It's not. I learned how IPv6 worked SO LONG AGO that I really can't understand remaining confusion.
It's not complicated because you understand it? Okay then
Why IPv6 is so complicated
31–40 of 519 posts
Re: Why IPv6 is so complicated
#32if it was easier to use and less of a PITA, it wouldn't be taking decades.
If anything, IPv6 is extremely easy to use, especially with SLAAC: On any kind of standard network, you turn on IPv6 on your machine, and, given physical connectivity, bam! You're on the internet. It only gets complex if you try to micro-manage it.
the internet, in very large volume, disagrees. Am I not allowed to document the widely held common sentiment?
Re: Why IPv6 is so complicated
#33Re: Why IPv6 is so complicated
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
If anything, IPv6 is extremely easy to use, especially with SLAAC: On any kind of standard network, you turn on IPv6 on your machine, and, given physical connectivity, bam! You're on the internet. It only gets complex if you try to micro-manage it.
> especially with SLAAC Oh no, last time I asked on HN I got 24 to 48 easy steps involving a lot more acronyms than this (please don't repeat them). IPv6 is easy to use only if you let your one router manage everything and you give up control of your home network. Edit: again, please don't help. There have been HNers trying to help before, but my home network is non trivial and all the "easy" autoconfiguration actual…
There are no more acronyms. SLAAC means automatic client configuration. That's the only one you need.
> give up control of your home network.
What does that even mean? What do you gain by deciding your Apple TV should be at 192.168.0.3? With IPv6, you can just `ping appletv` and it works fine. What more "control" do you need?
Re: Why IPv6 is so complicated
#35This annoys me, especially the last “It takes at least 25 years” rhetoric. It didn’t take 25 years for SSL. SSH. Gzip encoding on HTTP pages. QUIC. Web to replace NNTP. GPRS/HSDPA/3G/4G/5G They all rolled out just fine and were pretty backwards and forwards compatible with each other. The whole SLAAC/DHCPv6/RA thing is a total clusterfuck. I’m sure there’s many reasons that’s the case but my god. What does your ISP s…
> It didn’t take 25 years for SSL. SSH. Gzip encoding on HTTP pages. QUIC. Web to replace NNTP. GPRS/HSDPA/3G/4G/5G They all rolled out just fine and were pretty backwards and forwards compatible with each other.
You're comparing incremental rollout with migratory rollout for most of these; (not the mobile phone standards.) That's apples and oranges.
You can argue for other proposals. But at the end of the day the best you could've done is steal bits from TCP and UDP port numbers, which is... NAT. Other than that if you want to make a serious claim you need to do the work (or find and understand other people's work. It's not that people haven't tried before. They just failed.)
And, ultimately, this is quite close to typical political problems. Unpopular choices have to be made, for the benefit of all, but people don't like them especially in the short term so they don't get voted for.
> If they’d designed something that was easy to understand, […]
I can't argue on this since it's been far too long since I had to begin understanding IPv4 or IPv6… bane of experience, I guess.
> […] not too hard to implement quickly and easily, […]
As someone actually writing code for routers, IPv6 is easier in quite a few regards, especially link-local addresses make life so much easier. (Yet they're also a frequent point of hate. I absolutely cannot agree with that based on personal experience, like, it's not even within my window of possible opinions.)
> […] expected humans to parse hex […]
You're assuming hex is worse than decimal with binary ranges. Why? Of course it's clear to you that the numbers go to 256 because you're a tech person. But if you know that, you very likely also know hex. (And I'll claim the disjunct sets between these are the same size magnitude.)
Anyway I think I've bulletpointed enough, there's arguments to be made, and they have been made 25 years ago, and 20 years ago, and 15 years ago, and 10 years ago and 5 years ago.
Please, just stop. The herd is moving. If anything had enough sway, it would've had enough sway 15 years ago. Learn some IPv6. There's cool things in there. For example, did you know you can "ping ff02::1%eth0"?
Re: Why IPv6 is so complicated
#36This is not very substantive, but rather procedural, like this example of an answer doesn't tell you much, but tells you the official paper IDs:
> Actually, we tried that: the "IPv4-Compatible IPv6 address" format was defined in {{RFC3513}} but deprecated by {{RFC4291}} because it turned out to be of no practical use for coexistence or transition.
Why/how did it turn out?
Re: Why IPv6 is so complicated
#37My first IPv6 implementation was in 2010-2011 (memory a but fuzzy). Carriers supporting BGP over IPv6 were few, websites over IPv6 were also scarce.
Fast forward 15 years snd the situation has improved quite dramatically.
IPv6 has some quirks that make it harder to digest.
- link local gateway address, makes it hard to understand why the subnet does not have a gateway from the ssme address space
- privacy extensions: it is very hard to explain to people why they have 3-4 IPv6 addresses assigned to their computer
- multicast instead of broadcast
- way too many ways for autoconfiguration (SLAAC, DHCPv6)
- no real tentative mapping to what people were used to. Every IPv6 presentation I did had to start with “forget everything you know about IPv4”
In the enterprise space, if you mention globally reachable address space, the discussion tends to end pretty fast because “its not secure”. Those people love their NAT.
Re: Why IPv6 is so complicated
#38This annoys me, especially the last “It takes at least 25 years” rhetoric. It didn’t take 25 years for SSL. SSH. Gzip encoding on HTTP pages. QUIC. Web to replace NNTP. GPRS/HSDPA/3G/4G/5G They all rolled out just fine and were pretty backwards and forwards compatible with each other. The whole SLAAC/DHCPv6/RA thing is a total clusterfuck. I’m sure there’s many reasons that’s the case but my god. What does your ISP s…
> Instead they expected humans to parse hex, which no one does Of all aspects of IPv6 you took the only one that doesn't complicate implementations and can easily be swapped if you wanted.
Wait til you’ve got to copy & paste em, or see em comingled with hw addresses
Re: Why IPv6 is so complicated
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
If anything, IPv6 is extremely easy to use, especially with SLAAC: On any kind of standard network, you turn on IPv6 on your machine, and, given physical connectivity, bam! You're on the internet. It only gets complex if you try to micro-manage it.
So, like ipv4, but you lose the protection and privacy afforded by the NAT?
NAT is not a security device. A firewall, which will be part of any sane router's NAT implementation, is a security device. NAT is not a firewall, but is often part of one.
Any sane router also uses a firewall for IPv6. A correctly configured router will deny inbound traffic for both v4 and v6. You are not less secure on IPv6.
Re: Why IPv6 is so complicated
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
If anything, IPv6 is extremely easy to use, especially with SLAAC: On any kind of standard network, you turn on IPv6 on your machine, and, given physical connectivity, bam! You're on the internet. It only gets complex if you try to micro-manage it.
the internet, in very large volume, disagrees. Am I not allowed to document the widely held common sentiment?
You are allowed to state your opinion, as am I. My issue with your opinion is that is grounded in false belief and a lack of knowledge, and rehashing it here reproduces those opinions in others.