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IANA Deploying IPv6
According to this Wired news article,
IANA has begun to "roll out" IPv6. Though it doesn't go into specifics,
one assumes this means that the three major IP registries will
begin assigning IPv6 addresses. The article mentions another
chicken and the egg problem: no IPv6 software (correct me if I'm wrong,
but doesn't Linux have IPv6 software?), so there is no need for IPv6 addresses, and vice-versa. It
also mentions every traffic light on the planet could have its own IP. Update: 07/16 02:48 by J : Dave Whitinger at LinuxToday sent a
link to a mail which clarifies the situation a bit.
Well, Linux has them, but since most of the internet still uses Windows unfortuanly, there should be a good ipV6 support for that.
:)
my 2 pence
oh ya, first?
A friend once mentioned that with IPv6 there is something like 6x10^23 IP address per square meter
on EARTH. ( I could be horribly wrong about this figure but the per square meter number of addresses is still amazing)
However it could be erronous to assume the human race would stay earth bound forever
How many IP addresses would the Universal Intergalactic/planetary Internet need??????
:)
A lot more than traffic lights. 2^64 or 1.84e19 is enough addresses for a grid over the planet at a 7.6m (25 feet) spacing. Or to think of it another way, there are 6 billion people on the planet so each can have 3 billion addresses each.
A lot more than traffic lights. 2^64 or 1.84e19 is enough addresses for a grid over the planet at a 7.6m (25 feet) spacing. Or to think of it another way, there are 6 billion people on the planet so each can have 3 billion addresses.
Therefore IPs should be charged and limits per company/person should be used. and of course forbidding any re-sale/rent/loan tricks.
ipv4=4 8 bit values, ipv6 = 6 8 bit values?
just an idea.
That's Avogadro's number. 8vP
If you want people to not know your IP address, you will have all the privacy you want. No one will be able to talk to you!!!
I believe the IPv6 spec actually states that IPv4 addresses are actually valid IPv6 address...but I could be wrong.
you could give every square foot of suface space on the plantet an ip and still be fine.
It does...you should see what your brain looks like
What this could (should?) mean is that we all get our own home IP address/subnet. Ten years ago (hell, just last year), the implementation of DSL was just coming into form. Right now, most of the DSL services do not assign a static IP address. This will eventually change; your IP address will be like your phone number.
Once you have your own subnet, then you can start assigning addresses to your toaster, TV (or DTV), living room light, kids, and to your dogs or cats (intelligent collars). How many addresses should you give to your average, let's say, American family. Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar? Well I suppose that certain families may need more addresses for their kids (I could mention ethnic, religious, or political stereotypes, but I won't because I don't have to), and certainly, the crazy cat lady down the street need a whole sh*tload of addresses for muffy, puffy, and her recently deceased cat, the now stuffy.
Hackers (woops, stale crackers), will then attempt to break thru the home firewall that your local ISP gave you. Woofy is acting strange like someone is yanking his chain. Poor old Dad is really bummed out as the porno sites are sending spam back to static IP addresses. The oldest sister is trying to find her brat little brother since he did..., well, older sisters are always gonna kill their little brothers.
Someone downloaded the damn microcode that controls the sony robotic dog, and now stuffy is starting to move.
Woops got to go now. Mom is starting up a DOS attack against Dad.
Debian actually has a development machine on the 6Bone right now, 'pandora.ipv6.debian.org'.
The trouble with IPv6 on linux is that the kernel supports it but virtually no apps support it, those that do often have weird issues. Untill upstream authors start supporting IPv6 natively in all their IP applications we are in about the same spot as Microsoft.
Ah, so you've seen Hackers! You did know they were using IPv6 in that movie, didn't you?
And after nanotech takes off, and everybody has zillions of these things crawling around inside their bodies, each with its own IPv6 address, we'll be right back here deploying a new version of IP.
Addressable vibrators! Yeah! BZZZZZ
Wouldn't it be cool if we could mark some kind of "off-topic" checkbox? All voluntarily off-topic posts could be filtered out by those who do not like them, and the posts might be exempt from moderation.
But what am I talking about. Rob's already working on improving Slashdot in his own interesting ways and I'm sure we'll love whatever he comes up with.
How's that for off-topic? I win.
With IPv6 we get more effective routing and that means faster internet. And with IPv6, additional headers can be hooked on after the main header so it can be extended for new uses like QoS and security. And it solves some of the bad security design flaws os IPv4 as packet spoofing. It also adds data encryption to the network level with the new IPsec standard so encryption can be moved out from the application layer for good, no more need for SSH or Kerberos, etc. this makes ALL EXISTING applications encrypted and secure.
The Linux and the Open-Source community can do our share in pushing IPv6 forward by porting our existing applications to have IPv6 support and make all new ones support both IPv4 and PIv6 from the begining. The programming API is availble with Glibc 2.1 and IPv6 stack with kernel 2.2.x. Becos the we have the sources ready to allow the modifications. Its much harder for the Windows people becoz they have no source only binarys and if the author have dropped support for the app your are locked to IPv4 for that app.
If your intressted in network programing and IPv6 buy R.Stevens "Unix Network Programming Vol. 1" it goes tru the new IPv6 programming API.
Go get some knowledge about IPv6 addresses, just click below and suck it in and enjoy.
ftp://ftp.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2373.txt
Doing things to traffic lights would only work in certain areas.
In the rest of the world (Boston, Most of southern Europe) they are merely treated as advisory.
..d
MAC addresses are not guaranteed to be unique. DEC equipment used to make them up on the fly.
Actually, the point of such a huge address space is so that there is plenty to throw away. IP6 is designed so that routers can have very small route tables, and don't have to look at a large part of the address to descide which interface to send it to.
IPv6 has some serious shortcomings.
Specifically, IPv6 is:
centrally administered
human configured
bigger than IPv4 (which isn't all that lightweight)
Topology sensitive, until you retrofit routing schemes
It's snake oil. IPv4 has all those problems, and anyone who admins a network has hit them to some extent.
Why the fuck couldn't they get it right THIS time?
There are 10^128 particles (before anybody flames me this is only an estimate I read somewhere,
I have no background in astrophysics) and that
would be more than 2^400.
-anand
Since IPv6 is only supported on Linux desktops, I'm wondering if all those moron ISPs will start requiring users to have Linux on their systems before they give them DSL access.
:)
This time it's actually warranted.
You could even have it tattooed on your forearm....
Nah those would be considered an "Internal Network" and your nano-machines would have to use the reserverd for internal use ips and ip masq out on one real address :)
Yeah, so with an IP address, you could get nuked by some script kiddies.
Or, how about the following:
PPTP - Planet to Planet Tunneling Protocol
DHCP - Dynamic Habitation and Coercion Protocol
ARP - Alien Resolution Protocol
=?]
Actually GSM wireless carriers in the US are already capable of doing this. however the problem is interfacing to analog telephone networks(wireless and landline) with are still on 70's technology.
I saw this poking around Apple's TIL:
:)
---
Question: What about IP version 6 (IPv6) support in Open Transport?
Answer: IPv6 is [...blah blah blah...]
IPv6 is being designed to respond to the limitations of IPv4 - including an upcoming shortage of new IP addresses - to allow for the continued expansion of the Internet and deployment on corporate networks. IPv6 also incorporates new functionality to provide security, multimedia support, and plug and play capabilities, features necessary to usher the Internet into the twenty-first century.
At the October 1995 Networld+InterOp trade show, Apple and Mentat demonstrated a prototype of Internet Protocol Version 6 running on Open Transport. The demonstration showed the flexibility of the Open Transport environment - [...OT is wonderful, etc etc...]
Apple and Mentat will continue to work together to ensure timely availability of IPv6 for Mac OS once the standard has been completed.
---
I thought it was interesting anyway. I thought I remembered hearing IPv6 was in OT 2.0 already, but I couldn't find anything verifying it. In any case, OT is easy to extend, and by the time OS X hits, I'm sure the BSD folks will have upgraded their TCP/IP to v6.
Another thing I recall hearing about IPv6 is an improved support for streaming media (since packets aren't well suited for it). I guess that means we'll see an explosion of useless 'webcasts' and a nearly endless amount of new porn sites! We'd probably be able to use IPv4 for another 30 years if the net weren't so crammed full of pointless crap (not that the ol' Internet Coke Machine or Coffee Maker were frivolous
I ate it. Sorry.
Since all the comments seem to be more or less :)0 6.html
varients on the "Gee wiz that's alot of numbers"
theme I figure I should add my own frivolous post.
For a bit of a giggle check out the RFC for
version 9 of our favorite protocol.
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/htbin/rfc/rfc16
AdamT (at work)
The switch-over to IPv6, when it finally happens, must be managed well.
With the imminent introduction of DSL, together with set-top boxes, internet usage in the home is going to increase significantly, and the currentl limited supply of available IP addresses is a hindrance. Of course techniques such as IP masquerading have ensured that IPv4 numbers have lasted longer, but the limit is still approaching.
Affordable equipment, possibly subsidised by the local/national Telco, available to all will soon be with us. Eventually a net connection will be as common as the telephone. Imagine millions of house-holds in every country with a connection.
Whenever this is introduced, IPv6 must be chosen as the protocol. Implementation and switch-over must be well thought out, and on a scale NEVER seen before. It will make the Year 2000 problems of the present seem like a minor problem in comparison.
I, however, can never see IPv6 being accepted. I have worked in the industry for around 10 years, and have seen numerous projects over-run or fail completly, mainly due to lack of truely technically competant staff. (I have even met a Firewall installer who did not know what an IP port was!). I can see chaos, particullarly if any point-click-drool Microsofties are involved. And don't let the suits run the project, either.
Some of the previous comments here also go against one of my golden rules of computing - if you don't know what you're talking about, keep your mouth shut! Ingnorance leads to disaster.
According to my Solaris book, this IPv4 address:
222.33.44.83
would be valid in IPv6, and expressed as:
0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:FFFF:222.33.44.83
And could be abbreviated as:
::FFFF:222.33.44.83
IPv6 has 128-bit addressing - enough for every particle in the universe to have its own subnet. This was deliberate. IPv4 isn't really running out of addresses - it's just that IP addresses can't be given out of the whole pot. The address space must be subdivided in order to allow routers to do their job. The IPv6 address space was therefore made large enough that it can be assigned extremely sparsely, without running out of addresses at the subnet level.
There's plenty of IPv6 software to go around, actually - in fact there are many implementations not only of the IPv6 stack, but of protocol layers to allow IPv6 and IPv4 stacks to interoperate. It's just that they're all in beta, and not very many vendors have announced them as products yet. But you can run Linux or *BSD on an IPv6 net today.
In fact, there's a vigorous "6BONE" (like the MBONE) of IPv6-only hosts existing on the current IPv4 Internet via tunneling arrangements. The 6BONE is the proving ground of IPv6 interoperability and routing stuff.
>(I'm assuming that each MAC should have it's own unique ID number...)
Actually, once I bought two cheap, no brand ethernet cards, and they both had the same MAC address (all A6's !!!) that was VERY annoying...
Don't be stupid. IP addresses are like phone numbers : they aren't allocated to people, just devices.
*sigh*
Won't work though -- at least not with TCP. We'd have to invent something else that could cope with the latencies. Inter-Planetary Transmission Protcol? It could still be layered over IP, though.
every person is alotted say 50 ip's at birth along with your social security number or so. Corps can buy ip's in the current system.
Not really a good idea. The whole point is that your IP addresses depend on where you're linked into the network. Trying to have portable IP addresses would but horrible load on the backbone routers.
Ultimately you should be able to forget about IP addresses and rely on DNS pretty much exclusively -- especially with those 128 bits addresses which will be a PITA to type.
Incidentally, this is why "phone number portability" is so stupid. The phone number should remain something that the switches can route by, just like an IP address. What we need is something like DNS for the phone system -- all phones have a little LCD display, maybe a little keypad. If you haven't got someone's number on quick dial, you can search on their name, and the system would search your local area first and give you a list of matches. Then you could expand geographically if req'd.
Ahh. Just after I posted the first comment I did wonder about that. In which case we could rearrange 'phone numbers to categorise by something more useful than (just) geographic area and call cost.. You could have different codes for personal, government and commercial numbers... All sorts of things..
and/or area codes, but it should work with the same company and code (which is quite
common 'round where I am in the US)
Yes, I think BT do number portability here if you're staying within the same exchange area.
The thing that worries me is that OFTEL seem to be about to force mobile companies to allow customers to take their number with them when they change companies. This seems a little stupid.
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Because right now, of course, all traffic lights are totally standalone and not connected to any central control or monitoring system. The advent of IPv6 will clearly change this, opening Main Street USA to renegade crackers from the soviet union (the collapse was faked).
--
Hmm... I just asked someone who knows more than me (not quite my boss), the translation isn't done (in practice) until the `call' gets to the destination, but your phone number is still effectivly your machine name. The equivalent of your phones IP address is not user visable. The main way your dialed digits are used is for geographic routing: area code and (for NZ (7 digit local numbers, like US/Can)) a three digit switch number. The last four digits get converted to your phones physical address. Think of country level TLDs (eg .ca, .nz, .us, .uk, etc).
Though this isn't 100% accurate, it's a good basic summarisation. Number Portability is just the stripping of the geographic routing. NP is actually already in heavy use: 0800 (free call) numbers are an execelent example.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
I believe it's designed with such a huge space, so routers can be more efficient (ie, don't have to break apart subnets, etc.)
All I need to do is 1 kernel recompile (and probably update a few IP tools) :P. Thus is the power of Linux...
Posted by Assmodeus:
ok. correct me if im wrong, but if a traffic light has an ip address...then that means that SOMEHOW its accessible from the outside world. would you really want someone to be able to "hack" the traffic lights in your neighborhood and play with them at their discretion??? just a thought... other than that i think its cool...
assmodeus
Posted by Hk_Silver:
Here is a scary thought. I am almost scared to share this idea with the world becuase I might give someone an idea. What if everyone were assigned an IP address at birth. this would replace your Social Security Number.
Just think about the horrible possiblities
Your not alone. I too remember ips. When your working in a lab that changes hourly. I know all the ips. I don't even have a DNS on many networks. I make up IPs as I see fit. We have to firewall the lab, to prevent my from messing up the rest of the company, not to keep intruders out.
I doubt anything would happen, even if that started occurring. Microsoft would find some way to wash their hands of all responsibility for it (as usual) and point the blame at the users.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Hmmm and you'll have to get your ISP and everyone up the chain to do the same
Or just set up a tunnel (over IPv4) to the nearest router on the 6bone as is done now.
Initially, there will be a lot of legacy routers around, and a lot of legacy systems (read Windows) that can't talk to an IPv6 number. For that reason, there will be many IPv6 servers with IPv4 aliases.
'scr1pt k1ddi3s' have toolz to hack into your waffle iron. (Model 2? ;))
So remember, ADSL connection == *NIX.
I wonder if new microwaves will have blurbs like: 'It will be most good if you are to put wallfire between not-you and microwave if internet is your telephone' or something to that effect?
Isn't it 64bit? You could give an IP address to everything that uses electricity and have plenty left over.
Reverse DNS lookups has also been defined, but it is a HORRIBLE mess!!! You have to write out the full hex number, backwards, with a . between each number!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't think this will make routers simpler. If anything they will become more advanced to keep up with the large amounts of routes and routers on the Internet.
Take for example BGP on a core router. I would not run this on anything with less than 128 MB of RAM today if you want the full routes (I have 256 in my 7206VXR). Imagine once IPv6 starts taking off. I would personally say that routers will get more complicated so as to store routing data in smaller forms in an OSPF kind of way.
Granted you can make a router pretty simple using IPv4 or 6, but if that all anyone ever needed Ascend would only seel their P50's which are about the min I would go with. Also as speeds increase so must the chips and software tricks.
Kashani
- Why is the ninja... so deadly?
> Cisco allegedly has router OS upgrades that will allow their boxes to be used on an
> ipv6 network.
Strike allegedly. They have IPv6 code, but not in production code, only in experimental code.
-- Andreas
They have already defined an AAAA record for IPv6 addresses in DNS. I'm not sure how they're going to do reverse DNS zones, though.. reverse DNS for IP addresses is much more challenging than the forward records are.
IPv6 is very interesting stuff.. I spent a few weeks writing code for Ganymede that can do the encoding/decoding of IPv6 addresses.. hopefully people will be able to use Ganymede for IPv6 DNS management when the time comes.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Water doesn't actually get denser as it gets deeper, but rather the pressure increases. (I don't exactly understand quite how that works, but they tell me it does.) The differences between gasses and liquids is that liquids (and solids, for that matter) have constant density, while gasses change pressure with respect to volume and pressure. PV=nRT, for gasses
There is a rumor going around that Solaris8 will be IPv6 ready. But if you want to play around with IPv6 on your solaris box, you are welcome to try.
Just so you don't think the commercial unices don't want to play with linux.
I've got all the IP numbers I need right here in my pants!
:)
..sorry, I HAD to..
The debian dist. kernel has got ipv6 enabled, and the tools and scripts are aware of it and initialize it...
I don't think all daemons/apps are there yet, but the basic net tools have it.
kind of suprised me when i ran ifconfig and saw:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:40:05:A5:37:69
inet addr:10.1.6.1 Bcast:10.1.6.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::240:5ff:fea5:3769/10 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1054638 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1724824 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x6800
is that ipv6 address random? hmmmm....
--
Marques Johansson
displague@linuxfan.com
Marques Johansson
don't forget the other planets when we inhabit them;)
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
Hmm...i'd like it if my monitor turned into a microwave as well...:)
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
There is also data on applications and implementations on www.ipv6.org
The API issue is a bit funny. Unfortunately, lots of the v4 API made assumptions about address length and about there only being one address family in use at a time. The v6 API fixes this. There is an RFC that describes the suggested API in detail -- so far as I'm aware, most implementations to date have tried to follow it fairly closely.
Well, you can help! Get onto the 6bone, port open source applications, and pressure your ISP to offer native v6 service!
The protocol identifier was used by an experimental protocol that was never widely deployed.
The KAME people have ported a lot of open source apps already. Most of the better open source browsers have patch kits available.
'Incidentally, this is why "phone number portability" is so stupid. The phone number should remain something that the switches can route by, just like an IP address. What we need is something like DNS for the phone system'
The phone number can be the DNS entry, and the telco can assign an IP address to it. You could then call me using the DNS entry of att://250.555.1212/FFFish (as opposed to my wife, @ att://250.555.1212/Crayola). Or you could use my current IPv6 address, of 209.153.188.248.35.88.96/FFFish. When I bugger off to another city, the DNS address (250.555.1212) would stay the same; but it'd be routed to another IP address.
Just because a name is numeric doesn't make it an IP address instead of a DNS entry. (Or, rather, it's just convention that the DNS entry is alphabetic, not alphanumeric...)
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
As I understand it the first host that responds to the anycast is the host you communicate with. Besides the obvious router/DHCP/routing benefits... there is another use for anycast that I don't see discussed very much.
F /...
We can finally get rid of crappy ass round robin DNS.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
actually since the last 64 bits are reserved for hardware specific numbers, doesn't that limit the number of IP addys to 64 bits?
(I'm assuming that each MAC should have it's own unique ID number...)
Some confusion here :)
- Unicast is when a packet goes to exactly one destination and is what IPv4 uses most of the time (e.g. for http etc)
- Multicast is as konstant said, you send out one packet to a 'group address' and it gets replicated only where necessary - generally each link sees only one copy of each packet, so it's an efficient way to send audio, video or even files to a large audience. This is also in IPv4.
- Anycast is new in IPv6 - as I understand it, it lets you specify that any of a set of hosts can get the packet (but not all of them, as in multicast). It's useful for lots of things such as load balancing across servers - not sure if it does topologically-distant load balancing but it would be handy if it does.
One other misconception: IPv6 has two main features for class of service / quality of service, both in the IPv6 header:
- Traffic Class - single byte, equivalent to the IPv4 Type of Service byte, carries the class of service - will be a diffserv codepoint (number) once this is standardised, as is happening quite fast. Same codepoints work over IPv4 and IPv6 networks. Typically you assign different codepoints to VoIP, mission-critical apps, web browsing, etc - many apps share the same CoS.
- Flow Label - this is designed to make RSVP work better, allowing a single flow (e.g. ftp session) to be given a unique ID so that routers downstream of this label assignment can more quickly recognise (classify) packets in this flow (rather than looking at IP addresses, TCP/UDP port numbers, and IP protocol).
For more information on QoS/CoS (though not IPv6 specific) see www.qosforum.org, or the www.orchestream.com links page.
Certainly routing tables should be limited in size with IPv6, which is a good thing but unlikely to make packet forwarding faster.
:)
QoS I think is in the main header (Class byte and Flow Label). As for packet spoofing, IPv6 simply makes IPsec mandatory, whereas it is optional with IPv4 - however, this is an important step. Of course, IPsec means that much traffic is encrypted (potentially) making it harder to do QoS except by letting the host do its own CoS marking and/or RSVP reservations (which let you guarantee bandwidth end to end IF the network has RSVP enabled).
The interesting stuff for Linux here is Linux-Diffserv and the Linux port of RSVPD, which enable the host to do CoS marking and RSVP reservations. However, unlike Win2000, the *nix world does not have a unified QoS API - some work to be done there for *nix to remain competitive IMO.
There is a lot of work going on in the IETF around QoS, CoS, and policy (i.e. rules that govern which apps/users get which QoS/CoS). Werner Almesberger, the Linux Diffserv guy, is at the IETF this week (as I am) and gave a presentation at the Diffserv deployment BOF.
Interestingly, Linux is way ahead of most OSs and routers in its Diffserv implementation, and apparently it can fill an OC-3 (155 Mbps optical) line while doing CBQ queuing (flexible allocation of bandwidth, see www.xedia.com for links), with 12,000 policy rultes. For those who are not in the CoS business, this performance is extremely impressive compared to some commercial routers - just buy a cheap headless PC and you have a $1000 access router with Diffserv CoS, which can also do firewalling, IPsec VPNs, etc.
If anyone's doing trials of Diffserv and wants a tool to manage policy rules for CoS efficiently, email me
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime
numbers." Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, Viking Penguin (1995)
Tell ol' Bill that for a suitable sum I'll give him an algorithm that factors large prime numbers in linear time proportional to the size of the prime.
(Or constant time, if time for transmission doesn't count..)
> Not really a good idea. The whole point is that your IP addresses depend on where you're linked into the network.
Many companies already allocate a block of addresses for mobile clients, which could end up connecting to any modem pool. Basically that particular block is a VLAN, and often ends operating over a VPN, so your company is spared the routing headache.
Imagine that, YOU having an IP address that designates YOU. Scary thought, eh?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Real men don't use dns. :P
But seriously. I just remember the ip's of a lot of the boxen I connect to. Guess that will have to stop.
This sig is false.
Ok, I don't what that subject means exactly, I just liked the battle cry "hack the lights!!!"
If some cr/hacker dares to break into my toaster and change my settings though, I'll be pissed.
Call me old fashioned, but some things don't need their own IPs.
Now, off to firewall my bread maker,
W
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
According to the allocation draft document, http://www.arin.net/IPv6.txt, the 3 Registries
won't be initially assigning IP addresses to end users or sites. Instead, they'll be making sub-delegations to TLA registries (a sub-continental registry that will make allocations after the 1st 16 bit boundary of an
ipv6 subnet). So, ARIN, APNIC, and RIPE will begin
issuing TLA's to the TLA registries, who in turn,
will begin making allocations at the NLA level level. These NLA assignments will go to large ISP's. Assignments to individual sites and end-users will be carved out of these NLA assignments.
The last 64 bits is a hard boundary reserved for
the host ID (based on the next-generation EUI-64
MAC address).
Glossary:
TLA: Top-Level Aggregator
NLA: Next-Level Aggregator
SLA: Site-Level Aggregator
An easier way than 6bone for testing client implementations is through Freenet6 (www.freenet6.net). It uses a web form method to get a tunnel assigned that will work with Linux or NT machines. It's only an end of address (you can't use it as the front for a router), but it works great for testing the end user implementation. It allowed me to get IPv6 up and connected on Linux system here.
There are instructions for setting up the Linux IPv6 support at http://www.bieringer. de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html. I've followed it as far as updating my net-tools and traceroute and then hooked up the Freenet6 tunnel. With that, I've been able to FTP out to some IPv6 only sites for testing. Works great!
--dkm
World Beach List, my latest project.
Let me pass along two links.
The first, http://www.bieringer. de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html, contains detailed instructions for updating a Linux system to IPv6.
The second, http://www.freenet6.net/, is an automated service for getting a tunnel to the 6Bone. This is an end station address (can't be used for a router), but it lets you test the client applications for talking to anywhere on the 6Bone.
--dkm
World Beach List, my latest project.
Didn't you just say your milk is running Linux - No worries !!
*--BigMan--- Time flies like an arrow.. but personally I prefer a nice glass of wine!
what worries me here is that this really won't work well without a total revisal of the DNS system.
:P
it's ok now to have a pay-for-everything DNS system, since numeric IPs are sort-of-possible to remember and keep track of. But it will be hard to keep track of things like 3ffe:1cf8:ff01:0:0:0:0:1, especially once they get more complex.
have they thought about the usability-by-humans implications of IPv6? do they just expect everyone to pay for a domain, or do they expect a bunch of equivilents of *.ml.org to appear?
Then again, the entire DNS system will have to be revised to hold IPv6 numbers anyway, so setting a completely new system up shouldn't be too hard.. hopefully they'll do the dns thing _right_ this time.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
It's 128bits... and thinking that 32bits is 4 billion and every bit doubles the number of values... that's crap loads of IP addresses!
__
ipsa scientia potestas est
"knowledge itself is power" - Francis Bacon
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yeah, it will be called "Burnt Orifice."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"... eventually toasters and microwaves."
...mmmm, toast.
.ad.
Reminds me of that bit that they presented
at some convention or another in the UK, the
combination television, microwave, and
internet-capable computer... so you could "make
a pizza, browse the web, and catch up on the
latest episode of Friends".
Dear god. When will the hurting stop?
The problem isn't lack of support in kernels, lots of operating systems can support Ipv6, the problem is lack of things like browsers that support IPv6. Bind does, lynx doesn't. That is the problem, all those network applications that have to be made IPv6 aware.
and I'm sure all the next updates of all the major OS's will too...
They showed an IPv6 version of traceroute running at WWDC as a demo. They ping/traced to the dev centers in Japan just to prove it worked... I'm sure it'll be widely accepted once all the software is ready.
Assuming all phone switches work basically the same (user 1 picks up, dials, switch plugs in user 2, hangup, repeat) then your "extension" (phone number") is really tied to a port on a card in a box somewhere. SO, when you move, they swap the port numbers.
I.E. Where I work, ext. 228 is port A0107, for box A, card 1, port 7. Now, say I change offices, but don't want to change extensions? My new office is prewiered to port A0412. Quick issue of "cha ext 228" command, tab-tab A0402, "SAVE" (enter) and viola, i've moved.
Naturally, this is a pain in the arse, if not impossible, between different phone companies and/or area codes, but it should work with the same company and code (which is quite common 'round where I am in the US)
IPv0 is reserved v1-3 are unassigned IPv4 is in use now IPv5 is the internet stream protocal. RFC's 1340 and 1700 might help. RFC 1819 covers version 2 of the internet stream protocal which is of course IPv5. Damn im smart.
I was suprised to see that many applications have IPv6 patches. Is the IPv6 API different from the regular IPv4 sockets API?
Or are the changes just to deal with incompatibilities like the colon seperater in IPv6 addresses conflicting with URLs?
Especially since, unfortunately, a lot of these things will be running Wince. Maybe they'll realise there's a problem once all these houses start getting burnt down by hacked kitchen appliances. :) Anyway..
Actually, I just did because I was curious :) "Both ST2 and ST2+ have been given the Internet Protocol Version 5(IPv5) designation. In fact, ST2+ is an updated version of ST2. Both protocols are origin-oriented reservation and multicast protocols that provide bandwidth and QoS guarantees through internets."
The ST bit is "Internet Stream Protocol".. It's RFC1946 if you're still interested, I didn't read the whole thing ;)
You will see webpages on www.microsoft.com on how to use your toaster and how to protect it from external attack. And if he crash this probably will be a hardware failure (a bread bit got into the system
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Every html.log on the Net will know when I stopped by...
The excess of IP addresses may radically improve .... ...
routers performance ( as well as make them generally simpler ) .
No longer will the router have to deal with subnetting !!
Although , this really isn't an issue for anyone using am old 386 running linux for a router
They are already dirt cheap ( got mine for $40 )
and the instructions on how to build one can be found here :
www.linuxrouter.org
You can also do secondary DNS , firewalls , wireless T1 bridge , DS1 Wan routers W/DSU , 10/100 routing switches , etc
All on a p166 with 64M . that is about $10,000
worth of "Network appliances" otherwise .
One mole of a substance has 6.something *10^24 ( 23 ? ) molecules to it ( Avogodros number ) .
IPv6 has 1 billion squared addresses :
1 billion squared = 1*10^18
That means that less than a gram of anything will have more particles that IPv6 has addresses . You may know your computers but your Physics / Chemistry needs some work .
" Every complex problem has an answer that is simple , clear and wrong . "
Seems some people have missed a big issue as to why IPv6 is a Really Big Thing(TM): ubiquitous computing. Imagine that your cellphone, pager, wristwatch, PC, PalmPilot, laptop, etc. all have chips in them that each are interconnected to the Net. Each would get its own IP address to make things easier--dynamic assignment for such things would be a nightmare.
Now imagine the idea of having your milk carton have a chip embedded in it, which is monitored by your fridge. If the milk is going bad or getting low, it'll "tell" the fridge and the supermarket (maybe even you) that you need a new carton. Both the milk carton (and the millions of other milk cartons) and fridge would theoretically also need unique IPs for such a function.
As it is, there are literally millions (billions?) of microprocessor chips produced a year. Processors are also dirt-cheap--the ones we hear of, like PowerPCs, Pentia and Alphas, are enormously expensive compared to the "average" chip. (Think of all those annoying singing greeting cards.) If each new chip were to have a unique, embedded IP, even IPv6 would run out eventually. They're already everywhere--in your car (dozens of 'em, if not hundreds), in your TV, maybe even in your toothbrush, for all I know. The idea of interconnectivity and ubiquitous computing screams for billions upon billions of unique IPs to have it all work.
And, of course, the milk carton would be running Linux. ;-)
Mind you, the idea of somebody being able to hack into my milk is a little, er, worrisome...
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Actually, it's a 128-bit system, and porting software to it is very simple...
So the software should come out very fast!!
"Code free or die!"
especially when they're so plentiful with ipv6.
:(
All we're doing is paying them outrageous fees to keep our names and ip chunks "registered" in their db. If it was a one time fee, then I wouldn't be against it. But it's a yearly fee.
How bout this solution:
every person is alotted say 50 ip's at birth along with your social security number or so. Corps can buy ip's in the current system.
I know this wouldn't work with ipv4 because of technical difficulties, but i think the government should step in and say enuf is enuf with these ripoffs.
Yea, I realize that this is never going to happen as long as these corps keep "donating"
but just a thought.
"As more and more devices connect to the Net -- computers, handhelds, set-top boxes, and, eventually, toasters and microwaves -- all will need unique identifiers."
woohoo! now I can finally telnet to my neighbor's toaster and burn his toast!
I have to disagree here.
NOW most people don't know what an IP address is. And belive the net works on DNS addresses alone. And that a machine can't serve a webpage without the address starting with 'www.'
So why would it lead to confusion that the addresses are changed? Only network admins and programmers really need to know (and are the only people likely to find out too). And if API developers at various OS makers are just a bit clever. All a program would need is a recompile to work (if it would even need that).
What WILL be fun is when v4 systems and v6 systems are mixed. And that will bring some chaos.
What happened to IPv5?
Actually, all fluids (fluid = gas or liquid) can compress...It's very much harder to compress water than it is water vapor. If you squeeze a water balloon, it will bulge out in other places, but if you put pressure on all points of the water balloon at the same time, you could compress it. Now, when you go underwater, you have all the water above you pressing down upon you, which gets heavy fast. (I seem to remember that you increase by 1 atmospheric pressure unit for every 33 feet (10-ish meters) of water above you, but that memory is many years old and could be wrong) All that pressure from the water above doesn't really give the water underneath anywhere to go, so it compresses as pressure increases.
An IP for every traffic light.
An IP for every streetlight, fire hydrant, mailbox, and manhole cover.
An IP for every commode.
An IP for every URL, of course.
A whole IP network for every elementary particle in the universe, with plenty of room for subnetting in case of decay.
An IP to be included free with every condom purchased, and the other way around.
An IP to be born every minute.
Damn, I forgot the dynamic address allocations for the virtual particles in the quantum foam...
What I need is a network address for my pants. That way, I can discreetley use my wireless handheld information appliance to check whether or not I remembered to zip up my trousers without having to look down and announce to the world "Hey! I don't have the mental capacity to remember if I zipped up my pants or not!" IPv6 will usher in a new era of subtle etiquette, to be sure.
Ok, so if all the traffic lights get addresses, does this mean that hackers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H crackers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H white^H^H^H^H^H Very Bad But Very Clever People could bring all the world's traffic to a standstill? Make all the lights red, then all green, simultaneously?
Sounds like fun! Where do I sign up?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
"Originally designed to link a small number of research networks, the Internet's current addressing system, IPv4, only allows addresses up to 12 digits, which adds up to about 4 billion unique addresses." *scratching head* If I didn't know anything about computers and the internet, but knew a decent amount of math, that statement up there would confuse me a little. 12 digits: 999999999999 That's a little bit more than 4 million :). It's great when people try to explain computer math to the masses.
As someone else noted, IPv4 is nowhere near exhausting the supply of IP addresses. The problem is really that the IP#s have been subdivided into hierarchies A-E:
:) So one problem addressed by IPv6 was the expanded IP# values. Lots of room for divisibility.
;) it would know which packets were important and which could be dropped safely. You'd probably have to pay extra for high-priority transmissions, which means as an added benefit that crackers would have a harder time taking down machines they didn't like by packet flooding them or whatever.
Class A: For big monster domains like ARPAnet
2^7 domains*16 million hosts each
Class B: For medium domains like your ISP
2^14 domains*65536 hosts each
Class C: For subnets and labs and stuff
2^22 domains*255 hosts each
Class D: For subnet-only multicast
Class E: nobody ever really used this
Trouble was that everybody wanted something bigger than C, but didn't really need all the addresses in B. So a lot were wasted every time a B class was assigned. There are some kludgy solutions like masking and sewing together lots of C's into one bigger domain, but they all are horribly complicated and a waste of brainpower as anybody who has ever taken a networking course can attest
A second problem was that IPv4 was basically all about sending text from one spot to another, and there was a lack of optimization for high-prio data and multicast data like streaming video. The reason you'll see a lot of patches for IPv6 stuff is not that it isn't backwards compatible with IPv4 so much as that IPv6 has lots of cool features people will want to take advantage of. For example, you can mark the priority of your packets on a scale of (I think?) 1-5, with servers optionally enforcing these values. When a server was in the process of getting slashdotted for example (or some other DoS attack
As another example, the IPv6 packet structure basically lets you chain "extensions" onto your packet, giving you a sort of dynamic packet size.
Another biggie is internet-wide multicasting. A group of people receiving the same streaming video wouldn't have to be sent separate copies from the originating server. It could send one and have intermediate routers spawn copies.
A lot of the pain of setting up a new host is also eliminated. There's some kind of dynamic search-and-allocate thing built in that I don't remember well enough to discuss. Something about new hosts asking their neighbors for a globally unique IP address and eventually getting one.
There's more. Get Tanenbaum's book on networking and find out for yourself.
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
I'd hate to live on another planet... there would be many minutes of lag in trying to connect to any Earth website.
Of course, if Slashdot put mirror sites on different planets, it wouldn't be that bad. In fact, they should do that now, I bet the slimy things on Europa are really deprived...
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
The volume of the universe was incorrectly stated above to be 1.419e23 cubic meters. This value is actually the radius of the universe, in meters.
The actual volume of the universe should be 1.197e70 cubic meters.
Acknowledgments go to a vigilant referee.
Of course, zip software will have to be created or modified for the new functionality that IPv6 will give us. I propose creating pzip and punzip. I don't think that we should bother with pzcat.
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
one billion squared IP addresses
..................................@ @
one billion = 1E9
one billion squared = (1E9)^2 = 1E18.
isn't that a little excessive? sure, there are a lot of toasters and traffic lights and doorbells out there, but still...
better too many than too few, i guess.
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Discuss
Yes, Linux 2.2 has IPv6, but you have to enable it. You probably have to update some net tools as well. Check out the 6bone web site. 6bone is IPv6 tunnelled over IPv4. There's also a registry there for IP addresses, thought perhaps that'll be one the way out now.
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We'd better adopt IPv6 before "its too late". The rate of growth on the net can't last forever, but at the current rate we are bound to run into problems soon. Anyone have a link to exactly what IPv6 improves over IPv4 (as I recall, 128-bit addressing is but one small part of the improvements).
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
Yes, Linux has ipv6 applications (although the article didn't mention applications... just browsers and routers). In fact there is a how-to for getting your Linux box to speak ipv6 (however limited it may be).
In order to use ipv6 you will need to add libraries, upgrade to glibc 2.1 and upgrade your BIND, telnet, and finger daemons. There are also patches available to INN.
You can see the how-to (written by Eric Osborne) at http://www.wcug.wwu.edu/ipv6/faq/.
I don't know of any browsers now available for ipv6 but I bet Netscape and MS will be racing to provide them. Cisco allegedly has router OS upgrades that will allow their boxes to be used on an ipv6 network.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
W. Richard Stevens in his book Unix Network Programming specifies all the needed steps to use sockets with ANY protocol supported by DNS. There's a lot of work there, just pick any util/app using AF_INET sockets.
IPv6 needs a huge addressing space for it's mobile host thingie. I would really like CISCO to support it, since they're the main obstacle. The problem arises when every network was planned IPv4 based. Just think a bit about firewalls!
So 128 isn't that crazy, and it's a nice number.
o Anycast address is not distinguishable from non-anycast, unicast addresses.
o Anycast address can be assigned to multiple interfaces of multiple nodes.
o Anycast address MUST NOT be assigned to an IPv6 host. It can be assigned to an IPv6 router only.
o Anycast address MUST NOT be used in source address field in IPv6 header.
therefore no tcp to them! forget the web example... here are some specs
If IPv6 is 128 bit, there would be 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 possible IP addresses, way more IPs than all the traffic lights :) try an IP for every molecule of H2O in the ocean :)
Just a quick note to point out that NetBSD also has full IPv6 support, including IPv4-IPv6 gatewaying, IPv6 tunneling over IPv4, and dual stack network utilities (i.e. ftp, ssh, telnet, etc. will use IPv4 or IPv6 depending on the host they are connecting to).