DistroWatch Finally Adds Support For IPv6 (distrowatch.com)

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DistroWatch Finally Adds Support For IPv6 (distrowatch.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday June 5, 2016 @07:31AM from the following-protocol dept.

We've frequently linked to DistroWatch for their coverage of Linux package and release announcements. Now an anonymous reader writes: The DistroWatch website introduced IPv6 support on Friday and the new protocol has been getting a lot of attention. "Over 8% of our traffic this weekend came from IPv6 addresses," commented DistroWatch contributor Jesse Smith. "It was a pleasant surprise, we were not expecting that many people would be using IPv6 yet."

When asked why DistroWatch enabled IPv6 access to their server at this time, Smith answered: "Partly it was an experiment to see how much interest there was in IPv6. Partly it was because it is a little embarrassing (in 2016) to have a technology focused website that is not making use of IPv6."

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IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 07:46 · Score: 0

Everybody should be using it, but nobody does. This has been the steady state for what, 20 years? We probably should re-do the thing and skip to IPv9 with a less grandiose than this second system but a nice and functional third. Perhaps with a different crew this time. That'd be nice.
1. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by guruevi · 2016-06-05 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  Plenty of people are using IPv6. It's transparent to most so it requires literally no effort to enable it. Anyone using Apple products on their internal network for the last decade has used IPv6 (Bonjour) and in recent past almost all European and Asian providers and even large American ones (TWC) run dual stacks with some small pockets in Asia and some mobile networks having pure IPv6 (due to v4 exhaustion) with translation in place.
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
2. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Tim+the+Gecko · 2016-06-05 08:12 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Plenty of people are using IPv6
  Especially at the weekend. Last weekend more than 11% of Google users were using IPv6. It's higher at the weekends because IPv6 is coming much faster to residential broadband and mobile, with corporate networks migrating more slowly.
3. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:14 · Score: 0
  
  Let's just ignore the fact that pretty much all mobile providers are using IPv6 now. Pretty much all of Google's services, facebook and others are using it. I know at least Comcast has rolled out dual stack IPv6 for all of their customers. Of course older customer gateway devices etc might not support it, but that is becoming less and less of an issue.
  You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
4. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:21 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I am with you except for the part where you say it "requires literally no effort to enable it". Where I live getting an IPv6 address requires calling up the ISP and requesting specifically an IPv6 address, which is available on the more expensive plans. Many VPS/dedicated hosts require the user to purchase IPv6 addresses and default to IPv4 only.
  Depending on how services were configured (like web servers, FTP, etc) sometimes extra tweaks are required on the server side. That is assuming the daemon you are running even supports IPv6.
  Then the firewall way need to have its rules updated in same cases to allow/block IPv6 traffic.
  Depending on which domain registrar/nameserver provider you use, some extra steps may be required to enable IPv6.
  It is surprisingly how many steps can be required to get services to support IPv6. There is no one big hurdle, but a lot of little ones. It's no wonder many companies/websites still don't support IPv6.
5. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by thegarbz · 2016-06-05 08:24 · Score: 1
  
  Classic mistake. You declared it dead and propose to superseed it with something that doesn't fundamentally address the issue of IPv6's low adoption.
  As for being dead sign up for internet in the Netherlands and you'll be greeted with a fully public IPv6 address, and carrier grade NATing on your shared IPv4 address. We've only just run out of IPv4 addresses. It takes a conundrum for people to upgrade infrastructure. No one wants to maintain money on the status quo, call it human nature.
6. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:25 · Score: 0
  
  http://bill.herrin.us/network/ipxl.html
7. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:30 · Score: 0
  
  Every WAN facing interface should use IPv6, and almost every WAN facing interface could use IPv6. But IPv4 is so straight forward to understand for a lot of people including sysadmins, it's going to take a long time before it disappears from homes and small to medium businesses.
8. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Bert64 · 2016-06-05 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  In the UK, none of the mobile providers support ipv6, neither do most of the big ISPs... There are a few smaller niche isps that do, and even then you have to explicitly request it.
  
  --
  http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
9. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:45 · Score: 0
  
  There are problems with IPv6 that are not going to go away, because they're the result of intentional design choices. One big problem is that IPv6 is much easier to track than IPv4. The saner hierarchical routing of IPv6 makes this almost impossible to avoid, unless you use an overlay network like TOR. The rather unfortunate decision to deprecate NAT has led to protocols designed with the "fundamentalist" view that a full peer to peer should be available. This exposes the local part of the IPv6 addresses to the world. The local part, due to another shortsighted decision, is globally unique and static, unless you use "privacy extensions" which come with their own set of problems (overflowing ARP tables, for example).
10. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:46 · Score: 0
  
  Everybody should be using it, but nobody does. This has been the steady state for what, 20 years?
  
  Have you checked your cell phone's IP address lately?
11. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by gcerullo · 2016-06-05 08:59 · Score: 0
  
  While I agrees with most of what you wrote Bonjour is Apple's implementation of zero-configuration networking (zeroconf) and it has nothing to do with IPv6.
12. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by guruevi · 2016-06-05 09:03 · Score: 2
  
  But most end users won't care about any of that. It either works or it doesn't. I had IPv6 at home from TWC for several weeks before I finally realized my router's IPv6 address was actually routable (I had enabled IPv6 years ago, it self-assigned one for all that time)
  Yes, on the business side, in the US at least, IPv6 may require some extra steps but unless you're a service provider or a network admin, you don't need to worry about it. Cheap VPS will probably go in the direction of dual stack or even IPv6-only as the v4 pool actually gets exhausted, once that starts happening you'll see more of a push for everyone to implement v6.
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
13. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by gcerullo · 2016-06-05 09:07 · Score: 0
  
  You should post this one more time. Maybe the third-time's-the-charm. According to the statistics available here, https://www.google.ca/intl/en/... IPv6 is well on it's way.
14. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by Strykar · 2016-06-05 09:13 · Score: 2
  
  Do share your deep insights at http://ipv6excuses.com/
15. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 09:14 · Score: 0
  
  Everybody should be using it, but nobody does. This has been the steady state for what, 20 years?
  Have you checked your cell phone's IP address lately?
  Not the same person, but I'll bite:
  (checks...) 10.129.64.229, no IPv6...
  so, what's you point caller?
16. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 09:25 · Score: 0
  
  Yes I just checked my Android mobile
  It shows me an IPv6 and IPv4 IP address.
  Go to Settings->About->Status-> IP Addresses
17. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 09:35 · Score: 0
  
  If you don't like the fact you don't *need* NAT, why don't you instead just use NAT?
  Similarly if you don't like the fact you *can* have a static IP, why don't you instead use dynamic IPs and/or dhcp6?
  Literally nothing is stopping you. Everything you want still works. It's just sorta dumb in most all cases.
18. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 09:40 · Score: 0
  
  Yet another person:
  Settings->About->Status->IP Address
  10.44.241.154
  No IPv6 address
  On the cable modem connection, I could get an IPv6 address if I wanted to, but then I'd have to give up the public IPv4 address and replace it with a CGNATed IPv4 connection. No thanks.
19. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by LVSlushdat · 2016-06-05 09:52 · Score: 1
  
  Many VPS/dedicated hosts require the user to purchase IPv6 addresses and default to IPv4 only.
  And then on the other hand, there is at least *one* VPS vendor who defaults to ipv6 and charges a LOT more for an ipv4 address.
  I have a 256mb Linux vps hosted in Holland that provides one ipv6 address at $3.99US/YEAR... If you need/want an ipv4 address, the
  vps price goes up to $27US/Year.. This is kind of how I'd expect things to work based on the fact that v4 addresses are getting scarce...
  I use the vps simply as a "playground" and if you're curious, the vps vendor is vds6.net, and they offer hosts in Romania and Holland.
  
  --
  THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
20. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by LVSlushdat · 2016-06-05 09:57 · Score: 2
  
  You can include Cox Communications on the majority of their areas. I'd been using a Hurricane Electric Tunnelbroker 6to4 tunnel for ipv6 support, but went with the native dual-stack that Cox provides..
  
  --
  THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
21. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by LVSlushdat · 2016-06-05 09:59 · Score: 1
  
  I have a vps hosted in Holland, $3.99US/Year and it comes with one ipv6 address and zero ipv4 ones.. If you want/need a v4 address, the vps now costs $27US/Year..
  
  --
  THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
22. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 10:05 · Score: 0
  
  I touched on that argument already, but I'll repeat it for you: The prospect that IPv6 would dispose of the need for NAT, and the very public debate whether there should at all be provisions for NAT in the IPv6 standardization, have led to the expectation that protocols will be able to take advantage of end-to-end connections again. That situation existed before NAT came into ubiquitous use with the advent of the home router, and the protocols from that era had no qualms about sending IP addresses and port numbers in the protocol payload. The classic example is FTP.
  Some protocols which have been designed "after IPv6" have made the same mistakes, and certainly anyone who is going to use NAT with IPv6 will be made fun of on the bug trackers for complaints about protocol design decisions which collide with NAT. Case in point: You just called it a dumb idea. With IPv4, NAT was normal. With IPv6, it will be unexpected and therefore unsupported. But that means most users will use protocols which transmit their IPv6 address(es), including the local part, inside the protocol payload. We will also see less flexibility regarding port numbers, because it's not needed anymore.
23. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Midnight+Thunder · 2016-06-05 10:13 · Score: 2
  
  Compact disks took 20 years from invention to mass market. In that light IPv6 isn't doing too badly. To say it has failed is narrow minded and doesn't consider that like a snowball it is slow to start and like a snowball if you don't get on board you'll just be hurting yourself once it really gets moving.
  
  --
  Jumpstart the tartan drive.
24. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Midnight+Thunder · 2016-06-05 10:15 · Score: 1
  
  Everybody should be using it, but nobody does. This has been the steady state for what, 20 years? We probably should re-do the thing and skip to IPv9 witha less grandiose than this second system but a nice and functional third. Perhaps with a different crew this time. That'd be nice.
  What non-breaking technological solutions are you proposing?
  
  --
  Jumpstart the tartan drive.
25. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by gcerullo · 2016-06-05 10:27 · Score: 0
  
  Except for the fact that there is no NAT with IPv6 (thank the gods) and DHCPv6 is only used for prefix assignment. End nodes derive there own EUI-64 address from the MAC address and random temporary "privacy addresses" that are used for public connections.
26. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Tough+Love · 2016-06-05 10:31 · Score: 2
  
  According to the statistics available here, https://www.google.ca/intl/en/... IPv6 is well on it's way.
  Eleven percent adoption hardly constitutes "well on its way", it's more like "finally getting some traction". In the sense of resource wastage and slow adoption, there is no question at this point that IPv6 is one of the great failures of technology history. While IPv6 did not die, what it has failed to do is replace IPv4, and at this point, it quite possibly never will. If IPv6 had been well designed it would be handling 90% of internet traffic long ago and IPv4 would be well on its way to being as dead as DOS.
  I would not discount the possibility of a properly backward compatible variant of IPv4 emerging, to address the very real needs of popular web servers that have no economically viable choice other than maintaining compatibility with IPv4 far into the future.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
27. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by gcerullo · 2016-06-05 10:36 · Score: 1
  
  I read what you write and almost everything the opposite is true.
  "With IPv4, NAT was normal." No, NAT was a kludge designed to deal with the fact that we were quickly running out of IPv4 addresses. If it wasn't for NAT we would have run out of IPv4 addresses more than a decade ago.
  "But that means most users will use protocols which transmit their IPv6 address(es), including the local part, inside the protocol payload." All modern IPv6 implementations use temporary "privacy addresses." The local part is never exposed unless the enduser configures their systems to explicitly expose it.
  "We will also see less flexibility regarding port numbers, because it's not needed anymore." What does that even mean?
28. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 10:45 · Score: 0
  
  I can't believe you used FTP as an example. Passive vs active ftp was indeed an option but it's not as if you can use passive on both sides of the connection, and you have to choose wither to use passive or active. It was much more of a mess than it should have been.
29. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 10:47 · Score: 0
  
  That IP means you have carrier level NAT, so you have no public ip at all. Probably not an issue given the nature of cell phones. It's not as if they want you using torrent on your cell phone network... but people do just that.
30. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Rising+Ape · 2016-06-05 10:52 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  BT and Sky are in the process of introducing IPv6. Google are now showing over 11% UK connections via IPv6, compared to something like 2% at the start of the year.
31. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 10:52 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Not just Apple - every Windows version since Vista has had IPv6 as its native IP: Windows 7 home networking uses IPv6, rather than IPv4.
32. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 10:56 · Score: 0
  
  Jesus Christ, you fucking fundamentalists never learn, do you. NAT was normal. Is normal, actually, more than ever, with CGNAT becoming widespread for new customers. Normal is not a quality predicate.
  Privacy extensions come with their own set of problems. I mentioned that before, but you don't want to hear it, so you ignore it. IPv6 fundamentalist.
  Port flexibility was added to protocols in recent years due to the IPv4 address shortage. For example, XMPP can use DNS SRV records, and this allows server operators to bind servers to other than the canonical ports and to run multiple servers on the same IP address, without burdening the user with port numbers in addresses. But this has to be built into the protocol, because the client has to look for the SRV records or they're not of any use. With the address shortage "gone", protocols will again omit this flexibility. IPv6 has all sorts of bad influences on protocol design. That's just one example.
33. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 11:01 · Score: 0
  
  I consider FTP the canonical example of bad protocol design enabled by end-to-end network addressability. If you can name a worse offender, let's hear it.
34. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 11:10 · Score: 0
  
  This is clearly trolling, of course. We'll use IPv9 to have addresses for the entire Solar System, I imagine... (*joke*)
  It's not that IPv6 is to blame, but everyone made workarounds to keep IPv4 working -- mainly, I suppose, to keep using old IPv4 equipment.
  This is akin to the 32-bit/64-bit situation:
  - there's much less incentive to use 64 over 32 (other than stimulate sales of new equipment) and
  - if 64-bit is better, 128- might be even better, so why don't we go directly for 128-bits? (probably to have more sales, too).
  Kinda off-topic, but since it's about Distrowatch, I hope they gather some suggestions from their users, because there have been some problems and I can imagine some good extensions. This is not to blame them of anything, since they seem to be a very small team.
  On the contrary, their work has been so good, one gets the incentive to suggest improvements:
  - there has to be a clean up of distro data, as well as faster correction procedures (user contributed?) -- some distributions are listed as having 386/486 versions, but on their pages they state they're 686 only (sometimes x86_64 only);
  - despite labels, distros rarely are really 386-compatible; Debian Wheezy is 486-compatible, but Jessie is 586 and up-only (AFAIK, I may be wrong, of course); data should be about reality not package labels (I know this very hard);
  - the 586/686 distinction is less useful now that distributions require a Pentium 4 or above; maybe we should come up with a better classification;
  - search could be "enriched" with language filters;
  - search could be better accomplished with three-state selection boxes e.g. [ ] don't care, [+] wanted and [-] not wanted.
  - package selection could be allow for more than one selection;
  - alas, it would be nice to be able to do composed queries.
  I invite others to post their ideas as a reply to this post, so that this thread become useful for the Distrowatch guys, whom I thank for the many, many times they made my life easier.
35. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Dagger2 · 2016-06-05 11:30 · Score: 1
  
  It's really difficult to be backwards compatible with v4 though, at least in the way you're probably envisioning. There's only 32 bits available in the v4 header for the src/dest address, and the pidgeonhole principle isn't exactly something you can just ignore. How would a v4 computer specify which address to send a packet to if there isn't enough space in the header field to do it?
  There's a reason you can't send packets directly between v4 and v6 endpoints, and it's not because v6 is badly designed. It's because you can't do it.
36. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by gcerullo · 2016-06-05 11:38 · Score: 0
  
  Sorry, dude but what you call "flexibility" is nothing but kludges to work around the short-comings of NAT. You saying "NAT is normal" is like saying cancer is normal. It may be a part of current networking but like cancer no sane person wants to deal with it.
37. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 11:42 · Score: 0
  
  TWC? I had them 2 years ago when I lived in Charlotte, and they were nowhere near implementing it. Same with Charter in Atlanta. Wonder what it'll be with Verizon Communications (not Wireless, I know that they support IPv6) when I move
38. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by guruevi · 2016-06-05 11:47 · Score: 2
  
  Apple's Bonjour stack defaults to using the IPv6. Although it is possible that it resolves to v4 only, all printers and other devices so far have resolved to v6
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
39. Re: IPv6 is a failed technology by Dagger2 · 2016-06-05 11:52 · Score: 1
  
  Privacy addresses don't overflow your ARP tables. And in any case, you don't need privacy addresses to keep your MAC out of your address; RFC 7217 is a thing and Windows 7+ use it (or something very similar) by default out of the box, or you can use DHCPv6 or even just manually pick an address.
  And I can't seriously believe that you're arguing that we want an address shortage. We don't.
  (In a similar vein, we don't want to pay tons of money to deal with NAT forever, which is why people are telling you that using NAT on v6 is dumb: because it'll make networks more complicated, and thus more expensive, more or less forever.)
40. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by gcerullo · 2016-06-05 12:03 · Score: 0
  
  I would not discount the possibility of a properly backward compatible variant of IPv4 emerging, to address the very real needs of popular web servers that have no economically viable choice other than maintaining compatibility with IPv4 far into the future.
  There is no possibility for a "properly backward compatible variant of IPv4." Any change to the protocol in which the goal is to increase the address space, which is the mean impetus for all of this, required a re-write which means no backward compatibility.
  Vint Cerf, the "father of the Internet," had this to say about the decision to go with a 32-bit address space for IPv4. "It's enough to do an experiment," he said. "The problem is the experiment never ended."
  http://www.networkworld.com/ar...
  I really don't understand this irrational fear of IPv6. It's just a frigg'n protocol. For most people they will plug in their network gear and it will just work. Just like it always has...just as my current dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 network currently does. I did't have to do anything when my ISP enabled native IPv6. It just started working.
41. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Tough+Love · 2016-06-05 12:34 · Score: 1
  
  Dual stack is already backwards compatible with v4 in some awkward way, so it's an existence proof. The object of the exercise would be to do it less awkwardly, in a single protocol. Clearly, an extended protocol, say, v4x, must tuck away some more address bits in the already crowded header. To reliably identify extended addresses on v4x aware hosts and to make them fail on v4x unaware host, it would be enough to change the protocol number. (There happens to be a good candidate available for historical reasons.) Extended address hosts would not be able to connect directly to non-extended address hosts, but we already have a way of dealing with that: NAT. Over time, extended address hosts could drop the NAT. Not straightforward, but doable if the will is there. Naturally, any proposal remotely like that is going to get shouted down by the IPv6 mafia without any technical analysis at all, but who knows what might happen if in another year or two IPv6 still looks like it's not going to break the 50% barrier in the next decade. One thing IPv6 did succeed at: all the kernel and library plumbing now supports at least 128 bit addresses, which would considerably ease the pain of trying again with something that looks and acts a lot more like IPv4, the protocol that will not die.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
42. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Tough+Love · 2016-06-05 12:41 · Score: 1
  
  There is no possibility for a "properly backward compatible variant of IPv4." Any change to the protocol in which the goal is to increase the address space, which is the mean impetus for all of this, required a re-write which means no backward compatibility.
  You seem to be unclear on the definition of backward compatibility. This means that the old protocol is a subset of the new one. There are countless examples where protocol backward compatibility has been achieved in a useful way. Unfortunately, IPv6 is not one of them.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
43. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Dagger2 · 2016-06-05 13:06 · Score: 1
  
  Funnily enough, what you've described there is basically IPv6. If you think that NAT is the way to go about connecting to legacy v4-only hosts, then what's wrong with NAT64 in IPv6, which does exactly that?
44. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Tough+Love · 2016-06-05 13:35 · Score: 1
  
  Funnily enough, what you've described there is basically IPv6.
  In some wildly theoretical sense, it is something like IPv6, but then it isn't at all. Do you even know what an IPv6 header looks like?
  
  If you think that NAT is the way to go about connecting to legacy v4-only hosts, then what's wrong with NAT64 in IPv6, which does exactly that?
  Nothing wrong with the technique, but there's something wrong with IPv6, namely not the slightest attempt to retain backward compatibility with IPv4 at the protocol level.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
45. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Dagger2 · 2016-06-05 14:18 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah? It's not fundamentally any different to a v4 header. It's got a new protocol number and more of it is dedicated to storing addresses. Yes, it's 2x the size, but that's because the src+dst addresses are already 32 bytes to v4's 20 bytes total.
  Presumably you were suggesting to do the same thing, because there's no way to fit a pair of 128-bit addresses into the v4 header without making it bigger.
  
  Nothing wrong with the technique, but there's something wrong with IPv6, namely not the slightest attempt to retain backward compatibility with IPv4 at the protocol level.
  Well, there's that version number in the header, which allows the two to coexist. But more to the point: how is your v4x any different to this? You're suggesting doing exactly the same things v6 did.
  (Note that I'm not shouting you down here; I'm pointing out that you're proposing essentially the thing that we already did.)
46. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by davester666 · 2016-06-05 15:40 · Score: 2
  
  Not from Canada. All the big ISPs are in the "we are thinking about considering starting to propose a meeting to plan a test rollout".
  They think they made progress on IPv6 day by making their home page [and only that page] accessible via IPv6. And, of course, virtually nobody in Canada could access it via IPv6.
  
  --
  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
47. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Yaztromo · 2016-06-05 16:04 · Score: 2
  
  You seem to be unclear on the definition of backward compatibility. This means that the old protocol is a subset of the new one. There are countless examples where protocol backward compatibility has been achieved in a useful way. Unfortunately, IPv6 is not one of them.
  What everyone like you who thinks you can create a backwards compatible IPvX always forgets is when it comes to addressing, it's about more than addressing bits, but routability.
  I have yet to see a single IPv4 successor proposal that features backwards compatibility that is actually routable. One of the major problems on the Internet today is the routing system is a complete mess. And every "backward compatible" IPv4 successor people like you have proposed only make the situation 100 times worse .
  IPv6 makes routing significantly easier. Routing an IPv6 packet requires less processing overhead, permitting routers to be much more efficient.
  Please leave protocol design to the experts.
  Yaz
48. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Tough+Love · 2016-06-05 16:47 · Score: 1
  
  Since you consider yourself an expert, would you care to explain why you think that IPv6 is especially routable? (Hint: don't bother parroting the lame handwaving from wikipedia)
  Second thing is, have you seen any IPv4 successor proposals? Link please.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
49. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Tough+Love · 2016-06-05 17:15 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah? It's not fundamentally any different to a v4 header. It's got a new protocol number and more of it is dedicated to storing addresses. Yes, it's 2x the size, but that's because the src+dst addresses are already 32 bytes to v4's 20 bytes total.
  Presumably you were suggesting to do the same thing, because there's no way to fit a pair of 128-bit addresses into the v4 header without making it bigger.
  (Ab)using the version field (not the protocol field!) is not the only way to extend IPv4, probably not even a good way, however that is a red herring. The point is, there is no such thing as an IPv6 packet that looks like IPv4, even when the source and destination addresses permit it. That is the big gaping flaw of IPv6 that lead to the adoption fiasco.
  
  Nothing wrong with the technique, but there's something wrong with IPv6, namely not the slightest attempt to retain backward compatibility with IPv4 at the protocol level.
  Well, there's that version number in the header, which allows the two to coexist.
  Not only as separate protocols, but separate infrastructures. IPv6 has its own home rolled approach to multicast for example, which nobody uses as opposed to IPv4 multicast which is heavily used (and will not be going away any time soon because it runs the world's financial systems). IPv6 has its own NIH address syntax. Everything that could possibly be made different about IPv6 was made different. Second system syndrome in its most ugly form.
  
  But more to the point: how is your v4x any different to this? You're suggesting doing exactly the same things v6 did.
  (Note that I'm not shouting you down here; I'm pointing out that you're proposing essentially the thing that we already did.)
  I'm not making a proposal. I am saying that the time is right to make a proposal. I didn't know that there's actually a proposal on the table, here. I will be taking some time to study it, I suggest you do too. It seems I'm far from the only person who thinks that IPv6 is still a disaster and there is room to attack the problem from another direction.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
50. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 17:37 · Score: 0
  
  Please leave protocol design to the experts.
  Yaz
  We did, we got IPv6...
  Or, more to the point, we didn't get it...
  A previous place of employ, 16 years ago we were talking about it, today they're still totally IPv4
  Current place of employ, IPv4..
  My ISP, no published current plans..(for the record, I go so tired of waiting, I used a 'tunnel broker' service...)
  so, way to go, hairdressers fire development subcommittee..
51. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 18:32 · Score: 0
  
  AFAIK I posted it just once, after editing once or twice, but /. disagreed somehow.
  Anyway, I don't think 10% adoption after twenty years is "well on it is way", and that was the point: It should have seen much more adoption much earlier on. Instead of sitting back and waiting, there had to have been some head-scratching and soul-searching as to why the adoption failed so spectacularly. Or, you know, admit that the rush job really wasn't necessary and that there's still time to fix the more obvious flaws in the design. Even ten years ago there would have been plenty time to change almost everything with almost zero impact.
  Of course, this is 20/20 hind-sight, but I was around then, though only peripherally, and it was fairly obvious to me that the thing stank, even if I didn't fully understand why, and it still stinks. It was also well-known that uptake was lagging, but that only led to expressions of mild annoyance and exasperation, nothing more substantive. Nothing has improved in the meantime. Because this turd got treated like an idol, to be venerated, not improved. That is perhaps the root cause.
52. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 18:56 · Score: 0
  
  This is clearly trolling, of course.
  If that's required to get those neurons firing.
  
  We'll use IPv9 to have addresses for the entire Solar System, I imagine... (*joke*)
  Probably not, actually. The 128 bits of address space was supposed to suffice for that; IPv9 would sooner have a less unwieldy address space.
  
  It's not that IPv6 is to blame, but everyone made workarounds to keep IPv4 working -- mainly, I suppose, to keep using old IPv4 equipment.
  That's convenient, but tortuous logic.
  "Nobody wants the new thing, but it's not its fault! It's because everyone wants to keep the old thing!"
  Yeah, and why would that be? Especially why would anyone, much less everyone, want to keep the old thing while it is falling apart and clearly needs replacement, with the new thing ready-and-waiting to take over? Because the new thing is a turd. Which is very much its fault.
  Sure there's the problem of old kit, but perhaps a less unwieldy new thing would have been easier to graft onto old kit with a s/w update, thereby also increasing the incentive to put new thing support in new hardware, which in turn leads to swifter uptake. IOW, implementing and supporting IPv6 was too expensive for its return, to the point that bending over backwards and breaking IPv4 some more seemed more cost effective. In fact, with IPv4 address space running out and more pressing need for IPv6 than ever... we're getting "CGNAT" instead. That's a pretty red flag that something's rotten in the state of Denmark.
  This is what we call a "failed technology".
  
  This is akin to the 32-bit/64-bit situation:
  - there's much less incentive to use 64 over 32 (other than stimulate sales of new equipment) and
  Uh. You could have 64bit kit long before it went mainstream through AMD(!), with intel having to play catch up and admit their fancy-smancy itanic was dead as a doornail. And your use of 64bit hardware didn't depend on everyone else (or at least your ISP) also supporting you in this.
  Even so in the windows world it was a painful transition, shamefully so if you look at, oh, apple doing a more complicated and involved thing with less pain for the users... twice. Should I rub some more salt and mention AS/400? Nah, you can look that one up yourself.
  
  - if 64-bit is better, 128- might be even better, so why don't we go directly for 128-bits? (probably to have more sales, too).
  This is what happened with IPv6 and we know now that it held IPv6 back for a goodly long while. It didn't quite get "more sales", no.
53. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Yaztromo · 2016-06-05 19:40 · Score: 4, Informative
  Since you consider yourself an expert, would you care to explain why you think that IPv6 is especially routable?
  Sure. There are a lot of things that will make IPv6 easier to route:
  
  - Simplified packet processing: there are a variety of features in the IPv6 packet header that simplifies processing by routers. Included here are:
  
  - Fixed header size: unlike IPv4, IPv6 has a fixed packet size of 40 octets, whereas IPv4 packets can vary between 20 and 60 octets,
  - Lack of header checksum: IPv6 has no header checksum (thus removing the need to either compute or verify the checksum). This is actually pretty big, as each router hop needs to recompute the checksum as the TTL value is decremented in order to remain valid,
  - TTL replaced by Hop Limit: this one is a bit complex. In IPv4, Time-to-Live is specified in the header as the total number of seconds the packet should be routed before it is dropped. This is tricky to compute, so even in IPv4 many nodes simply decrement it by one regardless of how long it has taken to process. In IPv6, this is changed to be a straight hop count; the value in the header basically specifies how many times a packet can hit a router before it is dropped.
  - Gets rid of unused fields: IPv6 gets rid of a lot of header fields present in IPv4, such as the IHL, DSCP, ECN, and everything related to fragmentation.
  - Lack of fragmentation: IPv6 packets can't be fragmented. Routers don't have to fragment or defragment packets. This can also mean fewer overall packets, and also means the router doesn't have to parse or generate a pile of fragmentation fields and information from the packets being sent/received.
  - Traffic Class header field: IPv6 has a field that can be used to differentiate services, and can be used for QoS, allowing the router to more easily prioritize and arrange traffic.
  - Flow labelling: IPv6 has a header field for flow labelling, that can be used to do things such as ensure stable routes for packets, such that packets aren't received out-of-order at a destination. This is intended to make streaming data (such as video) more stable, and can replace custom heuristic algorithms at the router layer with something much simpler,
  - Jumbogram support: IPv6 packets can be up to (2**32)-1 octets in size (1 byte less than 4GB). While not practical today on the public internet, bigger packets can mean fewer (albeit bigger) packets that need routing,
  - CIDR and smarter address allocation: CIDR was invented for IPv4 of course, however IPv4 didn't use CIDR until ten years after Flag Day. Pre-CIDR address allocations were ad-hoc; address blocks were classful (A, B, C). Many of these classful allocations still exist, however because of they way they were assigned, it was (and is) difficult to aggregate these routes. IPv6 came about long after these lessons were learned the hard way, and thus the IANA is being much smarter about what addresses are allocated where in order to better aggregate routes. Thus, a given /32 will be doled out only to a single RIR, who can break it up into smaller units to LIR's, to eventually be broken into /48, /64, and /56's for destination routers. IPv4 also works this way, but with the much bigger address space (and the lack of legacy pre-CIDR allocations), and with smarter allocation policies in place, route aggregation will make the possible mess that is the current state of the IPv4 routing tables significantly saner. From a processing perspective, this means that next hop lookups should be significantly quicker and easier. IPv4 currently has over 610000 prefixes; way more than should be needed. This is partly due to, as addresses have run out, large CIDR blocks being broken up into smaller blocks
54. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by rl117 · 2016-06-05 19:46 · Score: 2
  
  https://www.google.com/intl/en...
  The growth curve is clearly showing exponential growth here, and we're now well into the rapid adoption phase. Yes, the absolute value is 11% (now 12). but it will continue to grow with increasing speed. It *is* coming. It took a while, but it's a juggernaught which can't be stopped now. We'll all be using it in a couple of years at this rate. All the major ISPs have committed to do this, and network effects will drag the rest along in time.
  I've been on native v6 for three years now.
55. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by rl117 · 2016-06-05 19:49 · Score: 1
  
  You can with NAT64/DNS64. This is used where a purely IPv6 network needs to access the old IPv4 network. My ISP even offers it as a service to those wanting to go v6 only (I haven't tried it though, I'm happy dual stacked for now).
56. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by gmack · 2016-06-05 22:29 · Score: 1
  
  Canada is at 8.9%. I know Roger's made the switch, I just don't know when exactly since they didn't announce it. I only noticed when I was showing one friend another one's website and it was erroring out, Turns out the issue was that the website had ipv6 configured in DNS but no ipv6 VHOPST entry. It was a weird one and my friend had no idea he even had Ipv6 enabled. I think Telus has it enabled on landline infrastructure as well.
57. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Dog-Cow · 2016-06-05 23:35 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah, because everyone knows tech doesn't change hardly at all in 2 years.
58. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Bengie · 2016-06-06 00:23 · Score: 1
  
  IPv6 Internet traffic has been doubling since 2000. The problem is IPv4 traffic has also been about doubling. Most of IPv6's increase has been canceled out by IPv4's increase. From 2014-2015 it went from ~2.5%-5%, and 2015-2016 5%-10%. It's having exponential growth as a percentage. Assuming it can sustain its current rate of growth, we'll have about 100% IPv6 in 3 more years. I doubt this will happen, but it's growing quickly.
59. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by gmack · 2016-06-06 00:57 · Score: 1
  
  VHOST even.. man I can't type when I wake up in the morning.
60. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-06 01:07 · Score: 0
  
  Can you please post a link to this vendor? Would like to check them out.
61. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by petermgreen · 2016-06-06 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  Everybody should be using it, but nobody does.
  Not nobody but certainly a lot less than is desirable.
  
  This has been the steady state for what, 20 years?
  Unfortunately people don't do stuff until there is real pressure to do so. As the IPv4 crunch has started to bite harder providers have started to take IPv6 more seriously. Theres still a long way to go but there has been a real increase in adoption over the past few years. https://www.google.com/intl/en...
  
  We probably should re-do the thing and skip to IPv9 with a less grandiose than this second system but a nice and functional third.
  
  Yes the IPv6 proponents had some grandiose but half-baked ideas. To name a few Heirachical routing, abandonment of NAT, mandatory IPsec, site local addresses, A6 and DNAME, Stateless mac-address based autoconfiguration.
  But yet another new system isn't going to help anyone, the problems can and have been solved while keeping the core protocol compatible.
  The heirachical routing crap has already been dropped in favor of using the same routing methods as are used for IPv4. A6 and DNAME have been abandoned in favour of letting companies get PI space like they can for IPv4. NAT is still discouraged but there are implementations available for those who want/need it and protocols have been put in place to delegate prefixes to customer networks automatically. Mandatory ipsec has been abandoned. Site local addresses have been replaced by the far more sensible "unique local addresses" which acknowlage that "site" is an ill-defined concept. Mechanisms have been put in place that allow running a V6 only access network while still providing limited IPv4 functionality for clients (there are two competing options for this DS-Lite and NAT64) . We have privacy extensions to avoid MAC address based tracking with stateless autoconfiguration or alteratively you can use DHCPv6 instead.
  
  Perhaps with a different crew this time. That'd be nice.
  I think we already have a different crew, we now have people who work at real ISPs designing IPv6 soloutions that really work.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
62. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-06 02:58 · Score: 0
  
  My Android phone has a public (I was surprised) IPv4 and no IPv6.
63. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Bengie · 2016-06-06 11:21 · Score: 1
  
  In some wildly theoretical sense, it is something like IPv6, but then it isn't at all. Do you even know what an IPv6 header looks like?
  Yes, it's worse than IPv6. All of the same issues, but wait, there's more! When someone doesn't understand the problem, they always have a simple solution that no one else has thought of.
64. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-06 11:26 · Score: 0
  
  Well, the guy seems to have posted -- if not the same AC then other dude did it -- the same comment below, earning a 2 score even... 2 what? Interesting, Informative, Funny? Repetitive?
  This certainly looks like trolling to me.
  My point about 64-bit is not that I hate it; I have opinions about it, but in this context it is there for an analogy with 32-bit being enough for many use cases -- just as IPv4 is.
  Should we use IPv6? Sure. Will there be problems with old routers? That may have been the case some 10 to 15 years ago. I'm a Linux user: for me, IPv6 came earlier than for Windows users. We had to turn it off because of poor countries in Eastern Europe (for example).
  Also, IPv6 would be most useful in the West, with high (and growing) usage of addresses. IPv4 at home (192.168.x.x) is still enough...
65. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Dagger2 · 2016-06-06 11:28 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, fair point on my version/protocol mixup.
  
  The point is, there is no such thing as an IPv6 packet that looks like IPv4, even when the source and destination addresses permit it. That is the big gaping flaw of IPv6 that lead to the adoption fiasco.
  The thing is... there is! 6to4 is roughly that. It's hardly a big gaping flaw in v6 if it's something that v6 already did.
  (6to4 sends a v6 packet between two v4 hosts by setting the protocol header to 41 and putting the v6 packet inside the v4 one. Those packets look like any other v4 packets.)
  
  Everything that could possibly be made different about IPv6 was made different.
  I disagree with this. v6 is actually very similar to v4. Routing, subnetting etc works in exactly the same way as it does in v4, and it runs over the same L2 links in the same way that v4 does. Many of the differences that do exist (e.g. NDP vs ARP) are directly due to the increased address size.
  About the only big differences are RAs (except v4 has those too), multicast instead of broadcast for neighbor discovery (but v4 does multicast too) and link-local addresses (v4 has those as well).
  
  I'm not making a proposal. I am saying that the time is right to make a proposal. I didn't know that there's actually a proposal on the table, here. I will be taking some time to study it, I suggest you do too. It seems I'm far from the only person who thinks that IPv6 is still a disaster and there is room to attack the problem from another direction.
  You are far from the first person I've seen to say that. I'm getting somewhat fed up of seeing people say "v6 sucks because it didn't do <x>" or "they should've done <y>" when x is something v6 did and y wouldn't actually work. I've yet to see anybody that had any ideas that weren't one or the other of those.
  I've looked over that draft you linked to before, and if I remember correctly it's roughly suggesting the same mechanism as 6to4 (possibly with some NAT64-like mixed in?). I don't see how proposing something we already have is going to help.
66. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Dagger2 · 2016-06-06 11:34 · Score: 1
  
  I'm guessing that vds6.net is https://vds6.net/. You may also be interested in http://www.lowendspirit.com/, who are only a few bucks per year as well.
67. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Bengie · 2016-06-06 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  Not bad since it was at 5% last year, and 2.5% the year before.
68. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-06 23:40 · Score: 0
  
  Lastly, there are proposals such as this one, which can be categorized as "I've come up with an amazing solution that solves every problem everywhere -- I'll tell you about it later!"...and later simply never comes. Oh well.
  You are aware that this "proposal" is dated April 1st, 2011, right?
69. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by petermgreen · 2016-06-08 07:07 · Score: 1
  
  Thus, a given /32 will be doled out only to a single RIR, who can break it up into smaller units to LIR's, to eventually be broken into /48, /64, and /56's for destination routers.
  RIRs get allocated blocks much bigger than a /32 which they then split up into /32 (or sometimes larger) blocks to allocate to LIRs (LIRs are normally ISPs, hosting providers etc). The RIRs also allocate provider independent /48 blocks to end networks. Each of those LIRs and each of those networks with PI space will advertise it's addresses into the global routing table.
  There were proposals for a more heirachical allocation and routing scheme but they never really worked out because the internet is NOT a heirachy. It's a collection of networks with constantly shifting relationships.
  For many years you could not get IPv6 PI space. The proposal instead was that you ran multiple prefixes in paralell and relied on experimental DNS features (look up A6 and DNAME) to put the multiple addresses in DNS. End hosts would then have to decide which IP it was best to use to contact a given other end host even though end hosts normally have no clue about internet routing. As you can imagine that idea went down like a lead balloon. In the mid to late 2000s (afaict ARIN did it in 2006, APNIC in 2007 and RIPE in 2009) the RIRs relented and made provider independent IPv6 space available.
  According to the site you linked the IPv6 routing table is currently about half the size of the IPv4 one. It will be interesting to see how big the IPv6 routing table ends up if/when the world completes the move to IPv6. On the one hand there will be less legacy crap and less need to make extra allocations because a network ran out of addresses. On the other hand since NAT is discouraged I would expect more companies to go for PI space.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
70. Re:IPv6 is a failed technology by petermgreen · 2016-06-08 15:01 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry I was wrong about table sizes, the IPv4 table is currently about 20 times the size of the IPv6 one, not twice the size.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
"Finally" by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:02 · Score: 0

Finding it hard to reconcile the "finally" with the surprise and the 8% bit.
IPv6 is a failed technology by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:03 · Score: 2

Everybody should be using it, but nobody does. This has been the steady state for what, 20 years? We probably should re-do the thing and skip to IPv9 witha less grandiose than this second system but a nice and functional third. Perhaps with a different crew this time. That'd be nice.
Speaking of embarrassing... by QuietLagoon · 2016-06-05 08:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

Partly it was because it is a little embarrassing (in 2016) to have a technology focused website that is not making use of IPv6."
Amazon AWS, are you listening?
1. Re:Speaking of embarrassing... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 09:02 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah they're listening. And laughing.
2. Re:Speaking of embarrassing... by steffann · 2016-06-05 23:05 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Apparently they are: https://www.facebook.com/group...
  The interesting bit:
  
  One colleague was on a webinar with AWS yesterday and sent me this choice quote: "We are making a big announcement about IPv6 next week. Watch our blog and you'll see a lot of support."
Alternative Headlines by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:29 · Score: 0

92% of DistroWatch visitors have no use for IPv6
or
99.9% of DistroWatch users don't care if DistroWatch uses IPv4 or IPv6.
or
An anonymous reader writes of utterly useless factoids and other navel gazing.
1. Re:Alternative Headlines by Midnight+Thunder · 2016-06-05 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  They shouldn't care what the underlying infrastructure is, as long as it gets then there. At the same time IPv6 support does provide some geek cred and one less unknown to deal with.
  
  --
  Jumpstart the tartan drive.
IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by redelm · 2016-06-05 08:40 · Score: 1, Flamebait

IPv6 would change the Internet fundamentally as it ends privacy and anonymity. Your 128-bit address most often will contain your device's 48-bit hardware MAC directly in the lower 64 bits (split by FE:FE). That MAC can track you across networks. Cookies become superfluous except as session variable holders (shopping cart). And for everything IP (incl UDP), not just HTTP[S].
Yes, I'm aware that DHCPv6 servers might anonymize the interface address, locally translating (hiding) the MAC as NATv4 currently does. Or you might be able to rewrite your MAC. Do you believe TPTB will encourage this? A dozen hw mfrs who need radio (FCC) approvals will be easy to pressure. The few non-MAC routers serve as a useful marker (surveillence filter) and can easily be tracked.
1. Re:IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:49 · Score: 1
  
  You should check out RFC 4941 for temporary IPv6 addresses. If you take a look at your IPv6 interfaces on a Mac or Windows PC you'll see those temporary addresses. This addresses (ha!) the problem you refer to.
2. Re:IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:52 · Score: 0
  
  We have random macs to prevent cross-network MAC tracking, at least on WiFi.
  The same could be done for any adapter, if you are really worried, buy a cheap Nano Dongle and use that when roaming out and about. What I do not like, is the lack of NAT, I quite like sitting behind a NAT for some reason.
  What we need to do is rid ourselves of static MAC's completely. MAC's are an unreliable identifier anyway.
  IPv4 will not die, just as COM has not died, just as Visual Basic has not died. Just as OS2 has not died, just as AOS/VS, VAX/VMS, etc etc has not died.
  IPv4 will be around for the next 10 years or more so don't panic. Anyway, run DD-WRT/OpenWRT or something and just hide behind some other appliance, not forgetting VPN usage.
3. Re:IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by 31eq · 2016-06-05 08:55 · Score: 1
  
  You can enable IPv6 privacy extensions in Network Manager. Any conspiracy powerful enough to prevent you doing this would have outlawed IPv4 long ago.
4. Re:IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:57 · Score: 0
  
  You haven't looked at IPv6 for ~10 years, haven't you?
  *ALL* mainstream operating systems since Windows XP use rfc4941-style privacy extensions; basically using a random IPV6 adress for every outgoing connection. IPv6 *adds* privacy/anonymity.
5. Re:IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by redelm · 2016-06-05 08:59 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, it can be done by those knowledgeable or motivated enough. What percent of users? 1%? Commercially, they can be ignored (sites don't work). For prosecution, they can be focussed upon.
6. Re:IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by QuietLagoon · 2016-06-05 09:05 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, it can be done by those knowledgeable or motivated enough. What percent of users? 1%?
  
  I didn't have to do anything, and my PC started using privacy extensions for IPv6.
  .
  Please take your tin-foil hat somewhere else....
7. Re:IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by mars-nl · 2016-06-05 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  In the Netherlands, 99% of the people have a fixed IPv4 address. For anonymity it doesn't really matter if your IPv4 address is fixed or your IPv6 address is fixed. And in both cases your ISP can both you IP address to a name/address. In any case, IP address != person.
8. Re:IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by redelm · 2016-06-05 10:22 · Score: 1
  
  Thank you for the data. I believe it near-static IPs are also common in the US. But not for workplace computers, hotels or other hotspots. The idea is not to have absolute anonymity -- that can be abused. But tracing logs is work that would only be done for "cause". Harvesting MACs (via router unimplimented Privacy Extentions) is too easy, and would lead to automated commercial dragnets. Rather as the "Do Not Track" request is implemented as "Market with increased subtlety".
9. Re:IPv6 -- Just Say No ! by Dagger2 · 2016-06-05 11:22 · Score: 1
  
  Privacy extensions are implemented on the end host, not the router. But a router can always see the MAC addresses of directly-connected machines anyway regardless of IP address. That's the case even in a completely v4-only network.
And Slashdot...? by KiloByte · 2016-06-05 08:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

it was because it is a little embarrassing (in 2016) to have a technology focused website that is not making use of IPv6
Hmm... then let's see the aaaa records for slashdot.org...

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
IPv6 -- Just Say: :: by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:53 · Score: 0

Just say 0.
The IPv6 unspecified address, 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 [is] ::
10GbE please by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 08:56 · Score: 0

10GbE please, I think we need decently priced 10GbE hardware (HP Procurves or something) over IPv6 behind pushed out.
There is only so many ports we can aggregate without cables becoming like an undersea duct.
IPv6 and NAT by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 11:08 · Score: 0

The NAT argument is by now old, given that the IETF itself has endorsed a single official NAT standard called Network Prefix Translation. That avoids the problems that IPv4 NAT had - being either static or dynamic or a Port Address Translation NAT. NPT is in improvement in that it preserves a 1:1 relationship between routable and private addresses, while providing the insulation that some applications such as load balancing need. The 1:1 is not a problem due to the 2^64 addresses that each subnet has.
Port numbers were something that had to be used b'cos it was otherwise difficult to map public IPv4 addresses to private ones without being merely static or dynamic. NPT eliminates the need for that just like it eliminates the need for any address conservation. Port Addresses are needed for other things, like in mapping applications, so freeing them up from being used for address re-mapping is a good thing. Aside from that, requirements that make use of some of the advantages of NAT, such as load balancing/multihoming as well as address insulation can easily use NPT: just that NPT won't be used for address conservation, which won't be needed, nor will it be used as a firewall, since that is something an IPv6 gateway is supposed to do with their globally routable addresses as well as link local or unique local addresses
1. Re:IPv6 and NAT by marka63 · 2016-06-05 12:44 · Score: 1
  
  No. It has not endorsed NAT. In fact is explicitly discouraged. RFC 6296 is
  a experimental (not standards track) RFC which says DO NOT DO THIS
  but if you do this is a least worst way.
  
  For reasons discussed in [RFC2993] and Section 5, the IETF does not
  recommend the use of Network Address Translation technology for IPv6.
  Where translation is implemented, however, this specification
  provides a mechanism that has fewer architectural problems than
  merely implementing a traditional stateful Network Address Translator
  in an IPv6 environment. It also provides a useful alternative to the
  complexities and costs imposed by multihoming using provider-
  independent addressing and the routing and network management issues
  of overlaid ISP address space. Some problems remain, however. The
  reader should consider the alternatives suggested in [RFC4864] and
  the considerations of [RFC5902] for improved approaches.
2. Re:IPv6 and NAT by Blaskowicz · 2016-06-06 03:33 · Score: 1
  
  What does Link Local mean? Simple fact is everyone hates IPv6 because absolutely no one knows what that even means save for a few professionals.
  We don't know what's a fe80:: or 2001: address either, following from the first point.
3. Re:IPv6 and NAT by Dagger2 · 2016-06-06 11:29 · Score: 1
  
  You don't need to know either of those. v6 is simple enough that your grandmother can use it.
Random is the DEFAULT (which may be silly) by raymorris · 2016-06-05 11:56 · Score: 5, Informative

Well, it's the default setting for the operating systems favored by those "less knowledgeable", so that pretty much covers that, doesn't it. Android (the world's most popular OS), Windows (your grandparents most popular OS), and iOS (hipsters most popular OS) all randomize the address by default.
Whether or not that's a GOOD idea is certainly debateable, but it's what you wanted.
So the less knowledgeable, people who don't even know what IPv6 is, get a randomized address. People even less knowledgeable than that make panicky, mis-informed posts on Slashdot about OMG I'll be tracked.
IPv6 and NAT by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 11:56 · Score: 0

Wrong on most counts. There is RFC 6296 - Network Prefix Translation - that translates a Global Prefix into a Unique Local Prefix. DHCPv6 can be used to assign the Interface ID: the prefix assignment comes in from the RAs. In fact, if one has an IPAM system, DHCPv6 is the way to do it.
The EUI-64 is used only to derive Link Local addresses - the fe80::/10, while the 'privacy addresses' are used in the same way that dynamic addresses are used in IPv4. And again, one doesn't have to use totally random transient addresses if one is concerned about ARP tables
IPv6 by ledow · 2016-06-05 19:04 · Score: 2

You can use the sarcastic "finally" in the headline when you publish a single AAAA record, Slashdot, that "news for nerds" who can't be nerdy enough to turn on IPv6 themselves but are happy to report on it all the time.
1. Re:IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-06 03:07 · Score: 0
  
  I don't see what the problem is. I mean, Microsoft still refuses to acknowledge that C99 exists, and in other compilers it's not enabled by default.
IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-05 23:40 · Score: 0

Partly it was because it is a little embarrassing (in 2016) to have a technology focused website that is not making use of IPv6
Should have called them ip1980 and ip1998 instead.
Even today, many ISPs consider IPv6 some futuristic thing they don't need to worry about, but imagine calling them and asking if they are still limited to ip1980...
necessary but obscure addressing by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-06 01:44 · Score: 0

Anybody using ipv6 are sitting ducks for sneaky traffic. ipv4 logs are easier to notify suspicious
traffic.
Spies do know this. Hackers do know this. I suggest disabling ipv6 on anything you want secure.
Windows is absolutely not secure and nobody should be running ipv6 on it.
As for distrowatch.com permitting ipv6 traffic that is fine. That site is just a hub to connect you
with downloads of the best operating systems on Earth. The big non-story about it is that when you
click a link on distrowatch to go download your Linux... you are probably going right back to an ipv4
address.
Total non-story all hype of ipv6. There needs to be a simple-to-read OPEN SOURCE firewall app with
user-friendly logging so noobs don't think "whoopee wow I'm high tech with ipv6 now" and get
compromised by baby hax0rz or state influenced companies like Google.
ipv6 is akin to Windows hexadecimal error codes. you see it and go oh wtf do I have to look up now
instead of just reading it and knowing it.
1. Re:necessary but obscure addressing by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-06 01:49 · Score: 0
  
  Adobe flash player is a compromised piece of shit, especially the new versions.
  libfreshwrapper-pepperflash.so will try to sneak around VPN's.
  Even 1000 liars is a lot. There are vastly more ready-to-burn.
2. Re:necessary but obscure addressing by Dagger2 · 2016-06-06 11:45 · Score: 1
  
  While I wouldn't argue the need for better firewall software (something that does per-application firewalling on Linux, please?), you're not actually a sitting duck on v6. Your router's firewall will prevent any inbound connections, and the sheer size of a v6 /64 means that it's hard to even find a functioning IP to attempt connect to (although you shouldn't rely on that obscurity).
  If you're going to disable anything, you're better off disabling v4.
3. Re:necessary but obscure addressing by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-07 08:56 · Score: 0
  
  If you're going to disable anything, you're better off disabling v4.
  You mean disable the whole Internet and all LAN's WAN's etc to your computers and devices?
  You're fucking stupid. IPv6 is a big risk because people buy computers with Windows 10 on them
  , Microsoft backported their entire spyware OS to 7/8/8.1. Why would they do that? Do you see the government threatening to split them into two corporations now?
4. Re:necessary but obscure addressing by Dagger2 · 2016-06-07 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  No, just the v4 part of it. That's where most of the nasties will come from, and disabling v4 will help a lot more on that front than disabling v6 will.
  Windows 10 is completely orthogonal here. "Don't use Win10" is another thing I won't argue with, but it has nothing to do with v6.
5. Re:necessary but obscure addressing by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-08 01:24 · Score: 0
  
  No, just the v4 part of it. That's where most of the nasties will come from, and disabling
  v4 will help a lot more on that front than disabling v6 will.
  Windows 10 is completely
  orthogonal here. "Don't use Win10" is another thing I won't argue with, but it has nothing to do with
  v6.
  The v4 part of it? You are painfully stupid or lying.
  Post distrowatch's ipv4 address next to distrowatch's ipv6 address here ok.
  (will wait)
6. Re:necessary but obscure addressing by Dagger2 · 2016-06-08 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  $ host distrowatch.com
  distrowatch.com has address 82.103.136.226
  distrowatch.com has IPv6 address 2a00:9080:1:20c::1
  Not quite sure where you're going with this, but there you go.
7. Re:necessary but obscure addressing by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-10 03:08 · Score: 0
  
  $ host distrowatch.com
  distrowatch.com has address 82.103.136.226
  distrowatch.com has IPv6 address 2a00:9080:1:20c::1
  Not quite sure where you're going with this, but there you go.
  First thing said at top of thread. https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9200599&cid=52274075
  Anybody using ipv6 are sitting ducks for sneaky traffic. ipv4 logs are easier to notify suspicious
  traffic.
  Now do a dmesg | less and a less .~/.xsession-errors and compare what you can read to a HEX error code from a Windows Event Viewer that won't even let you scroll with a wheel mouse. You have to ctrl-c to paste it into "Technet" India and get cut/paste responses back because no context menu in Event Viewer, not even in Win 98.
  You look super genius (wile e coyote style) being able to use a host command though. meepmeep
8. Re:necessary but obscure addressing by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-10 03:16 · Score: 0
  
  less .~/.xsession-errors
  less ~/.xsession-errors
  comment window has no tab auto-complete for typo checking and Dagger2 needs it right
What Finally Implements IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · 2016-06-06 08:46 · Score: 0

Shame. Shame may be what finally gets IPv6 in commonplace use, worldwide.
How are we doing @home Slashdot ?? by carlosm3011 · 2016-06-09 08:25 · Score: 1

I hear they say it's embarrassing to have a technology-related web site without IPv6 in 2016:

potomac:~ carlos$ host slashdot.org slashdot.org has address 216.34.181.45 slashdot.org mail is handled by 10 mx.sourceforge.net. potomac:~ carlos$ host www.slashdot.org www.slashdot.org has address 216.34.181.48 potomac:~ carlos$
Where are your quad-A records ?