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The IPv6 Transition

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215 points todsacerdoti | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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hairyplanter ◴[] No.41893537[source]
I have fully implemented IPv6 in my home network.

I have even implemented an IPv6-Only network. It fully works, including accessing IPv4 only websites like github.com via DNS64 and NAT64 at my router.

The only practically useful thing about my IPv6 enabled network is that I can run globally routable services on my lan, without NAT port mapping. Of course, only if the client is also IPv6.

Other than this one use case, IPv6 does nothing for me.

It doesn't work from most hotels, nor from my work lan, nor many other places because most "managed" networks are IPv4 only. It works better at Cafes because they are "unmanaged" and IPv6 is enabled by the most common ISPs, like ATT and Comcast and their provided routers.

Based on this experience, I think IPv6 is less valuable than us HN audience thinks it is. Private networks, NAT, Carrier Grade NAT are good enough, and internet really doesn't care about being completely peer-to-peer.

I think the adoption rate reflects this--it's a linear growth curve over the last 25 years. It should have been exponential.

I think cost of IPv4 reflects this--it is now below the peak, and has leveled off.

As surprising as it seems, IPv4 exhaustion has not been a serious problem. Internet marches on. IPv6 is still a solution looking for a problem, and IPv4 exhaustion wasn't one of them.

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erinaceousjones ◴[] No.41893711[source]
Fun reasons why my home network is still on IPv4: IPv6 drains my girlfriend's phone battery :-)

Something to do with Router Advertisement intervals being too short, though I don't get why that only affects her ~5yo android phone. And IPv6 is so complex, I haven't figured out if the RA interval is something I can or should tweak, whether that comes from the PiHole or whether I'd have to flash OpenWRT on my router, or whether my ISP ultimately controls that upstream. Like, I can't figure out as easily where the boundary between me and "the internet" ends with things like the /64 prefixes and SLAAC and RDNSS and all the other acronyms.

Yeah, yeah, I should RTFM, and eventually I might figure out what makes a "good" home IPv6 network. But I can't be arsed to do that in my free time yet, and neither can most software companies cough cough Google/Android and that one guy causing IPv6 drama in the android team

Like.... Ehhh... I'll come back to it in a few more years. "Are we IPv6 yet?"

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1. BonoboIO ◴[] No.41898588[source]
Never would have guessed that ipv6 could be a battery drain