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The Internet Technology

IPv6 Success Stories? 67

Posted by Cliff from the it-will-happen-when-it-happens dept.
DonGar asks: "We've been hearing how IPv6 will save the world, and we've been hearing about how it will never happen. But can anyone give us real world results about what heppens after they convert? In particular, I'm wondering about small networks (home and/or small business). What ISP support commonly exists, and how much does it really matter? How many people are using ONLY IPv6, instead of both IPv4 and IPv6. What devices/applications/OS's cause the most problems with this? What things work, what breaks, and how much work is it to do the conversion? How hard is it to run things like web and email servers that need to reachable from anywhere? From a real world perspective, what do we need to know that isn't mentioned here?"
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IPv6 Success Stories? More

IPv6 Success Stories?

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  • Which begs the question... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tuxinatorium ( 463682 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @05:25PM (#7955961) Homepage
    What's the point in using IPv6 on small private networks? It's a whole lot of work for absolutely no benefit.

    • Re:Which begs the question... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by andrewl6097 ( 633663 ) * on Monday January 12, 2004 @05:29PM (#7956001)
      Sure there's a benefit: it's cool! After I found out how /insanely/ easy it is to port things to IPv6, I added IPv6 addresses on all the machines in my home network. It's really not that much work, you just add the IP with ifconfig like anything else. Now, home networks are easy because there's no complicated switches needed(we have a hub, which doesn't really know about IP as far as I can tell given that it works fine with IPv6 even though the hub dates from when 10baseT hubs were expensive and cool).

      • Re:Which begs the question... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by andrewl6097 ( 633663 ) * on Monday January 12, 2004 @05:32PM (#7956028)
        Oh, and I'll also note that the IPv6 addresses I use are /shorter/ than IPv4 addresses - fec0::1, fec0::2, etc.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @07:09PM (#7957188)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • not only does the hub work at layer 1, that it does this means it works below mac addressing and ip addressing. Which means it makes no decisions on who gets what. It recieves a frame and FLOODS EVERY PORT, since SOMEONE must have the intended destination MAC address, right? the hub only works because it forwards everything it touches to everything connected to it. A 10mb hub is so horrendously evil, it isn't worth it. Get a switch, less traffic, cleaner, smarter system. And maybe move to 100mb.
        • the layers dont care about eachother.

          Ah, if only that were true...
      • Of course your hub/switch work with IPv6, the only protocol your hub/switch care about is ethernet, IP rides on top of ethernet.

        • Let's put an end to this... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Pii ( 1955 )
          (This is a reply to you, but mostly to all of the other ignorance I'm seeing, so don't take it personally.)

          A "hub" doesn't care about ethernet.

          It cares only about electricity. A hub is a Layer 1 device.

          It doesn't know anything about Frames (Layer 2), nor Packets (Layer 3), nor Transports (UDP or TCP, Layer 4), nor Sessions (Layer 5), nor Presentation (Layer 6), and is not the least bit concerned with the Application (Layer 7).

          It's only concerned with electrical signalling. It's a shared bus... Th

      • One could also ask why run IPv4 on a small home network?

        Hell, why have a network at home. One machine with IP is enough. I can run NetBeui on the others, right?
        (ok, I'm MS free here with a dozen machines, so beui's out)

        Effort to setup IPv6? Not really more than it took you to learn IPv4. You figured out what a netmask is right?

        It means my machines speak IPv6 to other machines that speak IPv6 and are reachable by IPv6. Otherwise, all apps back down to IPv4 and use that.

        transition to IPv6? More e

    • Well, of course it is needed for those of us with more than 4 billion tech gadgets!

      Truthfully, IPv6 really needs to be at the ISP level before it is of any use to the end user. When the ISPs start to use it, then they can give each customer a block of 1000 static IPs...and then you will have to figure out what you are going to use 1000 static addresses for...
      • ...and then you will have to figure out what you are going to use 1000 static addresses for...

        My server, my laptop, my cellphone, my PDA, my Game Boy, my coffee machine, my graphing calculator, my car, my watch...
        • Then it'll just be that much easier for trolls to evade IP bans. It won't really be of any use to the average consumer. It's already no problem for any number of nome networked comps/devices to share the same internet IP address through a DSL router and a $20 8-way 100mbit switch. It's just plug and play & it works, if you're on windows. Oh wait... This is a linix site. Well that's your problem.

          • Re:Which begs the question... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Jahf ( 21968 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @06:53PM (#7957028) Journal
            1) That all works just fine on Linux, too. Has for years. If you take a look back in shared IP (aka NAT) history, you'll find Linux has understood alot of ways to do that longer than Windows. Though some complicated things may be easier to set up under Windows now than on Linux, I'd be surprised if, stacking the latest Windows against the latest Red Hat / Gentoo / Mandrake / SuSE, there was anything related to networking that Windows can do that Linux can't. Problem solved :)

            2) The average consumer is stuck on IPv4 accessories and applications right now. Of course IPv6 rolling out tomorrow won't help them today. The average consumer never makes use of a new technology immediately. The idea is to make it -possible- so that the average end user will get benefit from it in the future.

            3) IPv6 doesn't have to make it easier for trolls to evade IP bans as long as there is a standardized block size made available to individual users -or- as long as some form of CIDR-like registration is used.

            Perhaps this is a new tool someone should create. A system that lets you look up what size an IPv6 block is. It should probably point back to the ISP / company that owns the "master" block. In other words, it doesn't need to have any personal information about the person who is using that block (assuming a smaller block is assigned to it), just the range that is owned by that user so that allow / deny rules can be written properly.

            An ISP who sets up individual user accounts could have a standard size, so that they simply go in and set up in advance the information rather than having to add it each time they get a new user. If a sub-block does not show up, then people write bans against the entire ISP block, which encourages participation :)

            Coming from someone who used to have to assign and re-assign subnet ownership for an ISP, they already do work like this ... this system could be a much simpler one than what exists now for IPv4 while retaining it's value. I know of a couple of times I've had to look up a block of addresses to ban a user and this would also be valuable for things like spam-holes, etc.

            That is, assuming that routing doesn't go back to the ways before of users aquiring netblocks and then having their ISP route them (instead of ISPs aquiring netblocks and subnetting them to customers). However even if that is eventually the method (and I believe that was part of the idea behind having so many addresses in IPv6) that just makes it easier to look up block owners and ban entire blocks.

            As long as you don't mind a little bit of heavy handedness.
        • >> ...and then you will have to figure out what you are going to use 1000 static addresses for...

          > My server, my laptop, my cellphone, my PDA, my Game Boy, my coffee machine, my graphing calculator, my car, my watch... ...my cat...
      • When the ISPs start to use it, then they can give each customer a block of 1000 static IPs...and then you will have to figure out what you are going to use 1000 static addresses for...

        For each of which they will charge you $5 per month. Don't think that they won't because they are "plentiful". Look how much you are paying for cable/satellite; a luxury item with no scarcity and basically zero-cost to add a customer.

        Sorry, NAT's not going away until ISP's stop treating us like consumers. (At least not fr

        • Re:Which begs the question... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ComputerSlicer23 ( 516509 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @07:28PM (#7957379)
          Yeah, but that first customer is really expensive.

          Also if you truely believe that "zero-cost" to add a customer, you should never go into business for yourself.

          It costs plenty to add a customer every time. More head ends, more trenchs, more cable. A lot of those are paid before you ask for service by the cable company as an investment. So technically they have already paid it by the time you get it hooked up, but that's because they footed the bill for you well ahead of time.

          Furthermore, the content that you get, costs them per subscriber. It costs them money to bill you, to do collections, to deal with you when you call and complain about service being crappy.

          Plus lots of things, like Cable have such huge costs, that they have to 5 million customers before they make a profit. Cover ongoing facilities costs.

          Billing works the way it does, because it is the most efficient way to for that good to be traded. It's a capitalist society, if you can make more money giving away cable and satalite feeds "because there is no cost to adding additional customers", then by all means go for it. I'm sure there's a VC out there if you have a good business plan.

          Kirby

          • That's all well and good, but -1, offtopic because you missed my point:

            IPv6 isn't going to eliminate NAT or be widely and quickly adopted because the ISP's are not going to allow you to have as many IP's as you can use simply because they will never run out.

            They will not give us a revenue stream just because technology has solved the problem that created the revenue stream.
            • Sorry, I debunked an obviously false statement you are using as the only support for your argument. So you can think it's offtopic if you want (which you are correct, this is way offtopic from IPv6 Success stories).

              Capitalistic society here in the US. All it takes is one or two ISP's to offer them for free. Hell, all it takes is a couple of ISP's. I mean, take your argument and apply it to 20 years ago to banks and checking:

              No one will ever offer free checking at banks. It's a good revenue stream,

              • (which you are correct, this is way offtopic from IPv6 Success stories).

                Touche.

                I mean, take your argument and apply it to 20 years ago to banks and checking: No one will ever offer free checking at banks. It's a good revenue stream, and they won't give it up. [...] I couldn't find a bank that would charge me for anything as long as I kept $500 in a checking or savings account.

                I'm afraid you have that completely backwards. Twenty years ago, you could get a checking account with no fees and no minim
        • I've never heard this stated, but I've always believed that for home broadband (not business), one of the reasons they charge for static IPs is that the people who want them tend to be highest bandwidth consumers.

          A way of charging for the extra bandwidth without admitting that bandwidth usage isn't unlimited.

          It's still bites, but it makes a limited amount of sense.
      • You can tunnel onto the ipv6 backbone and get your own ipv6 adresses without your ISP supporting it at all.
    • anything to get rid of nat is worth it...

    • Re:Which begs the question... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mellon ( 7048 ) * on Monday January 12, 2004 @06:11PM (#7956545) Homepage
      IPv6 has working link-local addresses. Right now this probably doesn't mean much, but I think it will as time goes on and people get tired of IPv4 link local addresses.

      IPv6 allows you to have more than one public IP address on your home network. You can go through an IPv6 tunnel broker to make your IPv6 network visible to the world.

      IPv6 isn't necessarily that far in the future in the U.S. For example, Speakeasy is claiming that they'll have IPv6 rolled out sometime in the March timeframe. I don't know how realistic that is, but it's certainly one of the reasons I'm sticking with Speakeasy - they seem to really have a clue. :']
    • Easy, because I have one IPv4 address, and I want to be able to ssh directly into machines behind the NAT box without having to ssh to the NAT box first.
  • They use IPv6 a lot in Japan.
    • dude, i hear they're also really huge in iceland
    • I was testing out IPv6 a little while back and it was cool cause it was a new "toy" but its not used by the "general public" which does not leave me with much to do other then that.

      Things are moving along here pretty fast (I got 2 Fibre-Optic lines for the price of broadband overseas) so IPv6 should be up and running and hopefully they will provide us with Free IP's cause paying for static IP on IPv4 sux :p

  • It WILL save the world (Score:4, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @05:27PM (#7955982)
    It just has to get in line behind flouridation, Dennis Kucinich, and hemp.

    • Re:It WILL save the world (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It just has to get in line behind flouridation, Dennis Kucinich, and hemp.

      "Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous commie plot we have ever had to face?"

  • I use IPv6 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Isomer ( 48061 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @05:47PM (#7956258) Homepage
    I use IPv6 for my home network, so I can ssh in from around the world directly into machines rather than having to SSH into the NAT gateway, then ssh into the machine behind the NAT that I want.

    In general IPv6 was pretty painless to setup, my biggest problems were caused by the fact I was using 6to4 which means my IPv6 addresses are based on my IPv4 address, which isn't static, so it took a bit of scripting to get everything to happen correctly when my v4 address changed (changing routes etc).

    Almost all application support v6 one way or another, however notably missing is Apache 1, you need extra patches to get IPv6 support, and most apache log analysers get confused with IP addresses with :'s in them.

    I'm surprised that Distro's don't enable v6 by default. (If you have a non-RFC1918 address, use 6to4, if you only have a RFC1918 addresses, use teredo).

    I've IPv6 enabled our local LUG server (http://www.wlug.org.nz/), you get a dancing penguin for the logo if you use v6.

    • Re:I use IPv6 (Score:2, Interesting)

      by heliocentric ( 74613 ) *
      In general IPv6 was pretty painless to setup, my biggest problems were caused by the fact I was using 6to4 which means my IPv6 addresses are based on my IPv4 address, which isn't static, so it took a bit of scripting to get everything to happen correctly when my v4 address changed (changing routes etc).

      Care to write a how-to? You have a /. journal as well as that LUG that you can link to. I know I'm interested in not re-inventing the wheel and perhaps there are others, too.

    • Re:I use IPv6 (Score:3, Informative)

      by blate ( 532322 )
      FreeBSD enables IPV6 by default. I personally find this annoying since I don't use it or need it, and so when I recompile my kernel, I remove the options INET6 (or whatever it's called). Otherwise, utilities like netstat spit out a bunch of useless (to me) garbage that I don't care about.

      Before you flame me, I think IPV6 is a great thing and I look forward to the day when it will be widely-deployed in the US. I just don't have much need for it in my present work.

    • Re:I use IPv6 (Score:5, Informative)

      by jaredmauch ( 633928 ) <jared@puck.nether.net> on Monday January 12, 2004 @08:43PM (#7958019) Homepage
      I'm surprised that Distro's don't enable v6 by default. (If you have a non-RFC1918 address, use 6to4, if you only have a RFC1918 addresses, use teredo).

      Most do actually. They generally configure themselves via autoconf. Here's an example from one of my systems:
      ifconfig -a
      vx0: flags=8843 mtu 1500
      inet 204.42.254.5 netmask 0xffffffc0 broadcast 204.42.254.63
      inet6 fe80::2a0:24ff:fe83:53d8%vx0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
      inet6 2001:418:3f4:0:2a0:24ff:fe83:53d8 prefixlen 64 autoconf
       It even has a v6 web server (apache) running on it. (go ahead, try to /. [nether.net] it ;-)

      This requires a router that sends autoconf messages (eg: a cisco or juniper router will do) as well as the various autoconf features (router discovery, using a /64 mask, etc..) unless you wish to statically configure your IPv6.

      It removes DHCP from the equation. Of course if you're like me and swap out ethernet cards periodically (assuming you're not using the privacy extensions available for starters) you do see your address shift as it's based on the hardware address.

      With posts yesterday about IPv6 being enabled by default in longhorn, and me seeing more people starting to ask for IPv6 connectivity (eg: DoD) as well as service offerings picking up, I expect it to become a bit more commonplace.

      There are a few issues. Some providers for load balancers have had troubles with dns queries. I've seen my own bank as well as some major router vendors (that have IPv6 offerings) break their servers (ftp, web) periodically for those people who are running dual-stack IPv6 and v4. They just don't understand what this IN AAAA query is, and respond with the wrong error code, or just time out.

      This tells me that we're quite some distance away from being able to see IPv6 as truly viable. I also don't see 6to4 tunneling as being viable in the long term either. We're going to see a dual-stack internet and those providers that have been reluctant to enable new technologies are going to continue on their paths until there is a compelling reason to provide the service (eg: lost sales/business, or a marketing reason "don't use XXX's internet service, you won't get access to the FULL [v4 & v6] internet".

      Mostly today it's for the (never seen here) geek factor, but in my job at a major ISP, we're seeing increased customer demand for our IPv6 service offering not only here in the US but in Europe and Asia as well.

      • Most do actually. They generally configure themselves via autoconf.

        Sorry, I wasn't clear, I meant that distro's should enable 6to4 (or perhaps teredo[1]) on a machine, if it has a realworld IPv4 address, but no globally scoped v6 addresses.

        [1]: Are there Teredo clients for Linux/BSD? Or just windows?

    • One thing I haven't figured out yet -- how do you choose your IPv6 address(es)? With IPv4, your ISP gives you an address (or several, or a block). So how does a home user choose addresses that nobody else is using? Via your ISP still?
      • You can get a tunnel from a tunnel broker.

        Given a IPv4 address you can use all the addresses in 2002:::/48 (yep, thats 2**(128-48) addresses per IPv4 address...), This is called "6to4"

        • Hmm, perhaps not the clearest.

          You can get IPv6 addresses by signing up with a tunnel broker near you.

          You can *also* get IPv6 addresses by using 6to4. For an IPv4 address, you get 2002:::/48 as a network to assign IPv6 addresses out of.
      • When IPv6 is mainstream, it works in the same way as IPv4 did. Your ISP gives you your IP addresses. The big problem today is that IPv4 addresses are valuable, your ISP will give you as few as possible and often dynamic. If you have more than one device on your network you will probably have to use NAT to get Internet connectivity to all devices, but that means the NATed devices can't fully utilize the net.

        IPv6 brings a new addressing system. The first 64 bits of the address is "the address to your network

        • It is important to note that there is a standard for using your ethernet MAC address as (with minor alteration) as the last 48 bits, so a single prefix could potentially contain every ethernet device ever made, with room for role based (assigned) addresses as well (In fact, an entire internet worth of those).

          That should leave some ISPs desperatly struggling to find a way to lock you into a single address and technically justify it (since "Because we're cheap bastard control freaks" is a poor sales point).

    • So, when exactly are we adding IPv6 support to ircu? ;)

      *goes to hide from their "boss"*

  • In Windows XP...
    Start->Run->cmd->install ipv6

    Install complete.

    Success!
  • Are there any dedicated IPv6 routers that don't cost huge amounts of money?
  • I've been using IPv6 for nearly three years now, and all of my hosting has been available via IPv6 since September, 2001. Sure, most ISPs don't do native IPv6, so we have to set up tunnels and whathaveyou, but it's not that hard at all.

    Where it really shines is with local networks which normally use NAT. Set up a tunnel on the gateway, run rtadvd, and plug-and-play with any computer with a modern OS. Mac OS X was actually TOO easy - I spent an hour looking for docs on how to set it up, only to find out it
  • ipv6 it's all good'n stuff but where can i find software that will enable ipv6 support for older computers ?
    In the lines of:
    - 68k Mac running MacOS 7.5
    - 486 running MSDOS w/ cygwnr Packet Driver
    - 486/pentium running win95/98
    • "HI I'm going to insist on running old software and want support for it retroactively."

      You can get support for older computers. You may have issues with older software. Just like getting TCP/IPv4 support was a PITA before 1990.

      Dude, try to get IPv4 onto Mac's System 4. Oh that's right, it was kind of a big PITA. TCP/IP(4) in Windows 3.0? You *could* go buy it, I guess.

      - 68030 MacCI running OpenBSD (with IPv6)
      - 486/133 running FreeBSD (With IPv6)
      - SPARC 2 running NetBSD or OpenBSD (with IPv6)
      - S

    • try trumpet software:http://www.trumpet.com.au/ipv6.htm
  • I was charged with migrating 40 Sun workstations previously in their own lab on their own switch for speed and security reasons, into a new facility and a lab with over 100 win2000 boxen and was told I had to utilize their switch for cost-cutting reasons.

    So I turned on the ip6 stack in Solaris and within about 7 hours had all workstations running NFS/SSH/KERBEROS and setup an intel box running freebsd/KAME to utilize ip6-to-ip4 conversion for HTTP/SOCKS/SQUID etc.

    ip6 just plain works. - Don't believe the

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