[AusNOG] IPv6

Fri Mar 27 13:42:44 EST 2015

So based off of some off-list correspondence, I've realised this might have been a bit short and appeared overly critical. In part it was short because I (and others) are tired of hearing this "IPv4 should have been made compatible with IPv6" argument, as it is probably the most commonly stated one.

My fundamental point is that when the apparently simple and apparently obvious solution ("backward compatibility with IPv4") hasn't been chosen, then it is likely that the problem is far harder to solve than you realise. That is a sign to investigate further to gain a better understanding of the problem.

In the context of IPv6, I would consider "IPv4 backward compatibility" to mean that IPv4 applications can operate over IPv6 without modification, without awareness of IPv6 and without any impact from running over IPv6. That is fundamentally impossible to do because it isn't possible to encode 128 bit IPv6 addresses in 32 bit IPv4 addresses without losing IPv6 addressing information.

There are a number of IPv6 to IPv4 and vice-versa transition mechanisms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_transition_mechanisms), however none of them are completely "backward compatible". They're all imperfect because they suffer from problems that native IPv4 or native IPv6 applications don't. Some of their limitations can be overcome, however they still will have fundamental limitations that native IPv4 or native IPv6 applications don't.

________________________________
From: Mark ZZZ Smith <markzzzsmith at yahoo.com.au>
To: Chris Hurley <chris at minopher.net.au>; "ausnog at lists.ausnog.net" <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net> 
Sent: Friday, 27 March 2015, 10:41
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] IPv6

I'm afraid you are wrong. If you don't understand why, then you don't really understand the problem.

________________________________
From: Chris Hurley <chris at minopher.net.au>
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net 
Sent: Thursday, 26 March 2015, 23:13
Subject: [AusNOG] IPv6

I could be wrong (and I have been before ;-), but the biggest mistake in IP6 was not making it backward compatible with IP4. Hence the resistance to take it up. 

Yes there are some good technical agruements with substance as to why we should make the quantum leap. But they forget the human lag factor. I.e it's not broken don't fix,  It costs money, where's my return etc.  

That being said and the fact we have now "exhausted" IP4 addresses, what are the realistic options? Bare in mind consumers/companies only really care about "Do I have internet access". They neither know or care about the IP. They just want their porn, don't laugh. Given the number of outside hours clients trying to get support all to true.

Personally I thought the NBN was the perfect vehicle to mandate IP6, but the powers that be said you can run what ever you like eg AppleTalk for all we care. Seriously you want 21st Century tech but prepared to run old technology. 

Mind you people have been talking about this issue for many years.

Regards,

Chris Hurley BE (Elec), MBA
Director

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From:  Michael Biber <mbiber at ipv6forum.com.au>
Organization:  IPv6 Forum Australia
Reply-To:  <mbiber at ipv6forum.com.au>
Date:  Thursday, 26 March 2015 1:53 PM
To:  "'Beeson, Ayden'" <ABeeson at csu.edu.au>, <kris at cloudcentral.com.au>, "ausnog at lists.ausnog.net" <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject:  Re: [AusNOG] Data Retention and CGNAT - educational exercise

Here’s a list of IPv6 Only web sites.
http://ipv6.cybernode.com/list-of-ipv6-only-sites
It’s only reachable via IPv6 though 8^)

I was told there are Indian government web sites and gaming servers that are only reachable via v6 but I can’t verify that. Also quite a few dark sites I imagine.
Most everything is dual stacked.

Mike Biber
IPv6now

From:AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Beeson, Ayden
Sent: Thursday, 26 March 2015 9:58 AM
To: 'kris at cloudcentral.com.au'; 'ausnog at lists.ausnog.net'
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Data Retention and CGNAT - educational exercise

(Disclaimer: Apologies, I’m going to be “that guy” and argue against that line. Don’t take this email as a flame, it’s more about correcting a misconception that seems to be quite prevalent and I understand there are a lot of factors that go into deploying / not deploying IPv6 now that I will not cover.)

That statement is part of the problem IMHO and I’ve seen it multiple times on this list and elsewhere.

IPv6 won’t go anywhere until the majority get it turned on. It has no direct technical relation to IPv4 other than being the replacement for it.  Blaming a lack of IPv6 deployment progress on “IPv4 not being broken yet” is self-defeating, it’s the same as saying “my water pipes still work even though they have a few big cracks leaking, why should the council replace them until the water completely stops flowing?” or “nobody else bothers to put rubbish in a bin, so I won’t either, plus I invented this new thing to add onto my shoes to make me higher to keep out of all the litter on the ground, everybody else needs to buy some now too”

Unfortunately CGNAT is now a requirement for a lot of companies, due in large part to a lack of progress on IPv6, but it doesn’t go both ways. But as has been said before, most users don’t understand or care how their internet connection works, just that it does, so the onus is on the ISP’s etc. to push these things along for the benefit of everybody. Again as has been said, there is very little commercial incentive to do this, but it’s really going to be minimal capex to implement with very little additional opex spending so it shouldn’t be as big a cost issue as it may seem, at least for basic connectivity for servers etc.

Obviously we can’t argue “don’t do CGNAT” now, we are well past that, but I would say that anybody looking at or doing CGNAT should at least have an IPv6 deployment plan they are actively progressing, even if it’s slowly.

The problem with IPv4 is that we can continue to do CGNAT theoretically indefinitely, though the logging required will continue to increase and the port ranges that are allowed for per user will continue to shrink until it becomes practically untenable. The issue is in the meantime we are stifling innovation and strangling available uses for the internet. In the next few years we will see a continued explosion of devices that will need IPv6 to be able to truly be used to their full potential, but a lot of those will just continue to not work or be underutilised until the network under them has the capacity to handle them gracefully.

On the topic of IPv6 only hosts, I have heard there are ISP’s in China and Europe that are doing this but I have nothing concrete, anybody know if that’s fact or not / have a link? I suspect given I can’t find any info at all it’s not real, but I’d be interested to know…

TL;DR – IPv6 only works when everybody does IPv6, do CGNAT if you have to, but make it clear to your management (or to yourself) that’s it’s not a long term strategy and make sure you have some sort of IPv6 plan being worked on for everybody’s sake.

Thanks,
Ayden Beeson 

From:AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Kristoffer Sheather @ CloudCentral
Sent: Thursday, 26 March 2015 8:50 AM
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Data Retention and CGNAT - educational exercise

IPv6 won't go anywhere until IPv4 doesn't work anymore.  That day is not today despite the numerous arguments and flames I expect to receive subsequent to this message.

Regards,
Kristoffer Sheather

________________________________

From: "Scott Weeks" <surfer at mauigateway.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2015 8:42 AM
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Data Retention and CGNAT - educational exercise

> Reduce the amount of data to zero - put this energy into
> deploying IPv6 instead of CG-NAT. You know you should.
> You know you can.

:: Oh boy, I am so sick of people harping on like this. I
:: challenge you to run one single internet customer IPv6
:: only (no translations) and see how long it lasts. Just

Dual stack is not doable? I thought that's what he meant
by deploy IPv6. Maybe I need more beer? Again? ;-)

scott

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