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Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

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Re: Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

#281
post #32

IPv6 has been one of the biggest failures in the last couple of decades. And I don't mean adoption, I mean the standard itself. If IPv6 were IPv4 with more octets, then we would all have been using it for like a decade. Yes, I understand it would still require some breaking changes, but it would have been a million times easier to upgrade, as it would be a kind of superset of IPv4 (1.2.3.4 can be referred as 0.0.0.0.…

Let's not forget about the idea that ISPs would distribute a /56 range to residential users. You could split it in /64 ranges according to your requirements and everything would work fine. There is only one "minor" issue: all major ISPs in my country ( Brazil ) only provide a single /64. You can't get another /64 unless you upgrade to a very expensive business plan. That makes IPv6 not only useless but also a huge se…

If I understand correctly, variable SLAAC tries to fix this by allowing you to further split a /64

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-mishra-6man-variable-...

Re: Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

#282
post #32

IPv6 has been one of the biggest failures in the last couple of decades. And I don't mean adoption, I mean the standard itself. If IPv6 were IPv4 with more octets, then we would all have been using it for like a decade. Yes, I understand it would still require some breaking changes, but it would have been a million times easier to upgrade, as it would be a kind of superset of IPv4 (1.2.3.4 can be referred as 0.0.0.0.…

I always joke with "We figured out how to move from Python 2 to 3 but we still cannot figure out how to do IPv6" :). What a catastrophic failure it has been. Should we just stop using it altogether and retire or are there people still advocating ?

Re: Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

#283

Having "grown up" with IPv4, I'm slow to learn everything necessary to set up an IPv6 infrastructure. The times I did look into it, IPv6 seemed so much more complicated than IPv4, but maybe that's just because I'm just not familiar with it. Are there any good resources on setting up IPv6 support from first principles? I still get confused as to the "right" way to set up internal networks for IPv6, especially when DHC…

Growing up implementing IPv4, then moving to a different part of IT, I never found a reason to learn IPv6; it is something that is out there, but not relevant for me. I cannot tell if this good or bad.

Re: Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

#284
post #47

My whole country of 80 million people with very high Internet usage is still not supporting IPv6 at all (and residential connections are behind CGNAT). I'm pretty sure there are many more. IPv6 might be a thing in US or Europe, but definitely not in the world.

is "not supporting IPv6 at all" a data-backed statement? https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/ fwiw

Going by the "80 million" comment and the map you've linked, the countries that come closest are Germany (±60%), Iran (0.34%), and Turkey (1.79%).

Iran has an oppressive government with severe internet restrictions, so I'm not surprised they're not making IPv6 a priority. I'd assume their traffic interception devices don't work all that well without IPv4, they never seem to.

With 1.79% being IPv6 capable (not even configured), I'd say availability is effectively 0%. It's technically 2%, but I'd imagine those 2% are mostly hosting services and such.

Reverse sort the availability table and lots of countries have availability below even 5%. Nigeria, the 7th most populated country in the world, is at 0.38%. Lithuania, part of the EU and its economic bloc, is at 0.16%.

Re: Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine I own a company and I already have a bunch of IP4. I upgrade my network equipment to IP4+, and then keep all my routing and firewall configs. Everything just works the same as before. Now I want to access IP4+, so I add a route entry for all the IPs above 255.255.255.255. It does not. Because 255.255.255.255 only covers 32 bits and "IP4+" is >32 bits. You'd still have to touch every rule to to tweak the mas…

> You'd still have to touch every rule to to tweak the mask. No you wouldn't. 0.0.0.0.1.0.0.0/40 and 1.0.0.0/8 are the same thing. If the rule says 1.0.0.0/8 then the router converts it to 0.0.0.0.1.0.0.0/40. If you happen to have 1/8 as your rule, then an easy fix is to say ip4+ translates shorthand rules at ipv4 if the mask is under /32. > What makes you think that companies would have been willing to make the effo…

Do addresses have a variable length in your IPv4+ header?

Re: Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

#286
post #32

IPv6 has been one of the biggest failures in the last couple of decades. And I don't mean adoption, I mean the standard itself. If IPv6 were IPv4 with more octets, then we would all have been using it for like a decade. Yes, I understand it would still require some breaking changes, but it would have been a million times easier to upgrade, as it would be a kind of superset of IPv4 (1.2.3.4 can be referred as 0.0.0.0.…

> Not having two sets of firewall rules and two sets of everything. I always disable IPv6 because it can bite you so hard when you don't realize that you are wide open to IPv6 connections because of different firewalls.

nftables gives us a dualstack firewall, and it's so far the only one I've seen. It's not that bad, but I have occupational damage so I don't mind :D

https://wiki.nftables.org/wiki-nftables/index.php/Nftables_f...

Re: Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

#287
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And regarding compatibility, with ipv4+ if you have a 0.0.0.0.x.x.x.x ip address you would be able to talk to both ipv4+ aware and legacy ipv4 devices natively without any tunneling (because you also own the legacy, non quad 0 ip address). This exists: > Addresses in this group consist of an 80-bit prefix of zeros, the next 16 bits are ones, and the remaining, least-significant 32 bits contain the IPv4 address. For…

> What makes you think that companies would have been willing to make the effort to deploy "IPv4+" any more than IPv6? Way less resistance from tech teams. Ultimately companies are made of people, and ipv6 is partly a failure because working with it requires a wholly new skillset

Maybe it’s different on the software side but coming from a network VAR it’s the same skill set. You still have subnets and routes and netmasks and DHCP or automatic assignments the difference is the size. If you know IPv4 all you need to learn is “the subnets are all /64 in size, addresses are 128 bits, and you don’t need DHCP if you don’t want”.

Re: Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

#289
All ipv6 shortcomings discussion aside; What I think is the more vital problem to focus on is that the governments clearly don't want us mere mortals to expose our own servers running on our own hardware to the outside world (most often justifying that with "it's for your own security" mantra, for we're all deemed too dumb to figure that out for ourselves).

ISP-imposed ipv4 double NAT (imposed on ISPs by the governments, I am pretty sure about that) reduces our devices to all but dumb receivers which are scarcely superior to TV sets. And no amount of STUNning and TURNing, or buying VPSes can realistically fix this situation, when we can't simply connect our devices directly without resorting to some service provided by some Men in the Middle. And it gets worse, 10 years ago I could buy a static public IP from my ISP for some affordable extra - all ports open unless blocked manually in my firewall - nowadays there remain no ISP around to sell those to the general public. Just no such option anymore. Too much freedom it gave, I guess.

So this begs the question: can ipv6 fix that? Will ipv6 fix that? I'm afraid not.

Re: Tell HN: IPv6-only still pretty much unusable

#290

In Norway, it's required[0] for all public sectors to have IPv6. We are not there yet, but I believe the push will only increase with time. Especially all new internal networks must be IPv6, and IPv4 is optional. [0]: https://lovdata.no/dokument/SF/forskrift/2013-04-05-959?q=ip... (Sorry that it's in Norwegian.)

Norway is not big enough on Internet scale to make a difference. Equipment and software companies will put in balance the cost vs the benefit and may decide to ignore that market.
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