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Is there hope for IPv6?

internetgovernance.org

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Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#41

Post by Someone1234 »

kens wrote: post #36
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #15

I hope (but am skeptical) that folks look at the overall failure of ipv6 from a deployment perspective to understand the root causes of why it failed (some may think "failure" is too strong a word, but I remember v6 being "just around the corner" in 2000, yet in 2019 I'm still connecting to a GCP database with v4). Coming up with a solution that looks like a huge technological advancement, with no real respect for th…

It seems like a lot of technology transitions go smoothly, while others painfully drag on for a decade (ipv6, Python3). Are there any common root causes for the semi-failures? Has anyone written about why some succeed and some don't?

Backwards compatibility seems to be the largest.

Look at the deployment of TLS as a success story. Everyone kept on supporting both old and new, watched the percentages, and then dropped the old when the new had enough penetration.

The whole thing is also a bit of a shell game. Nobody wants to invest in it until they feel like they're "behind" if they don't. So you have a big player or two in order to make it feel like that's the way the wind is blowing.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#42

Post by wongarsu »

magila wrote: post #29

What we really need is a killer app that requires end-to-end connectivity. Users have little reason to care about IPv6 right now because the existing ecosystem of services has evolved around the constraints of NAT. As IPv6 deployment expands hopefully we will reach a point where some great new application becomes economically viable. My biggest fear is such an application not emerging quickly enough. Without an imper…

There are great apps "requiring" end-to-end connectivity. Cryptocurrency clients, various videochat solutions, many multiplayer games, bittorrent clients, etc. They either force you to set up port forwarding (unless they can do it themselves using UPnP), or they use STUN/ICE or any of the other NAT traversal techniques. As a last resort it's often sufficient if enough of your users are reachable from the outside and the rest can connect to them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAT_traversal#Techniques

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#44

Post by sonnyblarney »

magila wrote: post #29

What we really need is a killer app that requires end-to-end connectivity. Users have little reason to care about IPv6 right now because the existing ecosystem of services has evolved around the constraints of NAT. As IPv6 deployment expands hopefully we will reach a point where some great new application becomes economically viable. My biggest fear is such an application not emerging quickly enough. Without an imper…

"Users have little reason to care about IPv6 right now"

Uhm, 'users' should not ever have to know what 'IP' even is!

If they do, we have failed.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#45

Post by keypress »

lisper wrote: post #34
magila wrote: post #29

What we really need is a killer app that requires end-to-end connectivity. Users have little reason to care about IPv6 right now because the existing ecosystem of services has evolved around the constraints of NAT. As IPv6 deployment expands hopefully we will reach a point where some great new application becomes economically viable. My biggest fear is such an application not emerging quickly enough. Without an imper…

> What we really need is a killer app that requires end-to-end connectivity. That seems unlikely to emerge. Anything you can do with end-to-end connectivity you can do with a server in the middle forwarding packets. Servers are cheap and reliable, so there's very little incentive to get rid of them.

I still like the idea of a peer to peer web, with something like hosting in your own browser. This could be a great alternative fallback network with distributed DNS. Most phones are capable. Energy, speed and security are concerns, but in cracking them you'd probably make the web a better place.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#46

Post by dghughes »

I like IPv6 it can actually be easier to set up stuff instead of using IPv4 for example OSPF. But I find IPv6 is not as intuitive as IPv4 just looking at an address in IPv4 vs IPv6. You can create new networks for IPv4 pretty easily just by eyeball but not IPv6. At least I can't.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#47

Post by Pxtl »

dpark wrote: post #19
Proven wrote: post #2

I always disable IPv6 at home and computers I administer. IPv6: for machines (IoT) IPv4: for humans

IPv4 is for machines. IP addresses were never intended for humans, which is why domain names exist.

Except that setting up domain names for devices in your network is out of reach for most humans, while IP addresses are trivial. My cheap router that I have to reboot nightly lets me bind an ipv4 address to every device on the network so I have known address for everything.

There is no comparable functionality for a domain name, or a subdomain or whatever. If my ISP offered free dyndns (and there was a well-adopted global standard for the service), and I could assign subdomains for each of my devices, then I could have real names for everything.

However, no consumer-level router supports that.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#48

Post by protomyth »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #35
geofft wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loose coupling and no second system effect. IPv6 should have been extended address space and extended address space only, in a manner backwards-compatible with IPv4. You think ARP is broken? Great, implement a fixed version of ARP for both IPv4 and IPv6, meanwhile we'll spec IPv6 to use ARP. Don't design IPv6 to use your new thing called NDP that layers completely differently. You think everyone using NAT is wrong? G…

> Don't tell those people "I don't care what you think, I'm right, and you better agree with me in order to deploy the new thing." They're going to - entirely justifiably - not deploy your new thing. Pay attention developers. This attitude is all too common in our industry.

Pay attention to the system admins, because someone has to deploy and use the new code everyday.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#49

Post by geofft »

magila wrote: post #29

What we really need is a killer app that requires end-to-end connectivity. Users have little reason to care about IPv6 right now because the existing ecosystem of services has evolved around the constraints of NAT. As IPv6 deployment expands hopefully we will reach a point where some great new application becomes economically viable. My biggest fear is such an application not emerging quickly enough. Without an imper…

My ISP (Verizon FiOS in NYC) does not offer IPv6 support at all. Users have asked for years. They've promised it for years. It's still not there. So it's not a matter of users asking. Re switching, I think I have one or maybe two alternatives; I'm not sure if they support IPv6 either, and they have their downsides too.

Any potential killer app is going to have to decide whether they want to lose such users, because I cannot imagine an app that is so compelling that I'd switch ISPs for it. And I'm a person who actually wants IPv6 for its own sake. I certainly cannot imagine, say, my parents switching ISPs over an app (and I'm not sure how much choice they have either).

And if such an app arises, it's going to be easy enough for users to use VPNs - it's already common for people to use VPNs to get to region-locked content or (at least as of a few years ago) play LAN videogames over the internet.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#50

Post by vnw »

Kranar wrote: post #11
qwerty456127 wrote: post #9

Perhaps I just misunderstand IPv6 but I prefer IPv4 with NAT and temporarily leased public router address for privacy and security reasons. AFAIK IPv6 means every device gets assigned a stable unique address everybody can identify and reach it by. And I have never seen a SOHO WiFi router that would support IPv6 anyway (perhaps latest fancy expensive ones do).

IPv6 allows for so many IP addresses that you could give yourself a new IP address every minute and never worry about running out.

Every time I see a conversation about IPv6, this argument comes up. Is "it's got a gorillion IP addresses" the only redeemable quality IPv6 has?
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