Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs • Hacker News Board

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#91

Post by ArchOversight » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:12 PM UTC

brokencode wrote: post #71

ArchOversight wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ISP said they got only a limited set of IPv4 addresses, those are assigned to their CGNAT gateways. Which are expensive, especially for an Indian Reservation, not the deep pockets of some MSP. The users are behind CG-NAT. But instead of using IPv6 which is cheaper (no need to maintain CG-NAT, translation devices, or deal with traffic that is being routed way more expensively) the Roku devices are only streaming o…

Why does the IPv4 address need to be publicly exposed outside of a customer’s LAN? I thought you could set up NAT on a router to translate local IPv4 addresses to something IPv6 that is exposed publicly. Is this simply bad planning from the ISP where they didn’t handle it correctly? Or is there something I’m not understanding about NAT? I think in an ideal world all devices would be using IPv6. But I thought it would…

Because the IP address the Roku is trying to reach is an IPv4 address. You can't just translate that to IPv6 and say "good luck little packet".

If you translate at the customers router that's fine and all, but now you have an IPv4 packet in an IPv6 packet, that IPv6 packet needs to get routed to a device that knows how to then turn it back into an IPv4 packet so that it can then go travel on the open internet like the electrons intended...

Once that IPv4 response come back, it needs to get translated back to IPv6, sent to the customers edge, which translates it back from IPv6 to IPv4 to send to the Roku device.

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#92

Post by yamtaddle » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:12 PM UTC

phpisthebest wrote: post #87

yamtaddle wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember what it was like when lots more home computers were routable from the public Internet, because having a NAT router between them and there wasn't a nearly-100%-adoption thing yet. In fact, I worked at an ISP (dial-up and DSL) in that era. It was indeed a shit-show. Adding a NATting router to those set-ups instantly increased their security tremendously. Sure you could use a proper firewall, but the router w…

I cant wait until all the printers, and webcams all showup on the public internet again....

Portscanning for smb shares and webcams, LOL. Good times. Found entire offices routing their whole network publicly, back then, shared network drives and printers right there for use by anyone who stumbled on them. It was nuts. Worms spread like crazy. It was a real mess, and that's with the Internet being way the fuck friendlier than it is now.

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#93

Post by ehPReth » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:13 PM UTC

hitpointdrew wrote: post #15

Who the hell is giving their Roku a public IP? How is this remotely a problem? This is 100% not the fault of Roku, and 100% the fault of the ISP. The ISP should have an IPv6 to IPv4 gateway built into their modem/router. You have a WAN port that is IPv6 and an LAN port that IPv4. IPv6 for local networks, makes no sense is completely unnecessary, and is a hill I will die on. IPv4 is here to stay.

who cares if it's "public" if it's firewalled; likely by default

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#94

Post by slaymaker1907 » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:13 PM UTC

totallyunknown wrote: post #84

I have reviewed the logs for our video CDN and out of 150,000 sessions, only 48 were identified to be using IPv6. These sessions were identified by the user-agent Roku/DVP-12.0 (12.0.0.xxxx-xx), indicating that the recent update to the operating system now supports IPv6.

I wonder if it's just a bunch of old and outdated Roku boxes causing problems? They probably work off of a ~3-5 year support cycle like phones but are updated even more infrequently by endusers (why should they if it's still working for them?).

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#95

Post by outworlder » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:13 PM UTC

bonsaibilly wrote: post #60

hitpointdrew wrote: post #15

Who the hell is giving their Roku a public IP? How is this remotely a problem? This is 100% not the fault of Roku, and 100% the fault of the ISP. The ISP should have an IPv6 to IPv4 gateway built into their modem/router. You have a WAN port that is IPv6 and an LAN port that IPv4. IPv6 for local networks, makes no sense is completely unnecessary, and is a hill I will die on. IPv4 is here to stay.

Congratulations on completely failing to understand how CGNAT loads work & their costs, and jumping to a wildly incorrect understanding of the situation

Yeah, and that's currently the top comment.

Which leads me to believe that the main barrier to IPV6 is just that people don't want to re-learn anything.

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#96

Post by zamadatix » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:13 PM UTC

ArchOversight wrote: post #33

zamadatix wrote: post #20

By traffic it seems like "if only we didn't have these Rokus!" but it's a streaming device, it generates a lot of traffic compared to the other IPv4 only devices. Inevitably the long tail of devices is what's costing them extra (sounds like CG-NAT dual stack or 464xlat at the gateway) not just the Roku devices. As someone who operates their own ASN with IPv6 because I like v6 so much the problem here was simply poor…

It may not reduce the need for IPv4, but it will reduce the need for costly CG-NAT devices and capacity for IPv4 when the streaming can happen over IPv6 which does not require the costly CG-NAT devices.

I may be mistaken on how many people this ISP is serving but for 300K they should have gotten pro serv, licensing, and hardware for ~100 million sessions, some of which now no longer need to go through the NAT64 hardware.

Hopefully they didn't buy through the same people that sold them the NAT64 hardware+software without CG-NAT built in though...

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#97

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:14 PM UTC

phpisthebest wrote: post #66

znpy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you probably want to firewall off inbound traffic from the WAN to the LAN But all modem/routers are doing it anyway, they might as well do that on ipv6. Effectively all router appliances (at home and soho level) are linux appliances, and the firewall is built into the kernel (and in use anyway).

Sorry I do not trust the likes of home router vendors to implement a linux firewall correctly While people may say "NAT is Not security", it is in fact a layer (ahd huge one) in the security onion, that ipV6 is likely going to increase drastically the amount of ransomware and other malware on the public internet simply because that NAT layer is gone

> Sorry I do not trust the likes of home router vendors to implement a linux firewall correctly

Neither do I, but that's a fixable situation. Get an appliance router that lets you put DD-WRT (or similar) on it. Or use a computer instead of an appliance and set it up any way you like.

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#98

Post by zamadatix » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:17 PM UTC

ArchOversight wrote: post #86

zamadatix wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CG-NAT (NATing centrally at the ISP's internet edge) is cheaper/simpler than something like 464xlat (NATing v4 locally over v6) since you can do the former on 2 boxes instead of 20,000. That said the 2nd option is much cooler :).

464XLAT still requires IPv4 boxes on the edge to translate IPv6 traffic back to IPv4. Whether that is two boxes or 20,000, the same is true for other CG-NAT solutions. Someone somewhere is bearing the cost of translating.

Usually you need a special box at the consumer side to do 464XLAT, it's not something you can just ask your customer's Netgear to do and it's usually more expensive if you want to provide it as the customer's rented router. CG-NAT however looks completely normal to all gear (other than the particular numbers assigned) except the 2 edge boxes. It's the ultimate cost saving kludge.

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#99

Post by outworlder » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:17 PM UTC

Awelton wrote: post #40

I just bought a brand new motherboard that still has VGA and PS/2 ports, so I would guess IPv4 isn't going away any time soon. Old standards seem to hang around forever for legacy support. Why an ISP would assume they could set up an IPv6 only network is beyond me.

Not sure why we are comparing hardware with software here. Your motherboard can run IPv6 just fine :)

You probably bought a server motherboard, so the ports are there for old KVM-type devices. Good luck buying a consumer motherboard with VGA and PS/2 ports.

Re: Roku devices don't support IPv6 in 2023 and it's costing ISPs

#100

Post by phpisthebest » Mon, Mar 06, 2023, 10:17 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #97

phpisthebest wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I do not trust the likes of home router vendors to implement a linux firewall correctly While people may say "NAT is Not security", it is in fact a layer (ahd huge one) in the security onion, that ipV6 is likely going to increase drastically the amount of ransomware and other malware on the public internet simply because that NAT layer is gone

> Sorry I do not trust the likes of home router vendors to implement a linux firewall correctly Neither do I, but that's a fixable situation. Get an appliance router that lets you put DD-WRT (or similar) on it. Or use a computer instead of an appliance and set it up any way you like.

I am by trade a network administrator, and I run enterprise gear in my home.

I am not running a home router or dd-wrt. But I am not a typlical user going down to best buy to pick up the latest Belkin or Asus wireless AP / router combo they have on sale for $99 and hooking it up to my internet using default "wizard" settings from the mobile app...

Nor I am I trusting Comcast, or ATT to configure their residental rented equipment properly with proper firewall rules

My comment is not about me, I have enterprise grade nextgen firewalls that are $$

My comment is about Grandma that calls up comcast to have them set it all up, or Sally that is going into best buy for the "Geek Squad" so hook her up...