Is there hope for IPv6? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#91

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

jdblair wrote: post #75

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If NAT is wrong, then firewalls that block incoming connections by default are also wrong. I think you'll have a hard time making that argument.

You're mixing up NAT and ingress blocking. A stateful firewall doesn't depend on NAT, we're just used to ingress blocking as a side effect of NAT.

If a firewall isn't doing ingress blocking then it doesn't really serve much of a purpose now does it?

Ingress blocking being a side effect of NAT is the whole point of equating it to a firewall. It's roughly similar for all intents and purposes except that it also provides socket translation, and socket translation is really useful so every firewall worth mentioning also provides NAT.

That ipv6 initially did not address the usecases for socket translation outside of multiplexing addresses is probably one of the reasons it hasn't gained much ground in the decades it has been around.

Anyway, the point is that most of the headache that NAT causes application developers is also true of firewalls that block inbound connections by default. Removing NAT from the equation doesn't save you.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#92

Post by coding123 » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

orev wrote: post #23

csears wrote: post #5

What if we started charging a small but slowly increasing annual fee for each IPv4 address? And with the proceeds ICANN starts buying back IPv4 blocks and permanently retiring them.

That might actually have the opposite effect of what is desired. Whoever is charging and benefiting from the fee would then have an incentive to maintain the status quo of IPv4 and continue collecting the fees. We’re already seeing this now as people are selling IPv4 addresses. Scarcity + demand creates market opportunities.

Couldn't they can mandate, that no customer must be charged MORE than the global fee, and violations instantly lose their ipv4 addresses (or rather replaced with v6)?

I don't know who the ultimate benefactor would be - would it be ICANN?

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#93

Post by 7e » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

This chart: https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

... reports a steadily increasing adoption rate for IPv6. Is that rate somehow too slow? It currently stands at 25% of Google users.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#94

Post by vvanders » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #57

magila wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about NAT that for network operators it is a negative externality. For them it often simplifies their job. They do not feel the searing pain it inflicts on network application developers. It's hard to come up with a carrot to convince operators that NAT is wrong because from their perspective it isn't, even if it harms the internet as a whole.

As a network application developer I haven't felt much pain from NAT - I need to run a central server to relay connections, but that's about it. And oftentimes I need to run a central server anyway for discovery or authentication. (A few years ago I worked at a startup that enabled secure remote access to corporate networks, as in you could connect from a roaming laptop or mobile app into the network, browse the web,…

If you use UDP for anything you'll run into a bunch of fun issues. We hit it all the time back when I did networking in gamedev.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#95

Post by apple4ever » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

vetinari wrote: post #80

apple4ever wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLS is a great example of how to do it. IPv6 is a great example of how not to.

TLS is way more concentrated than IPv6/IPv4. There are a handful of browsers that pushed the adoption. There's nobody doing the same in the IPv6 space. There are areas that the browsers purposefully ignored (DNSSEC, DNS-SD) and thus their adoption is low.

Good points.

And brings out the problem with IPv6- there is no sector pushing IPv6, because no sector sees the benefits.

Question is why does no sector see it? My theory is that it adds a lot complexity and planning for little gain. So no sector is going to push for it.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#96

Post by vetinari » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #63

krylon wrote: post #38

I have been getting native IPv6 from my ISP for nearly six years now. It is not quite as cool as it could be, because I get assigned a new prefix every 24 hours, but still, IPv6 is there, and it "just works". When I connect to machines on my home network in any way involving avahi/zeroconf, the machines talk to each other via IPv6 by default. At work, it's a different story. I have drifted from a sysadmin/helpdesk ro…

>I have been getting native IPv6 from my ISP for nearly six years now. Meanwhile Danish ISPs refuse to implement IPv6 because: There's no demand. That completely missing the point and their responsibility in my opinion. There's never going to be any significant IPv6 demand from private users. At work however we have customers that have started to request IPv6 only devices and networks, because there's no need for IPv…

Elsewhere, the ISPs are doing the IPv6 rollout in the worst possible way imaginable: DS-Lite with no PCP for AFTR (i.e. no way to have incoming IPv4), and allocating only /64 subnet, where their CPE is mandatory in router mode, no way to switch it to bridge mode (thus losing control of your own gateway. I'm talking about you, UPC/Liberty Global).

For just consuming the web, it is fine. For switching from public IPv4, is is insufficient.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#97

Post by rbritton » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

j1vms wrote: post #85

apple4ever wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLS is a great example of how to do it. IPv6 is a great example of how not to.

> TLS is a great example of how to do it. ASCII -> UTF8 VHS -> DVD not as successful: DVD -> BluRay : timing was rather close to the rise of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, etc.

I would posit that BluRay has been less successful for two other reasons:

1. DVD video quality is good enough for most.

2. The Combination of DRM, unskippable portions, and similar is enough of a barrier to discourage the upgrade. Personally, I will only watch a movie on disk when I don’t have time to rip it and remove that crap.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#98

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

7e wrote: post #93

This chart: https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html ... reports a steadily increasing adoption rate for IPv6. Is that rate somehow too slow? It currently stands at 25% of Google users.

Considering that ipv6 has been around for more than 20 years?

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#99

Post by gmueckl » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

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.

Servers for things like this are expensive and a reason why "the internet" is one of the biggest users of electrical energy. Doing things with extra servers involved in the process always results in an environmental footprint that could be avoided.

Re: Is there hope for IPv6?

#100

Post by lwf » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

apple4ever wrote: post #73

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…

You hit on the problem with IPv6 designers- they took a solution (bigger address space) to a problem (not enough addresses) and they added a bunch of other changes (No NAT, No DHCP, ARP vs NDP, weird address scheme, etc) that arguably made things worse. Then they wonder why people aren’t adopting it. (Its the same complaint I have against Let’s Encrypt. They shoved down a policy which is antithetical to helping their…

> (Its the same complaint I have against Let’s Encrypt. They shoved down a policy which is antithetical to helping their mission.)

Can you expand what you mean by this? I'm drawing a blank.