The reason, IMO, that IPv6 has not taken off is that it is far too complex. As a networking professional, it seems like an absolute nightmare, even if all equipment properly supported the protocol.
I still never understood why they couldn't just extend IPv4 by adding another octet, and then making all existing IPv4 addresses 0.{current_address}. This would give us about 1 trillion addresses and would make things dead simple.
We've been using IPv6 for nine years now, and have about 17 million nodes. After you get over the hump of seeing fdc2:d343:216f:0001:0213:50ff:fe10:1234:5678 instead of 10.17.25.4, it really is more elegant in almost every way over IPv4.
The only glitch that we ran into in the last nine years was a (self created) configuration error, where we statically added default gateways on hosts/servers that pointed to the router. Those Router IP addresses had been auto-generated VLAN MAC addresses, which where then concatenated with the IPv6 network /64.
Unfortunately, the Cisco routers we were using, generated those EUI-64 addresses for the vlans based on the order they were created - and, after a power cycle, they were created in the order they appeared in the configuration - and all of a sudden our servers no longer had valid routes.
Lesson learned - don't use static gateways on an IPv6 network, let your routers advertise themselves, and, if for some reason (possibly a bad one), you really, really want a static gateway , make sure you don't rely on the auto-EUI-64 generation ability of your router.
Other than that - the protocol has been an easy drop-in replacement for IPv4.
The "Why" of not just adding 0. to IPv4 - is that IPv6 does much more than just increase address length. First of all, it eliminates CIDR - which is the source of many network misconfigurations. All networks in IPv6 are /64s. Further to that, you get stateless address autoconfiguration - nodes can now determine their own address without having to rely on a stateful registry somewhere. Just concatenate the network+mac address (or random number for the privacy sensitive), and you have a routable IPv6 address.
Broadcast is eliminated - and solicited nodes multicast is a very elegant replacement for services like neighbor discovery (rough equivalent of IPv4 ARP)
I could go on - but, I don't know very many IPv6 network operators who dislike the protocol.
As a networking professional you should understand that 4 octets = 32 bits. Five octets would = 40 bits, which is a pretty weird thing to be shuffling around all the time. It would require the same kinds of changes to hardware that IPv6 requires, so why not not go all the way to 128 bit so we don't ever have to worry about it again.
I know that the standard way to state ipv4 is 2^32, as it does in the infographic, but isn't that inaccurate? since the 255 is not used, as well as many other reserved IP addresses, shouldn't an infographic actually get the exact IP addresses available, and not the theoretical number that anyone with a calculator can figure out?
10.0.0.255, 10.255.255.1, etc.. are valid ipv4 addresses. The only restriction in IPv4 is around not setting all of your host bits to 0 or 1. There are no restrictions regarding the number "255".
If I have to quibble with infographics like these, is that they obscure the fact that IPv4 was able to have variable length subnet masks, I.E. You could have networks that were 24 bits in length (/24) or 27 bits in length (/27) - depending on your requirements. With IPv6 you don't have that freedom - every network is a /64, so, if you are only going to use two hosts on your network (for a network link) - you are still assigning 2^64 addresses to that link, of which you will only use 2, resulting in a "wasted" 2^64 - 2 hosts.
It's odd the first time you do it, but eventually you just learn to live with the fact you have, for all practical purposes, unlimited address space in IPv6 - so wasting 2^32 times as many IP addresses than you had in ALL of IPv4 on just a single routed link turns out to be no big deal.
I'm a bit taken aback the utter lack of preachiness in that infographic. It seems most infographics like to tell you what you must do, right now, what the hell are you waiting for, why aren't you taking action right now, etc.
Quite refreshing that, no matter how simplified or slightly erroneous the data is, it's just kinda hanging out there.
To summarize: we'll run out of IPv4 addresses, and they don't work interchangeably with IPv6. Oh well.
Interesting point...maybe he or she was thinking of it from Dyn's perspective of remote access. Each of those devices probably connect to a hostname with their own IP (using port forwarding) or something. Good point though..the second half of the graphic is what I thought was interesting. The breakdown per region is pretty interesting. It's hard to imagine that years ago people they didn't expect this to happen.
In my home I have: Nest, Sonus Playbar, Sonus Sub, 2 Wemo light switches, 2 Wemo outlets, 1 Wemo activity sensor, AppleTV, Ruku, ChromeCast, PS3, Apple Time Capsule, Apple airport, Work router for VPN, Work IP phone, Printer, Ooma home phone, 2 ipads, 1 kindle HD, and 2 iphones.
I have 1 public IP address and everything works.
We have an an IPv4 allocation problem, TONS of IPv4 space allocated to companies and not used. What we don't have is IPv4 usage problem, or the need for everything "on the internet" to be publicly addressable.
You have 1 public IP address and everything works because there are external servers for you to bounce things off, in order for external signals to reach the internal devices.
If we want proper peer-to-peer communications to be possible, we need to avoid, where possible, the need for a routable middle-man to help out.
Also, Asia Pacific has long run out of IPv4 addresses - back in 2011. There are now services starting up over there that are IPv6 only. This will spread over the next few years.
IPv6 is the future. There is no point complaining that we can shuffle around a few addresses here and there to make up a bit of space.
Nope. Everything does not work properly as you described. Yes, your devices can get online, but you cannot get to your devices. For example your Nest thermostat must connect to an external server to communicate with your phone when you are not at home. This is a bad thing, since it means that you are now relying on a third party to provide connectivity.
Also, let's say you want to connect to your Time Capsule when you are on the go. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to connect to its public static IP address directly (assuming you set your firewall to allow such connections).
Lastly, as the Internet goes IPv6 only, your IPv4 only devices will get cut off. This will happen sooner than you might imagine.
Yes, there are large swatches of unused IPv4 addresses, but the demand for new allocations is much greater. Why cling to an old system just to offset its death by a few months when we can spend the effort on making the new system work better?
I've seen the math done on the unused IPv4 space by some institutions. In the end, even if an organization gave up their entire /8, you get something like 1 to 2 months of extra time at best.
And all of those things are wasting power, bandwidth and routing resources by continually connecting to/polling external services to see if they need to do anything. Instead of more passively listening and waiting for incoming traffic.
[+] [-] tsaoutourpants|12 years ago|reply
I still never understood why they couldn't just extend IPv4 by adding another octet, and then making all existing IPv4 addresses 0.{current_address}. This would give us about 1 trillion addresses and would make things dead simple.
[+] [-] ghshephard|12 years ago|reply
The only glitch that we ran into in the last nine years was a (self created) configuration error, where we statically added default gateways on hosts/servers that pointed to the router. Those Router IP addresses had been auto-generated VLAN MAC addresses, which where then concatenated with the IPv6 network /64.
Unfortunately, the Cisco routers we were using, generated those EUI-64 addresses for the vlans based on the order they were created - and, after a power cycle, they were created in the order they appeared in the configuration - and all of a sudden our servers no longer had valid routes.
Lesson learned - don't use static gateways on an IPv6 network, let your routers advertise themselves, and, if for some reason (possibly a bad one), you really, really want a static gateway , make sure you don't rely on the auto-EUI-64 generation ability of your router.
Other than that - the protocol has been an easy drop-in replacement for IPv4.
The "Why" of not just adding 0. to IPv4 - is that IPv6 does much more than just increase address length. First of all, it eliminates CIDR - which is the source of many network misconfigurations. All networks in IPv6 are /64s. Further to that, you get stateless address autoconfiguration - nodes can now determine their own address without having to rely on a stateful registry somewhere. Just concatenate the network+mac address (or random number for the privacy sensitive), and you have a routable IPv6 address.
Broadcast is eliminated - and solicited nodes multicast is a very elegant replacement for services like neighbor discovery (rough equivalent of IPv4 ARP)
I could go on - but, I don't know very many IPv6 network operators who dislike the protocol.
[+] [-] zrail|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pyvpx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrt0mat0|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghshephard|12 years ago|reply
If I have to quibble with infographics like these, is that they obscure the fact that IPv4 was able to have variable length subnet masks, I.E. You could have networks that were 24 bits in length (/24) or 27 bits in length (/27) - depending on your requirements. With IPv6 you don't have that freedom - every network is a /64, so, if you are only going to use two hosts on your network (for a network link) - you are still assigning 2^64 addresses to that link, of which you will only use 2, resulting in a "wasted" 2^64 - 2 hosts.
It's odd the first time you do it, but eventually you just learn to live with the fact you have, for all practical purposes, unlimited address space in IPv6 - so wasting 2^32 times as many IP addresses than you had in ALL of IPv4 on just a single routed link turns out to be no big deal.
[+] [-] dec0dedab0de|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pyvpx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arbitrage|12 years ago|reply
Quite refreshing that, no matter how simplified or slightly erroneous the data is, it's just kinda hanging out there.
To summarize: we'll run out of IPv4 addresses, and they don't work interchangeably with IPv6. Oh well.
I like it : )
[+] [-] jebus989|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] papabearshoe|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewDucker|12 years ago|reply
http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html
[+] [-] johnjac|12 years ago|reply
I have 1 public IP address and everything works.
We have an an IPv4 allocation problem, TONS of IPv4 space allocated to companies and not used. What we don't have is IPv4 usage problem, or the need for everything "on the internet" to be publicly addressable.
[+] [-] AndrewDucker|12 years ago|reply
If we want proper peer-to-peer communications to be possible, we need to avoid, where possible, the need for a routable middle-man to help out.
Also, Asia Pacific has long run out of IPv4 addresses - back in 2011. There are now services starting up over there that are IPv6 only. This will spread over the next few years.
IPv6 is the future. There is no point complaining that we can shuffle around a few addresses here and there to make up a bit of space.
[+] [-] IgorPartola|12 years ago|reply
Also, let's say you want to connect to your Time Capsule when you are on the go. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to connect to its public static IP address directly (assuming you set your firewall to allow such connections).
Lastly, as the Internet goes IPv6 only, your IPv4 only devices will get cut off. This will happen sooner than you might imagine.
Yes, there are large swatches of unused IPv4 addresses, but the demand for new allocations is much greater. Why cling to an old system just to offset its death by a few months when we can spend the effort on making the new system work better?
[+] [-] xhrpost|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kalleboo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whage|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpswade|12 years ago|reply
It needs routers to have native IPv6 support.
[+] [-] Guvante|12 years ago|reply
The real problem is getting ISPs to provide IPv6 support.
[+] [-] justincormack|12 years ago|reply