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IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

aws.amazon.com

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Re: IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

#61

Post by p1mrx »

zbjornson wrote: post #41
Mythanar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of it can't, actually. Rather, using the words in the question in their strict meaning, most of the hardware out there is not on the "public internet", it is behind NAT. You can argue that behind NAT there is still IPv4 connectivity with public internet, but it is actually closer to proxying (i.e. having some device talk to internet on your behalf) than to routing (i.e. have some device pass your packets on). Lo…

But if that exists, why should I as someone running on EC2 care if I can use IPv6 natively or have to make use of such proxying/routing?

In the vast majority of cases, you cannot use proxying/routing to reach an IPv6 address. If you don't have IPv6 yourself, then any attempt to communicate with another IPv6 address simply fails.

It's sort of like asking "Why should I connect to the Internet, if everyone I know already has a telephone?"

Re: IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

#62

Post by vacri »

profmonocle wrote: post #38
vacri wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/AWS/everywhere but Google/

Google's public services are fully dual-stack, but Compute Engine doesn't support IPv6 at all.

I was more thinking of the ip6 wall of shame than VPS providers, really...

Strange that GCE doesn't support it, given their usage elsewhere.

Re: IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

#63

Post by Pyxl101 »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #37
harryh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious but why is IPv6 support such a priority for you that it would be the deciding factor in your choice of hosting provider?

In 2017, one should instead ask why it wouldn't be.

A funny quip, but since it seems like you're missing the point: what's the business impact of the choice, or the existence/absence of IPv6 support in a hosting provider?

If I'm running a small startup that's available as a website, how does IPv6 support matter to me? (Assuming that I can otherwise get IPv4 addresses for hosting my site, which I can.)

Re: IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

#65

Post by Pyxl101 »

wmf wrote: post #31
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most production environments terminate on Cloudfront endpoints (or other CDNs) or ELBs/ALBs; not much need for IPv6 to individual instances (which can use IPv4 internally).

The opposite pattern is much more convenient: IPv4 on the public endpoint and IPv6-only internally. AWS is now close to supporting this. http://blog.ipspace.net/2014/03/facebook-is-close-to-having-...

Could you explain? How does it help to use IPv6 internally if you're using IPv4 publicly?

One of the original motivations for IPv6 was that it would provide enough address space for every device in the world to have its own unique IP address. Then devices could communicate with each other directly, without worrying about intervening NATs. If you're using IPv4 publicly, then you've already lost that advantage.

Concerning private networks, IPv4 offers more than enough address space within its private ranges for your private network. The 10.0.0.0/8 block provides 16 million addresses, and there's also 172.16.0.0/12 and 192.168.0.0/16. There are certainly enough addresses in these ranges that running out is not a concern, so it does not seem that IPv6 would provide a benefit when applied specifically and only to private networks.

Re: IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

#66

Post by sudhirj »

faitswulff wrote: post #64

I have to wonder if Amazon started releasing all this product news to cover up the fact that one of their employees jumped off the company building in an apparent suicide attempt: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13059565

The AWS reinvent conference is going on, which is their annual developer conference. So probably just a coincidence. Each announcement has a stage announcement and planned sessions as well.

Re: IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

#67

Post by [deleted] »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #65
wmf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite pattern is much more convenient: IPv4 on the public endpoint and IPv6-only internally. AWS is now close to supporting this. http://blog.ipspace.net/2014/03/facebook-is-close-to-having-...

Could you explain? How does it help to use IPv6 internally if you're using IPv4 publicly? One of the original motivations for IPv6 was that it would provide enough address space for every device in the world to have its own unique IP address. Then devices could communicate with each other directly, without worrying about intervening NATs. If you're using IPv4 publicly, then you've already lost that advantage. Concern…

[deleted]

Re: IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

#68

Post by pilif »

axyjo wrote: post #24
josho wrote: post #23

Is there a succinct developer/administrators guide to IPv6? I recently discovered my home IP is ipv6 and have started to realize that it is more than just a larger address range. e.g. arp is replaced with ndp. While I haven't yet found a guide that has more depth than the very basics, but isn't a full on Cisco manual.

HE's IPv6 training guide is pretty good -- https://ipv6.he.net/certification/

And you can get an awesome T-Shirt if you complete it. I wear mine with pride, mainly because in the process of doing it, I nagged our business ISP into properly supporting reverse delegations

Re: IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

#69

Post by detaro »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #65
wmf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite pattern is much more convenient: IPv4 on the public endpoint and IPv6-only internally. AWS is now close to supporting this. http://blog.ipspace.net/2014/03/facebook-is-close-to-having-...

Could you explain? How does it help to use IPv6 internally if you're using IPv4 publicly? One of the original motivations for IPv6 was that it would provide enough address space for every device in the world to have its own unique IP address. Then devices could communicate with each other directly, without worrying about intervening NATs. If you're using IPv4 publicly, then you've already lost that advantage. Concern…

Assuming you want to provide IPv4 and IPv6 to the outside:

You can relatively easily map IPv4 addresses into IPv6 range: just pick a /96 prefix and append the 32 bit IPv6 address. This is a relatively easy translation, that does not require the machine doing the translation to keep state !!! (so you can send traffic to a random one and it can do the right thing, no need to have connections stick to one). It is thus quite easy to make an IPv6-only network deal with IPv4 clients. With decreasing IPv4 usage, your network naturally adapts since it only becomes easier.

The reverse is not easily possible for serving IPv6 clients from an IPv4 network: you can't map IPv6 1:1 to IPv4, so your gateways have to be more like traditional NAT and keep state tables around, which makes operation in general and load-balancing/fail-over in particular harder. The more and more IPv6 clients you have, the more resources you need for the translation. And at some point in the future, you are going to want to switch.

You could alternatively run your entire DC on IPv4 and IPv6 double-stack, but that adds a lot of unnecessary complexity. Your routers now have to keep routing tables for both around, behavior could differ for both, your applications (logging, fraud prevention, ...) have to understand both, ...

If you are in a position where you control everything you run (so you can make sure there aren't any stragglers that require IPv4 because their vendor doesn't care or something like that), the IPv6 model can be attractive. Do the switch and be done with it for the future, limit your dealings with two protocols to the very edge.

Re: IPv6 Support for EC2 Instances in Virtual Private Clouds

#70

Post by andrewpe »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #65
wmf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite pattern is much more convenient: IPv4 on the public endpoint and IPv6-only internally. AWS is now close to supporting this. http://blog.ipspace.net/2014/03/facebook-is-close-to-having-...

Could you explain? How does it help to use IPv6 internally if you're using IPv4 publicly? One of the original motivations for IPv6 was that it would provide enough address space for every device in the world to have its own unique IP address. Then devices could communicate with each other directly, without worrying about intervening NATs. If you're using IPv4 publicly, then you've already lost that advantage. Concern…

At my company, we used to use IPv6 internally and IPv4 publicly for future proofing and easier migration to a all IPv6 environment. Instead of changing the entire infrastructure we just had to change the gateway.
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