IPv6 Poll

[Mark Newton]

Darryl Ross wrote:

> Just wondering how many people in Adelaide are using IPv6 on their
> networks, and what their experiences have been like.
> So far the biggest problem I've had is the lack of conntrack in ip6tables :(

Generally speaking, IPv6 is stillborn.

The RIRs, in an effort to avoid routing table expansion, won't allocate
portable address space to non-ISPs.  That means you can't use BGP for
IPv6 multihoming, because the address space you get is fixed to your
upstream ISP and can't be announced to any other ISPs.

The proposed IETF solution to this is Shim6, which (a) doesn't solve that
particular problem, and (b) doesn't exist yet, and (c) won't exist for
quite a while yet because they haven't even finished designing it.

I spoke to a guy from a large Federal Government organization at the
IPv6 Forum in Canberra last year.  His organization produces content
which, in some cases, saves lives;  So he has a natural disposition
towards making the content available RELIABLY through as many vectors
as possible:  Internet, radio, TV, printed documentation, etc.  He's
not planning to use IPv6 as a content distribution platform anytime
soon because a failure of one of his ISPs can cause a failure to reach
his content.  IPv4 works for him because he can run BGP to half a dozen
different ISPs and be safe in the knowledge that he doesn't need to
care about how reliable they are, but IPv4 doesn't give him that.
He's not an ISP so he can't run BGP.

I don't think he's even the least bit unique.

My gut feeling is that IPv6 will never go anywhere and we'll all be
waiting for IPv8 before we solve the running-out-of-IP-addresses
problem.  And by the time that happens we'll have solved that problem
with economics anyway (how much do you want for your /24?)

   - mark



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I tried an internal modem,                    newton at atdot.dotat.org
      but it hurt when I walked.                          Mark Newton
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