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The IPv6 Transition

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215 points todsacerdoti | 6 comments | 20 Oct 24 05:54 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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hairyplanter ◴[20 Oct 24 07:13 UTC] 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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BrandoElFollito ◴[20 Oct 24 07:37 UTC] No.41893647[source]▶
I had to reluctantly deploy ipv6 on my home network because of ISP requirements + will to use pihole.

Ipv6 is hard. I had to learn quite a bit to make it work and not only I see no value, but it is significantly more difficult to use dire to the address length.

I think IPv6 is a missed opportunity, it was probably designed by experts that did not take into account the population that will use it (not the one users who do not care, but the layer above them)

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1. pmarreck ◴[21 Oct 24 12:27 UTC] No.41903427[source]▶
The biggest design failure of IPv6 is that it was not designed to be backwards-compatible with IPv4. Technologies with established user bases need to evolve with backwards compatibility if they want to take advantage of existing network effects.
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2. growse ◴[21 Oct 24 13:01 UTC] No.41903708[source]▶
This comment shows up like clockwork.

How does a device with a 32-bit-sized addressing scheme construct an IP packet to a device with an address in a 128-bit-sized addressing scheme?

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3. GoblinSlayer ◴[21 Oct 24 14:01 UTC] No.41904260[source]▶
It could work like 4 socks requests wrapped in each other like onion. But LAN services wouldn't need to care about long addressing as they don't need to cross network boundary, while letting everything else use new approach, so you could use old stuff without changing anything and there would be no need for new ip6 drivers with new vulnerabilities that are yet to be fixed.
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4. WorldMaker ◴[21 Oct 24 18:45 UTC] No.41907097[source]▶
I also appreciated how much the linked article is adamant that IPv6 is what you get when all you do is increase the addressing size. There were wilder alternatives discussed that broke more things or took a more progressive stance. Part of the "there's no compelling 'use case' for IPv6" is that it really doesn't do anything new or exciting, it just increased the address size, and then dealt with the consequences (including "lack of backward compatibility", that was always going to be a consequence of increasing the address size).
5. WorldMaker ◴[21 Oct 24 18:48 UTC] No.41907127{3}[source]▶
There have been tunneling protocols and systems for IPv6 since nearly the beginning of IPv6. The ability to tunnel it hasn't solved all the "backwards compatibility" complaints for IPv6.

Same for network address translation, both NAT46 and NAT64 standards have existed for a while now and that also hasn't solved the "backwards compatibility" complaints for IPv6.

6. Dagger2 ◴[22 Oct 24 00:25 UTC] No.41909968{3}[source]▶
But no v4 devices support this "four socks requests wrapped like an onion" thing you're proposing, so how would they work with it?