1 you have yyyy::1
      Instead of x.x.x.10 you have yyyy::10
      Instead of x.x.x.100 you have yyyy::100
      See the pattern here?

      You can even avoid using the hex digits A-F and stick to 0-9 only.
      Sure, per "group" you only get 9999 IPs instead of 65534 IPs, but either is better than 253 or less.

      At work I manage a /16. That means 2 octets are fixed. I grouped that into 255 blocks of roughly 253 addresses each. Each block is a logical division.
      x.x.0.y is routers/switches. x.x.1.y is servers. x.x.4.y are static IPs, and x.x.5.y are dynamic ones.
      Instead, you can use yyyy::1:z and yyyy::2:z and so on. .

      The best part, my IPv4 and IPv6 suffixes pretty much match for my "dot zero" infrastructure and "dot one" servers blocks. Learning the IPv6 prefix took no longer than remembering a brand new /28 allocated from an ISP.

      Your fixed prefix will likely be 8 hex characters. Even a chimp can memorize 8 hex numbers they work with every day :P

      The absolute worst situation is going to be having a post-it note in your wallet/purse with the prefixes on it... Pretty much what most of us network admins do anyway for any IPs assigned by upstream providers or other 3rd parties.

      I have my entire internal /16 memorized fully. It's the 10ish tiny /29 and smaller blocks from my 4 ISPs that are the bitch to remember! Growing my internal IP blocks with IPv6 took literally less than one full day to memorize the prefix. Just because I waste most of my /64 allocation by padding it with zeros on the left doesn't matter now.
      Once I get more than 20k network devices, they will be added slowly over time just like right now. You only have to learn new subnets individually as you add them in at the time they are created, and IPv6 will not change that.

    21. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by kiddygrinder · · Score: 1

      i have this high tech piece of software on my pc called notepad...

      --
      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
    22. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by jbolden · · Score: 1

      I'm not following you. Your home LAN (assuming it can handle v6) gets the /64. Devices auto-assign by Mac address to all have unique v6 addresses. Why wouldn't the devices behind the home router be able to see the v6 space?

      As for providing more than a /64 for home, I'm not sure why. And why would you not use your universal link for P2P?

    23. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by kiddygrinder · · Score: 1

      heh, if you're that worried about it just nat your network

      --
      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
    24. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Dagger2 · · Score: 1

      He's talking about a transfer net. The home LAN doesn't get the /64 because the /64 is on the transfer net between the router and the ISP, and it can't magically go through the router to the LAN. You need a separate /64 (or larger) for the LAN side.

      In order to use the addresses on the transfer network, you'd have to connect all of your devices up to your modem using a switch. But that's incompatible with v4, because your ISP will only give you one v4 address, so all of those extra devices would be v6-only.

      The caveat is that a transfer net is only necessary if your upstream isn't marked NOARP (i.e. if it's Ethernet), which is typical of cable ISPs. If your upstream is a true point-to-point link, such as a PPP tunnel, then you don't need the transfer net at all. There are only two nodes on a PtP link, so there's no need to use IPs to identify which node you want to send traffic to: you just shove it down the link and it shows up at the other end. Most DSL ISPs can thus get away without using a transfer net.

      And yes, there are uses for more than one /64 on a home LAN. Segregated wired/wireless is a common one, particularly with guest wifi networks (which typically use a separate subnet). Another is any situation where people cascade routers and end up with double NAT at the moment -- in v6 land, you handle that with DHCPv6-PD, which allows the second router to request a routed subnet from the first.

    25. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by GPLHost-Thomas · · Score: 1

      {vi,emacs} /etc/hosts
      Problem solved, no need to remember.

    26. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Dagger2 · · Score: 2

      The unique part about his equipment is that it's actually working like it's supposed to. The all-zeros address is the subnet-router anycast address, and if you attempt to talk to it, you should receive a reply from one of the routers on the subnet.

      Linux implements this. If forwarding is enabled for an interface, then it will respond to traffic to the all-zeros address on any subnets on that interface.

      (I'm not quite sure what happens for internal traffic if you have multiple routers on a single subnet. Maybe you'll end up sending packets to whichever one responds to NDP first? It's not an issue for traffic from outside the subnet, since that will just naturally hit one of the routers, which will handle the response.)

    27. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Alioth · · Score: 1

      Why not? Your prefix won't be something that changes, it'll be the same across the network - easy to remember. I can remember our prefix.

      For things that don't use stateless autoconfiguration (i.e. the stuff you need to know the IP address of on your network, just in case you're having DNS problems), you can give it a memorable address. The last bit of the IPv6 address being "::dead:beef" or "::baad:f00d" or "::b00b:l355" or even just "::2" is no harder to remember than the last octet of an IPv4 address.

      --
      Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
    28. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by rb12345 · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't link-local addresses be used for the transfer network?

    29. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the answer.

      In order to use the addresses on the transfer network, you'd have to connect all of your devices up to your modem using a switch. But that's incompatible with v4, because your ISP will only give you one v4 address, so all of those extra devices would be v6-only.

      I'm not following. OK I have a ISP whose given me a /64 and one v4 address. The edge router gets the v4 and passes it through (either virtually or physically) to the firewall which is performing NAT essentially converting to my internal v6 network. From here it gets passed to my home switch which can easily handle all my devices. If I want another subnet I just stack, because the master switch can know everything in the home.

      I agree that isn't routable if I want to use autoconfiguration. But if I don't I don't see the problem the routers can be configured manually for any size subnet.

    30. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by jbolden · · Score: 1

      That makes sense in terms of auto configuration and all subnets being /64. Thanks for the answer. I asked some follow ups here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3022763&cid=40865661

    31. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by jbolden · · Score: 1

      No I get that. The NAT (in the answer above) exists for the v4 network not the v6 network. There shouldn't be any NAT for the v6. What I'm not seeing is why a /64 doesn't work for anything at home except multiple routers + autoconfiguration.

    32. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by bbn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm not quite sure what happens for internal traffic if you have multiple routers on a single subnet. Maybe you'll end up sending packets to whichever one responds to NDP first?

      No this is well defined. Your computer will record all the NDP replies and put them in a list. It will then pick the first one in the list and stay with that one until it fails. If it fails it will move to the next entry in the list.

      IPv6 has active monitoring of peers. If 30 seconds passes without any inbound traffic from the selected peer it will send three probes. If the probes goes unanswered the peer has failed and your computer goes to the next entry in the list.

      This means having multiple routers "just works". With IPv4 having more than one router requires advanced setup of the routers and basic home routers simply can't do it. With IPv6 you just connect multiple routers and its done. Your computer will select one of them. If your current selected router fails, your computer will move on to the other within approximately 30 seconds. It even works if the two routers are from different ISPs.

    33. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by jbolden · · Score: 1

      I'm still not following the neighbor discovery issue. Can you send me a link or something. I get what neighbor discovery does but I'm not seeing the problem. I'm missing something in your argument.

    34. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by desertfool · · Score: 1

      I would love to configure a DNS server on my router by hostname. Is there a way to do that?

      --
      Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
    35. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by jbolden · · Score: 1

      I agree with the setup. I'm still not seeing where this doesn't work.

      Scenario A, home gets a /64 Lets assume I get 1122:3344:5566:7788::
      So now traffic comes in for any home device like 1122:3344:5566:7788::ABCD:EF01:2222:5678
      the ISP obviously knows where to route because of the first 64 bits. They don't have to route beyond that because the home router takes care of the devices.

      Scenario B I want subnets

      Then either
      ISP --> modem --> edge switch --> switch A, switch B
      switch A -> device A1, device A2
      switch B -> device B1, device B2

      all 4 devices and all switches register with one another just like normal stackable routers. The switches can also handle light home routing. Why would the ISP need to know anything? And of course I can have all sorts of restrictions on address spaces and VLANs just like I do today.

      I do see your point about the /56 or /48 making it possible for auto-configuration and routing but I don't see why this sort of setup isn't still fine.

    36. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by jbolden · · Score: 1

      sorry I know I'm being dense here

      No, it doesn't obviously know it. It needs to look it up in the routing table, and somebody needs to configure the routing table, and you need to configure the router to match the routing table.

      But the next downstream router from the ISP is the edge device say 1122:3344:5566:7788:0000:0000:0000:0001 and they would certainly know about that address they assigned it to the home user.

      However, you wouldn't be able give those devices IPv4 addresses because your TOS usually allows only one IPv4 address.

        With only one IPv4 address I'm going to have to use NAT for IPv4 traffic, that's a given. I'm trying to figure out what goes wrong for v6.

    37. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by jbolden · · Score: 1

      For home users there are devices which are modem, switches, routers, firewalls all combined. And its firewalls that do NAT for v4. And most switches can be a slow firewall, which is fine for some house with 15 devices.

      "1122:3344:5567::/48 via 1122:3344:5566:7788::1".

      I'm assuming the 64 so the rule would be
      1122:3344:5566:7788::/64 via 1122:3344:5566:7788::1
      1122:3344:5566:7789::/64 via. 1122:3344:5566:7789::1
      1122:3344:5566:778A::/64 via. 1122:3344:5566:778A::1

      etc... for every house.

      If they attach directly to the model then they are ::1.

      As for LAN side and WAN side that's more of a v4 concept I thought. We no longer have any distinction between internal and external IP for v6?

    38. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by obscuro · · Score: 1

      Yes, when you connect to other IPV6 enabled parties you're session is more secure and robust.

      --
      Every rule has more than one consequence.
    39. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by Dagger2 · · Score: 1

      I'll describe the v4 scenario first, and then map it into v6. I'll use a typical cable ISP setup as the example.

      When you plug your router into the modem and do DHCP, you'll get an IP on its upstream port, let's say 44.230.129.42/22. This means you have a single IP (44.230.127.42) taken out of the transfer net (44.230.128.0/22 -- i.e. 44.230.128.0 to 44.230.131.255). You share this transfer net with about a thousand other customers of the ISP. Your ISP only lets you use one IP from this range, because it doesn't have enough to let you use more.

      On your router's LAN-facing interface, you then assign 192.168.1.1/24 -- i.e. it uses the IP 192.168.1.1, and the subnet for your LAN is 192.168.1.0/24 (= 192.168.1.0 to 192.168.1.255). Your router routes between these two subnets. (Because 192.168.x.x is a private range, you have to do NAT to hide it from your ISP, or your return packets will never make it back to you.)

      The key point here is that there are (and must be) two separate network ranges involved -- 44.230.128.0/22 and 192.168.1.0/24. There has to be two separate network ranges because there's two separate networks involved. (It has nothing to do with the fact that the ISP will only let you use one IP from 44.230.128.0/22.)

      Now, moving into v6. v6 needs the same setup: one subnet between your ISP and your router, and one subnet for your local LAN. However, because there's no NAT, the subnet has to come from your ISP.

      So, for instance, the ISP might use 2001:558:db8:128::/64 for the transfer net, and give you 2601:b:42:0::/64 for your LAN. When you connect your router to your modem, the router would get an IP like 2001:558:db8:128::42 on the transfer net's /64. The local range, 2601:b:42:0::/64, would then be routed to 2001:558:db8:128::42 (i.e. the ISP router would be configured to say "Any packets destined to an IP in 2601:b:42:0::/64? Send them over to 2001:558:db8:128::42. He'll know what to do with them.") You'll put 2601:b:42:0::1/64 on the LAN-facing interface of your router, and there you go: we've replicated the v4 situation in v6, but now with no NAT.

      Now, you'll note that 2001:558:db8:128::/64 is really big, and it has enough IPs to number all of your devices. Heck, it has enough IPs to number every device on the internet. But it's in the wrong place for devices on your home network -- it's on the network between your router and your ISP. The devices on your home network can't use IPs from the transfer network, because they're not on the transfer network.

      The great-grandparent post was complaining that he didn't have the second subnet, the one from 2601:b::. His router had an IP on the transfer net, sure, and he might even be allowed to use lots of IPs from the transfer net... but all of those IPs were for use on the transfer net itself, not behind his router on his home LAN.

      OK I have a ISP whose given me a /64 and one v4 address

      When you say "given me a /64" here, you're thinking of the second subnet, the one from 2601:b::. You can put that on your LAN just fine, but the packets for that that subnet need to be transported to your router somehow, and that's done over the transfer net. (The caveat, which I mentioned in my last post, is that this only applies to uplink networks that are Ethernet-like. If your uplink is an actual PtP link, like the PPP which DSL usually uses, then a transfer net isn't necessary.)

      (This post duplicates much of the explanation from the sibling thread -- sorry about that, but I couldn't bear to throw it away after writing all this ;) )

    40. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by fm6 · · Score: 1

      I didn't say you never need IP addresses. I said that day-to-day users shouldn't need them. If you need to enter an IP address every time you access a node, the node doesn't have a DNS name. Why not?

    41. Re:IPV6 on AT&T Residential DSL by GoRK · · Score: 1

      AT&T is not issuing you an IPv6 on your residential DSL. I know this because they don't do it. Your computer is generating an IPv6 link local address. Depending on your router and a couple of other factors, you may (probably can) access IPv6 sites using a public 6to4 gateway.

      The only advantage to you is that you at least have the ability to access Internet resources that are only available via ipv6, but currently I would imagine that there are probably not any that are particularly relevant to you.

  2. Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Slashdot has no IPv6. Boo, hiss. Some nerd website you are.

    host www.slashdot.org
    www.slashdot.org has address 216.34.181.48

    1. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by Omnifarious · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. I've been disappointed in Slashdot over this for years. I've had a publicly routable IPv6 address since 2002 or so. :-)

      --
      Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
    2. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by artor3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You mean to tell me that an almost-entirely text site with no unicode support is slow to adopt new standards?!

    3. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by Teresita · · Score: 1

      When my Win98SE doesn't surf anymore because it can't handle the extra two bytes, maybe I'll care.

    4. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by Desler · · Score: 1

      And no Unicode support either.

    5. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by bertok · · Score: 2

      They're in good company, like: www.nortel.com, www.juniper.com, www.alcatel-lucent.com

      If some of the world's biggest network equipment manufacturers don't have IPv6 enabled, why would you expect a mere "news" site to be any better?

    6. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Nortel is bankrupt, Juniper is juniper.net (with IPv6 support), and ipv6.alcatel-lucent.com works, although not ipv6 for www.alcatel-lucent.com

    7. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by bbn · · Score: 3, Funny

      You just need to enter this into your /etc/hosts file:

      2001:778:0:ffff:64::216.34.181.48 slashdot.org

      Then slashdot.org is IPv6 enabled:

      baldur@neaira:~$ curl -v -s http://slashdot.org/ | head
      * About to connect() to slashdot.org port 80 (#0)
      * Trying 2001:778:0:ffff:64:0:d822:b530... connected
      > GET / HTTP/1.1
      > User-Agent: curl/7.22.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.22.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1 zlib/1.2.3.4 libidn/1.23 librtmp/2.3
      > Host: slashdot.org
      > Accept: */*
      >
      http://slashdot.org/slashdot.xrds
        Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
        Content-Length: 100410
        Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2012 02:52:51 GMT
        X-Varnish: 830176495 830176249
        Age: 15
        Connection: keep-alive ...

    8. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I agree. I've been disappointed in Slashdot over this for years. I've had a publicly routable IPv6 address since 2002 or so. :-)

      Lots of us have had IPv6 addresses since 2002::/16 :-)

    9. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      And no HTTPS support.

    10. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by allo · · Score: 1

      yeah, because you can only display the umlauts of one language.

    11. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by Omnifarious · · Score: 1

      I didn't know something like that existed. According to 'whois', it's NAT64 related (which I also didn't know existed), but I can't find any documentation for the 2001:778::/24 prefix with Google.

      --
      Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
    12. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by bbn · · Score: 2

      You will find it here: http://ipv6.lt/nat64_en.php

      It is not some official prefix. Anyone can run a NAT64 server. In this case it is some university in Lithuania that has a public accessible NAT64 server with the prefix 2001:778:0:ffff:64::/96.

      Using a public NAT64 is fine for testing but you should not use it for your production setup. However setting up your own is trivial.

      If the slashdot team thinks it is too hard or too much work or their hosting provider does not support IPv6, they could install NAT64 on a server somewhere and put the NAT64 address as a AAAA on slashdot.org. For now one server would definitely be adequate for the expected IPv6 traffic.

    13. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by tepples · · Score: 1

      Slashdot has HTTPS support for subscribers.

    14. Re:Yet Slashdot remains IPv6 Free by Omnifarious · · Score: 1

      Yeah. :-) Those are easy to get. When I lived in MN I had a very forward thinking ISP and had an IPv6 address from the experimental (I think 3ffe::/16) range that was tunneled to a server they ran.

      --
      Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
  3. Verizon 4G by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    A large portion of the 3 million are probably Verizon 4G devices.

    We had to upgrade one of the software packages we use solely because it logs IP addresses of web site visitors and it was crashing every time someone visited from a Verizon 4G smartphone.

    1. Re:Verizon 4G by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      AT&T U-verse and Comcast are the biggest IPv6 providers in the US.

  4. my virgin mobile phone has a v6 address by schwit1 · · Score: 1

    Virgin mobile is sprint. if phones are getting them then 3M would seem very low.

  5. While only ~1% of top websites are IPv6 capable by hackertarget · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I did this analysis of the Alexa Top 1 million before World IPv6 day.
    * 1.1% of sites in the top 1 million had AAAA records
    * Only 4 of the top 50 tech companies websites were IPv6 capable

    http://hackertarget.com/ipv6-in-top-sites-infographic/

    Post World IPv6 day version to be released soon.

    1. Re:While only ~1% of top websites are IPv6 capable by ledow · · Score: 1

      Yep. And this Slashdot and a host of other "for the geeks" websites don't support it or publish AAAA records on their main domains AT ALL.

      It doesn't take that long. My servers are all serving IPv6 content. I don't see anyone, not because nobody support IPv6, but because nobody is talking it, because no websites offer service over it. Hell, even Google play games with IPv6 where you have to be one of their "favoured" ISP's that has been certified as working properly.

      When even 10% of websites publish working AAAA records, then we can have some kind of switchover. Until then, my phone supports it, my laptop supports it (and that's running XP!), my devices support it, my networks support it, and even my own servers support it. But why use it if IPv4 still works absolutely fine and is much easier to find support for?

  6. Asia? by fm6 · · Score: 1

    I've never heard this "Asia myth" and I find it hard to understand why anybody thinks IPv6 is not for the Gweilo. Because lots of Asians are signing on and all the big address blocks are taken? First off, IP address depletion is a problem everywhere and it doesn't make sense for Western ISPs to wait until the last minute to switch over. Though I guess many Asian ISP startups have decided it makes sense to leapfrog over IPv4.

    The second point is that IPv6 isn't just about a bigger address space. That's certainly the most urgent, but IPv6 has many other features we need: better security, more efficient routing, more efficient use of mobile networks, etc.

    1. Re:Asia? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      I think asia myth is a bit of a misnomer. Rather, it's had faster and a larger adoption because in some places the infrastructure was less mature, using either more current, or only a previous generation which could either be upgraded, or shuffled around reducing overhead costs. Compared to here, which has a lot of overhead costs for some ISP's, meaning some are all bent out of shape waiting, and waiting some more to do the upgrades. Heck my ISP(Teksavvy) has IPv6 for DSL, but not for cable, because the carrier they lease their headend connections from(Rogers) is still lagging way behind on deployment.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:Asia? by Kergan · · Score: 1

      Simple... Half of the available IPv4 blocks are reserved for the US, over half of the world's population is in Asia, they're adopting cell phones at a rate of a new AT&T-sized carrier each year (chew on that...), and many of them are getting a smartphone as their first personal Internet device. Not to mention countries like Korea where everyone and his dog enjoys super fast broadband.

    3. Re:Asia? by desertfool · · Score: 2

      I am holding off putting v6 in the network I manage because there is a severe lack of feature parity with v4. Sure, some of the stuff runs in software, but until the routers and switches actually start running the stuff in hardware and have all the features that are available with v4, then maybe we'll put it in.

      Yes, we are putting in some workarounds to allow v6 only clients to get to our external resources. But even then, their ISP's are doing some 6to4 NAT to allow their customers to get to things like, I don't know, Slashdot.

      --
      Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
    4. Re:Asia? by fm6 · · Score: 2

      Now, that brings back painful memories. I used to work at Sun, and I kept suggesting that the IPMI servers that were embedded in all our servers support IPv6. "No, not until our customers start asking for it." And of course the customers aren't asking for it because it's not widely supported. A vicious cycle.

  7. Re:Not that good by narcc · · Score: 1

    While the population is over 300 million, not all of those people own computers. In fact, a good number of the more recent additions mostly just droll on the keyboard. :)

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics
  8. Interesting timing. by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 1

    Well that was interesting. I loaded this page and started reading. As I mused about how I probably can't get IPv6 with my AT&T DSL (modem doesn't seem to support it), the the doorbell rang. It was an AT&T rep pushing their fiber-optic package.

    Apparently I can't get Internet-only fiber service; I'd need to pay for phone or TV as well. :-(

  9. The real power of IPv6 by WML+MUNSON · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The real power of IPv6 is that it allows us to eliminate NAT. Because of the size of the IPv6 address pool, every mobile device can have a publicly routable address and thus function as a server.

    Facebook was originally developed and hosted in a college dorm room. With IPv6, the next "big thing" could be developed and hosted in someone's pocket.

    1. Re:The real power of IPv6 by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      Na all those home connections will still be blocking ports and disallowing server via TOS.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    2. Re:The real power of IPv6 by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      The real power of IPv6 is that it allows us to eliminate NAT.

      Which is a bad idea for home users.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    3. Re:The real power of IPv6 by kiddygrinder · · Score: 3, Insightful

      just wait till you get double natted and see how you feel

      --
      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
    4. Re:The real power of IPv6 by FireFury03 · · Score: 2

      I don't know for a fact, but I'm willing to bet that computer in the college dorm room used NAT.

      I'm willing to bet it didn't. Certainly when I was at university, everything had an unfirewalled global scope IP (this was not that long ago, but still before the days of evil on the internet that required everyone to have a firewall).

      Why get rid of NAT?

      Because its an almighty pain in the arse. It breaks all sorts of things, and if you haven't discovered that yet, you presumably have never managed a moderately complex network or done anything other than plain old web browsing.

      I use NAT for my home intranet. It's easy - two lines in my iptables config file. And everything works fine.

      No it doesn't - the things you use it for presumably work fine, but there's all sorts of technologies that really struggle to work through NAT (and for good reason, not just because of a flawed protocol design). Throwing NAT out is a good thing - it makes networks less complex and more reliable.

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
    5. Re:The real power of IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Home users will still have firewalls, only this time they will be real rather than imaginary and only requiring a UDP tunnel to bypass. Things like Skype create vast paths in a NAT based network that go back to various machines. NAT creates a perception of protection without any reality.

    6. Re:The real power of IPv6 by FireFury03 · · Score: 1

      The real power of IPv6 is that it allows us to eliminate NAT.

      Which is a bad idea for home users.

      Umm, why?

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
    7. Re:The real power of IPv6 by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      Home users will still have firewalls,.

      Home users don't have firewalls now, we can't assume that's going to change with IPv6.

      Worst offenders for disabling firewalls seem to be gamers. Then there people still running XP without any service packs, the Outlook Express types who know nothing but manage to just get by.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    8. Re:The real power of IPv6 by Alioth · · Score: 1

      If they are running XP without service packs, that's OK - they won't have IPv6 anyway.

      --
      Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
    9. Re:The real power of IPv6 by Rising+Ape · · Score: 1

      As an added bonus being on a separate device means it's not easy for malware to disable.

      UPnP means that it is. And without UPnP plenty of legitimate applications won't work without lots of manual configuring which your average person won't know how to do. Besides, if you've got malware then you're already stuffed, firewall or not.

  10. I am surprised by the amount of IPv6 traffic we se by dskoll · · Score: 2

    We (http://www.roaringpenguin.com/) turned on IPv6 for World IPv6 Day and I'm quite surprised by how much IPv6 traffic we see:

    awk '{print $1}' access-2012-08-01 | grep -c ':'
    1298

    awk '{print $1}' access-2012-08-01 | grep -v -c ':'
    16192

    That's about 8% of the hits on our site, which is about eight times what I expected.

  11. Re:I am surprised by the amount of IPv6 traffic by dskoll · · Score: 2

    Ah, it's not all roses. A lot of the IPv6 hits are things like this:

    2403:1400:1:2:8185:895b:7f27:4318 - - [01/Aug/2012:14:00:30 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 9763 "-" "OpenNMS PageSequenceMonitor (Service name: HTTP-v6)"

    2001:8a0:2106:ff:213:13:29:205 - - [31/Jul/2012:15:20:37 -0400] "HEAD / HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "curl/7.18.2 (i486-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.18.2 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.8 libssh2/0.18"

    The number of "real" IPv6 hits seems depressingly low.

  12. Nearly every phone by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nearly every phone is running IPv6 already. Do an 'adb shell ifconfig' or 'adb shell netstat' on an android phone and you'll see some IPv6 addresses pop up. (Actually I'm not sure about iPhone, I'll check it tomorrow when I get to work).

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Nearly every phone by swillden · · Score: 1

      What's the first piece of the address? Every IPv6-capable TCP stack has a link-local fe80 address, but that doesn't mean you can use it for anything. What's more interesting is if they have an address in a usable region of the IPv6 address space.

      Hmm, I just checked on my Galaxy Nexus (on Verizon -- 3G at the moment) and it has an address beginning with 2600:100e, which is in an assigned, globally-routable unicast address space. Cool! I notice that I can't ping it, though. Of course it's probably firewalled by default. nmap indicates no listening ports, but again that's probably because of a firewall.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    2. Re:Nearly every phone by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure what it's used for, I first noticed it using 'netstat,' which will let you know if it is currently being used for something.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  13. Blacklisted IPv4 addresses by sandytaru · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We recently had to move a client over to IPv6 faster than intended because we couldn't get a block of clean IPv4 static addresses from the ISP. That problem is only going to get worse over time.

    --
    Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
    1. Re:Blacklisted IPv4 addresses by FireFury03 · · Score: 1

      We recently had to move a client over to IPv6 faster than intended because we couldn't get a block of clean IPv4 static addresses from the ISP. That problem is only going to get worse over time.

      Meanwhile, I have the opposite problem with Eclipse internet. One of my customers needed a new internet connection (we're talking 100Mbps leased line, not a poxy ADSL), so we recommended they check the prospective ISPs supported IPv6. "Yes, we support it " says Eclipse, so they went with them. When it actually got installed, Eclipse sent through the IPv4 details, so I replied asking for the IPv6 details too... they replied saying they didn't offer IPv6 to customers yet. When pressed further, they said "Our network fully supports IPv6, but we don't offer the service to our customers" - what a complete waste of time. (Of course, the customer doesn't see it as important enough to make a big fuss about, but if it were me I would be fuming about having been missold a reasonably expensive connection).

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
  14. Re:Not that good by wisty · · Score: 1

    > a good number of the more recent additions mostly just droll on the keyboard

    How very drool!

  15. NAT is evil by hokeyru · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Widespread acceptance of NAT subverts the egalitarian premise of the internet, that all nodes are created equal, and promotes a two-tier system: providers and consumers.

    1. Re:NAT is evil by WML+MUNSON · · Score: 1

      Widespread acceptance of NAT subverts the egalitarian premise of the internet, that all nodes are created equal, and promotes a two-tier system: providers and consumers.

      Yes, exactly!

    2. Re:NAT is evil by OneAhead · · Score: 1

      That and NAT violates the very foundations of the IP protocol: one device, one IP address. By doing so, it breaks stuff, most notable preventing technically simple low-latency internet telephony and videoconferencing. We've had a short preview of that in some early instant-messaging clients before NAT came in and ruined everything. Without NAT, low-latency internet telephony and videoconferencing will once more become a trivial-to-implement commodity. Skype and the likes will have to diversify into other business or slowly wither and die. Maybe we'll even finally see the end of traditional wired telephony.

  16. The power of meaningless statistics by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    According to new data discussed this week at an IETF conference, there are more IPv6 users in the U.S than anywhere else in the world

    Ooh, aah. What does that mean, then? In case anyone hadn't noticed, the U.S. is pretty big among countries. From the more useful article:

    PNIC's global survey as of August 1st has IPv6 penetration in the U.S at 1.35 percent.

    Romania currently tops the APNIC list at 8.73 percent

    So yeah, go America. You're only doing 6.5x worse than Romania on this one.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  17. This can't be true by Yvanhoe · · Score: 2

    One of the biggest French DSL provider, Free Telecom, has IPv6 by default and there are more than 5 millions users here. I don't see how the article's premise could be true.

    --
    The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    1. Re:This can't be true by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

      The company I am talking about provides its own modem that is actually an ethernet and wifi router. I think that 90+% of their clients don't add another router to it.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
  18. Multicast DNS by tepples · · Score: 1

    I thought that was something that multicast DNS with DNS-based service discovery was supposed to solve.

  19. Re:As a Network Engineer by spauldo · · Score: 1

    You don't give names to router interfaces, uplink ports, ect.

    Just curious, but why not? If you've got your own DNS system, it shouldn't be difficult to do. Adding router3-ring.example.com and router3-lan.example.com would make it easier to parse tcpdump output (or whatever you use) and would probably only take a couple hours for a medium-sized installation.

    --
    Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.