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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.
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.
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
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?
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
Microsoft Research has a v6 stack for windows, and so does Trumpet Winsock. Windows users can run v6 any time they like.
See www.ipv6.org if you want to track down versions for your favorite OS.
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
Something like 10 for every square angstrom on the surface of the planet. There's a whole lot more than 10 protons per angstrom of matter on the planet.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Recompile? Why indeed should we have to recompile? Why can't it be a modular driver such as the way filesystems are? I could be wrong, but I do believe That Other Operating System does have modular network drivers.
/dev/tcp me baby.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Most of the internet USERS run windows. They have IP addresses, their machines have to be addressable, ergo they are part of the internet. Leaf nodes, to be sure, but internet regardless.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> 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.
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
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.
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?
hehe ipv4 means IP version 4 its just a coinsidence that the version numbers and # of bit values happen to be the same.
"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!
What happened to IPv5?
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.
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!
A scientific breakdown:
If you assume that the radius of the universe is 15 billion light-years, the volume of the universe (assuming it's spherical) would then be 1.419e23 cubic meters. Given IPv6 has 2^128 addresses, this corresponds to one IPv6 address for every 3.5178e31 cubic meters.
This might not sound like a lot of addresses for the corresponding space. However:
Take the volume of the Solar System to be a sphere centred on the Sun with a radius equal to Pluto's orbit (5,913,520,000,000 meters). The volume of the Solar System is thus 1.08277e38 cubic meters. Using the above figure, we find that for every Solar System-sized chunk of the universe would get just over three million IPv6 addresses. Since the universe is not jam-packed with solar systems, the number of IPv6 addresses per solar system would correspondingly increase. This increase depends on how many solar systems there are, of course, and how densely packed they are. One could easily assume that each solar system would get on the order of 10^18 IPv6 addresses (i.e. there's one solar system for every 3e11 solar system-sized chunk of the universe), which is about 200 million times more IP addresses than the Earth currently has with IPv4.
Conclusion:
IPv6 should provide enough addresses for the known universe. However, because it's always better to be safe than sorry, it is the recommendation of this researcher that IPv8 (2^256 addresses) be implemented before any serious space travel is to be undertaken.
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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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!