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16 Years with IPv6

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Re: 16 Years with IPv6

#51

Post by j_s »

lmm wrote: post #44
ec109685 wrote: post #42

IPv6 is not a requirement in all situations. At most enterprises need IPv6 at their edge to avoid traffic flowing through carrier grade nats. Internally private IPv4, plus nats for egress are generally fine for most use cases.

Internal IPv6 is much cleaner though, and less prone to failures (e.g. anyone VPNing in from a coffee shop that uses the same private IPv4 range will have a bad time). If you've already gone to the effort of getting IPv6 to the edge, surely at that point it's worth pushing it all the way through.

VPN from the same subnet simply doesn't work at all on Macs built-in VPN client, last time I looked into it. Windows built-in VPN client hasn't had a problem dealing with this for a long time.

Re: 16 Years with IPv6

#52

Post by bluejekyll »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #49
bluejekyll wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, this analogy is awkward. Definitely agree that it's taken a lot longer to become standard than I would like. I was discussing this with a coworker today, and we were reflecting on a similar technical rollout that really did take of. The various ascii encodings -> UTF8. This was a big shift at the time and took a lot of time to fix. In fact I know of one large DB that, after a huge amount of outreach with customer…

> but in general it is not solving a problem most people have (yet). I don't think that that's actually true. People have massive problems due to NAT and overlapping address ranges and stuff ... but it's just commonly accepted as the way IP works, people don't realize that they could just deploy IPv6 and do away with all those problems.

Some people sure. But it's nowhere near the number of people that UTF8 solved for.

It would definitely make people's network connectivity simpler and less error prone, but I just don't see it as a huge pressing need.

If NATs didn't exist at all, then this would have been such a huge issue that it would have been needed. For most though, NAT is generally good enough.

Re: 16 Years with IPv6

#53

Post by WorldMaker »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #49
bluejekyll wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, this analogy is awkward. Definitely agree that it's taken a lot longer to become standard than I would like. I was discussing this with a coworker today, and we were reflecting on a similar technical rollout that really did take of. The various ascii encodings -> UTF8. This was a big shift at the time and took a lot of time to fix. In fact I know of one large DB that, after a huge amount of outreach with customer…

> but in general it is not solving a problem most people have (yet). I don't think that that's actually true. People have massive problems due to NAT and overlapping address ranges and stuff ... but it's just commonly accepted as the way IP works, people don't realize that they could just deploy IPv6 and do away with all those problems.

Also, most mobile carriers have been solving real device addressing problems with IPv6 for a few years now. In the mobile space IPv6 is the present, and the transition has been mostly seamless enough most people haven't noticed outside some early hiccups.

Re: 16 Years with IPv6

#54

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

bluejekyll wrote: post #52
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but in general it is not solving a problem most people have (yet). I don't think that that's actually true. People have massive problems due to NAT and overlapping address ranges and stuff ... but it's just commonly accepted as the way IP works, people don't realize that they could just deploy IPv6 and do away with all those problems.

Some people sure. But it's nowhere near the number of people that UTF8 solved for. It would definitely make people's network connectivity simpler and less error prone, but I just don't see it as a huge pressing need. If NATs didn't exist at all, then this would have been such a huge issue that it would have been needed . For most though, NAT is generally good enough.

I am not all that sure about that, really.

I guess for most simple home users, it's currently not a huge pressing issue, true. But anything beyond that and you constantly run into issues. And that includes home users who also have to use some VPN to their workplace ...

But that does not mean that NAT really is good enough, it just means that deployed systems nowadays just take it as a given that NAT exists, and any technology that isn't compatible with NAT simply doesn't exist. Which makes it less of a pressing issue in a way, but that does not mean that it doesn't still cause huge costs even to home users in terms of missed opportunities of a NAT-free world.

Re: 16 Years with IPv6

#55

Post by bluejekyll »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #54
bluejekyll wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people sure. But it's nowhere near the number of people that UTF8 solved for. It would definitely make people's network connectivity simpler and less error prone, but I just don't see it as a huge pressing need. If NATs didn't exist at all, then this would have been such a huge issue that it would have been needed . For most though, NAT is generally good enough.

I am not all that sure about that, really. I guess for most simple home users, it's currently not a huge pressing issue, true. But anything beyond that and you constantly run into issues. And that includes home users who also have to use some VPN to their workplace ... But that does not mean that NAT really is good enough, it just means that deployed systems nowadays just take it as a given that NAT exists, and any t…

I see that. And in general I agree with you. I think the only thing being debated here is the urgency of the change, and the harm being done to networks.

Many companies get away with NAT just fine; and that's the entire point. It works well enough that for many it's just not an urgent issue.

Like you said, it would make a lot of technology easier to deploy and build. The orthogonal comment about the Cellphone industry pushing the issue is right on the money. For them this significantly simplies their network management (which has tons of devices moving around). For laptops on wifi this would probably be better as well, but there so much is just solved by the fact that the Web is capable of tracking users across IPs with cookies.

Again I'm not arguing against IPv6; I'm just trying to better understand why it's deployment isn't being done as urgently as that of other things, like UTF8. I think the answer is in the fact that we've built so many workarounds that it stretched IPv4 well beyond its end-of-life.

Re: 16 Years with IPv6

#57

Post by awelkie »

It seems to me that there are disadvantages to widespread IPv6 adoption for some big companies. For example, storage providers like Dropbox or Google Drive would take a hit if I were able to send files via a direct connection to a friend's computer, which is possible with IPv6. Right now, the best way to send large files is to upload them somewhere and then send a link (dynamic DNS is also possible, but certainly not as easy to set up as simply being granted a globally routable IP address). Another example is for ISPs or anyone who sells static IP addresses (e.g. AWS); IPv6 means severely decreasing the scarsity of a resource that they own and profit from, which I'm sure they wouldn't like.

To generalize, I think IPv6 represents more freedom for end-users in the form of better p2p services, but I think it also represents a loss in profit for some large companies. These companies play a roll in the IPv6 rollout, so maybe it's not surprising that the rollout has been slower than expected.

Re: 16 Years with IPv6

#59

Post by bfred_it »

awelkie wrote: post #57

It seems to me that there are disadvantages to widespread IPv6 adoption for some big companies. For example, storage providers like Dropbox or Google Drive would take a hit if I were able to send files via a direct connection to a friend's computer, which is possible with IPv6. Right now, the best way to send large files is to upload them somewhere and then send a link (dynamic DNS is also possible, but certainly not…

There are plenty of methods for direct transfer already, I don't think a different IP (with its likely non-trivial setup) would make much of a difference for Dropbox.

Keep in mind that would you describe would require both computers to be on at the same time, and that often doesn't happen either.

Dropbox would be here to stay even in an IPv6 world.

Re: 16 Years with IPv6

#60

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

bluejekyll wrote: post #55
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not all that sure about that, really. I guess for most simple home users, it's currently not a huge pressing issue, true. But anything beyond that and you constantly run into issues. And that includes home users who also have to use some VPN to their workplace ... But that does not mean that NAT really is good enough, it just means that deployed systems nowadays just take it as a given that NAT exists, and any t…

I see that. And in general I agree with you. I think the only thing being debated here is the urgency of the change, and the harm being done to networks. Many companies get away with NAT just fine; and that's the entire point. It works well enough that for many it's just not an urgent issue. Like you said, it would make a lot of technology easier to deploy and build. The orthogonal comment about the Cellphone industr…

> I think the answer is in the fact that we've built so many workarounds that it stretched IPv4 well beyond its end-of-life.

Well, that is true in a way (I mean, without NAT (or something similar), there obviously would not be any way to keep going, so, yeah, in that sense, NAT has made things somewhat bearable instead of completely unworkable, thus making the migration to v6 less urgent).

But my point is that the reason why people (companies in particular) aren't migrating to a large extent seems to me to not be because it wouldn't be worth it for them, but rather that they lack the understanding to see that it would be. There are lots and lots of admins out there who operate IP networks and essentially have no clue of IP routing. They have grown up in a world of NAT, and just understand "the router" as "the public internet termination point" or whatever you want to call it. They don't even see NAT as a workaround, but as the obvious and natural state of affairs, because, what are you gonna do if you want to connect more than one machine to your internet connection? You need a router! And router is synonymous with NAT gateway, because that's why you need the router ... or something.

If your whole mindset doesn't even allow you to see the possibility of the natural state of the internet (i.e. end-to-end addressability of all participants), you won't ever notice all the workarounds that you are using. And if, say, port forwarding doesn't occur to you as being a workaround, but rather the obvious thing you just need to do to make some internal machine reachable from the outside, then you also never get the idea that IPv6 might be the solution. You just assume that IPv6 obviously also has to have port forwarding, because you still want to make internal machines reachable from the outside, don't you?

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