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IPv6 is the only way forward

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Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#271

Post by esbranson »

fulafel wrote: post #245
kstrauser wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty sweet. By using ULA addresses for everything, all internal networking keeps working as-is if my ISP allocation changes. Every host can talk to its neighbors using internal addresses, and still connect to remote hosts without NAT breakage.

You also get this if you use mDNS, but without the ULA hassle and you get to use DNS names instead of hardcoding IP addresses.

mDNS is orthogonal to ULA. mDNS is for discovery and name resolution, whereas ULA is for IP connectivity. And mDNS operates at the link-local scope (link-local addresses), whereas ULA is scoped for the entire home network.

Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#272

Post by rkagerer »

Dagger2 wrote: post #182
rkagerer wrote: post #158

The main complaint I have against IPv6 is the addresses are so unwieldy. When I look at them I have the same reaction as when I look at some kind of complex scientific formula comprised of operators and symbols that are unfamiliar. It also takes extra mental effort to expand the compressed zeros and interpret what I'm viewing. Even after reading about them many times and using them in (an albeit limited) fashion, the…

Just use it. This reaction is coming from a lack of familiarity, not from it actually being hard. Here's some roughly equivalent IP addresses: 203.0.113.45+192.168.1.1 ↔ 2001:db8:2d4f:1::1 203.0.113.45+192.168.1.2 ↔ 2001:db8:2d4f:1::2 203.0.113.45+192.168.1.3 ↔ 2001:db8:2d4f:1::3 203.0.113.45+192.168.2.1 ↔ 2001:db8:2d4f:2::1 The v6 addresses are made up of the network prefix (2001:db8:2d4f, basically an opaque string…

Thanks, that's a helpful comparison. You've shown a fixed prefix 3 hextets (48 bits) in length - is that the most common convention these days?

And has the practice of generating portions of the address from your MAC address been universally (or at least mostly) abandoned?

Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#273

Post by throw0101d »

LoganDark wrote: post #218
throw0101d wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes...? I know that, but does that cause any issues in practice other than death of P2P? Well: > If you’re a gamer using PS5, Xbox, or PC in 2025, running into Double NAT or CGNAT port forwarding issues can make online play nearly impossible. Many 5G home internet and satellite services (like T-Mobile Home Internet and Starlink) put users behind carrier-grade NAT, which blocks direct connections and port forwarding…

> What kind of applications and services are not being invented because we're stuck with the current non-P2P / centralized setup of IPv4+NAT? I don't know? I've never had CG-NAT and yet I've never seen a piece of software that takes advantage of that except maybe for games that use UPnP to open ports.

> I don't know? I've never had CG-NAT and yet I've never seen a piece of software that takes advantage of that except maybe for games that use UPnP to open ports.

Which, as a sibling comments mentions, is the point.

The fact that (CG-)NAT is in the way could be precluding the development of "software that takes advantage of that". It's a form of (negative/inverse) survivorship bias: kind of like zoning for only single-family homes and yet saying "no one wants mid-rise towers/apartments as evidenced by the fact no one building them". The current rules/structure/architecture preclude any other options.

Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#274

Post by icedchai »

yrjrjjrjjtjjr wrote: post #209
j1elo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In IPv4 you only need to transmit IPv4 addresses. If the "cannot be" in parent post is referring to the exact byte disposition in packets, then I go the other way around to claim that I agree. Because the only way that a UTF8 character can pretend to be ASCII is because ASCII didn't use all of the 8 bits in a byte to begin with. Only way to have something similar in this case, would be that IPv4 didn't use all of the…

The protocol field in the ipv4 header seems like a reasonable choice. A value would be associated for ipv6 and if that value is chosen then additional header data follows the ipv4 header.

Not really reasonable. That would 1) Make routing inefficient because routers have parse an additional, non-adjacent, non-contiguous header to get the source and destination addresses. 2) Break compatibility because there would exist "routers" that do not understand ipv6 headers. They receive your ipv4 with v6 packet and send it somewhere else.

The result is basically the same situation we are in today, except much more hacky. You'd still have to do a bunch of upgrades.

Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#275

Post by throw0101d »

Bender wrote: post #263
throw0101d wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or ... people can use the DoD/Mod and assorted other space to get their IPv4 allocations. Someone did the math on this: > Now, average daily assignment rates have been running at above 10 /8s per year, for 2010, and approached 15 /8s towards the end. This means any reclamation effort has to recover at least 15 /8s per year just to break even on 2010’s growth. That’s 5.9% of the total IPv4 address space, or 6.8% of…

There are 'only four billion IPv4 addresses, and there are eight billion people on the planet. There are just as many smartphones (I have two: personal and work) Unless all of these devices are running a dedicated full time server that must be reachable inbound by everyone this is not required. At any given time "all the people" are not online. That is why DHCP (per ISP) takes care of this. Maybe some day all the peo…

> Unless all of these devices are running a dedicated full time server that must be reachable inbound by everyone this is not required.

I think this is a lack of imagination. The fact that (CG-)NAT is in the way could be precluding the development of software that could take advantage of incoming/P2P connections.

It's a form of (negative/inverse) survivorship bias: kind of like zoning for only single-family homes and yet saying "no one wants mid-rise towers/apartments as evidenced by the fact no one building them". The current rules/structure preclude any other options.

When we went from dial-up speeds to DSL/cable to fibre we were able to have all sorts new applications due to higher bandwidth. Are there classes of applications that we don't / can't have because of NAT? We're stuck with things that often need a central server (TURN/ICE/STUN) and I'd like people to have the ability to explore a more distributed/decentralized Internet.

Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#276

Post by throw0101d »

ebiederm wrote: post #257

For everyone getting into the details about how all of this should work please look at RFC7084: Basic Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7084 It describes in detail what a home router needs to be doing to make all of this work seamlessly. Things work so well that half the world has working IPv6 already. Openwrt pretty much implements all of this out of the box. If you are st…

> Historically the only practical hold up to IPv6 adoption has been the ISPs not rolling it out to their customers.

And corporate networks: in Google's stats you'll see IPv6 usage jumps on weekends as people do stuff not using their work computer.

Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#277

Post by lee_ars »

ebiederm wrote: post #257

For everyone getting into the details about how all of this should work please look at RFC7084: Basic Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7084 It describes in detail what a home router needs to be doing to make all of this work seamlessly. Things work so well that half the world has working IPv6 already. Openwrt pretty much implements all of this out of the box. If you are st…

> If you are struggling with IPv6 I recommend reading up on where it is at today and figuring out how whatever makes your network special can be done using IPv6 with no fuss.

> ...

> Historically the only practical hold up to IPv6 adoption has been the ISPs not rolling it out to their customers.

Yep, that's where I am. Frontier FTTH, IPv4 only. Because....I have no idea why. Because Frontier sucks, basically? They have at least started their rollout:

https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS5650?c=US&p=1&v=1&w=30&x...

...but it's going to be slow going. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather cut off my fingers than go back to Comcast, but at least Comcast gave me a /56.

Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#278

Post by lee_ars »

voxadam wrote: post #190
wao0uuno wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dismiss IPv6 because my ISP doesn't support it.

I dismiss ISPs that don't support IPv6.

> I dismiss ISPs that don't support IPv6.

Hey, how awesome you live in an area where you have a choice of ISPs and can dismiss one that doesn't meet your spec, rather than having to simply shut up and eat what you're served!

Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#279

Post by Bender »

throw0101d wrote: post #275
Bender wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 'only four billion IPv4 addresses, and there are eight billion people on the planet. There are just as many smartphones (I have two: personal and work) Unless all of these devices are running a dedicated full time server that must be reachable inbound by everyone this is not required. At any given time "all the people" are not online. That is why DHCP (per ISP) takes care of this. Maybe some day all the peo…

> Unless all of these devices are running a dedicated full time server that must be reachable inbound by everyone this is not required. I think this is a lack of imagination. The fact that (CG-)NAT is in the way could be precluding the development of software that could take advantage of incoming/P2P connections. It's a form of (negative/inverse) survivorship bias: kind of like zoning for only single-family homes and…

I think this is a lack of imagination.

No imagination required. P2P works fine if at least 20% to 30% have ports open inbound. 70%+ need not have open inbound ports. Where this could theoretically be a problem is if a specific sub-set of CG-NAT users were the only people seeding and downloading something. This non existent problem can be worked around using a VPN mesh. Tinc is an open source VPN that operates in user-space and while not as fast as Wireguard it can do things Wireguard could never dream of such as user space mesh routing, always discovering the shortest path. The advantage of this is keeping ambulance chasing lawyers off the P2P/VPN mesh. The only imagination required is how to keep the network semi-private. In my experience this is running a semi-private invite-only self hosted forum. In reality none of this is required for P2P however.

Re: IPv6 is the only way forward

#280

Post by eqvinox »

fulafel wrote: post #216
artooro wrote: post #203

I'm surprised how few people are talking about ULAs. For any home network where you don't have a reserved global address space from your ISP, it makes sense to configure a ULA on your router and use it for all internal hosts, and the ISP assigned address is only used for Internet access. This does not require NAT/Npt and you have the best of both worlds.

If you want to have an airgapped network, sure. For most people it doesn't make sense. You'll just get the worst of of both worlds.

You're supposed to use them in parallel, not as an alternative.
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