I do not see IPv6 as a failure. In most networks where both protocols are
available, more than 1/2 of the traffic flows the IPv6 way. That is NOT a
sign of failure. Lots of work has been done to extend the lifetime of
IPv4, and to drag as many unused IPv4 addresses back into active use.
There is nothing wrong with use of either IPv4 or IPv6. Lots of people
have had IPv6 turned on in their ISP's routers (often by its replacement
because the old one went bad) and did not even notice that now more than
1/2 of their traffic uses IPv6. This is because most of the
biggest by volume websites happen to publish AAAA records, and the
standard states that IPv6 will be tried first if available on a given
network.
Either works well for HTTP(s), the main traffic on todays internet. The
only real advantage that IPv6 has over IPv4 is the address size and the
lack of checksum calculations at every hop. Things can be done much more
efficiently in IPv6, when NAT and other "hacks" are removed, and the nodes
can all directly communicate with each other in a manner that we used to
do in IPv4 all the time prior to NAT.
CIDR and NAT were the two technologies that saved IPv4 from exhaust more
than 25 years ago. Without those technologies, IPv4 would have run out
much sooner. Another factor that extended IPv4 was the decision of China
to use IPv6 only on their academic network, instead of eating up the
remaining IPv4 address space like they were proposing around the 2008 time
frame.
IPv6 simplifies things. There is but one network size, a /64. No more
sliding netmasks when a given site gets too big for a given size subnet
like happens a lot in IPv4 based public address networks. NAT is also
generally not used, which means all that overhead of maintaining tables in
routers is not required. Even the calculating of checksums at each hop
has been eliminated, allowing routers to process IPv6 packets
This makes creation of networks more standard and automatic, reducing the
workload of the network admin.
Eventually, no mattter what steps are done, IPv4 will exhaust. There are
but a fixed number of addresses, and this will never change.
I see IPv6 as freedom, and the way back to an earlier time when every node
had a public address. In many ways, it is freer than even those with a
class "A" of the past, since every network everywhere is larger than even
that class "A". We have come a long way with it, and most of the major
sources of traffic have adopted it, with more being added each day.
By no means do I consider IPv6 dead, and at this point I do not think that
any other protocol like an IPv8 is going to be developed at this point and
take over IPv6. In any case, even if that elusive IPv8 were developed, I
doubt those that want to stick with IPv4 will move to that either for the
same reasons they do not want to move to IPv6.
It was said that a 32 bit address was chosen, because it was good enough
for an experiment. That experiment was called IPv4, and it has never
ended. Even after IPv6 gets greater use then IPv4, I doubt that IPv4 will
ever be closed down, but I do predict that it will become an option that
you will have to pay extra for on a standard internet connection, as at
some point nearly every public service you will want to reach will be
available on an IPv6 address.
Albert Erdmann
Network Administrator
Paradise On Line Inc.
On Mon, 13 Sep 2021, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
On 9/13/2021 2:43 PM, Joe Maimon wrote:
Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
Helping them to find IPv4 just kicks the can down the road a bit more.
It helps them right now. What it doesnt help is the state of IPv6
deployment. Which most users could care less about. Its just your (most
noble) goal, and you would have us all ignore others' needs of today for
your vision in the who-knows-when future.
I didn't invent IPv6. Not my circus not my monkeys. I'm just a guy
who listened to the experts when they said "we invented this IPv6 thing"
then learned about it and used it. I didn't listen to the experts and
try to think up excuses for not doing what they said or try to figure out
ways to snake IPv4 away from other people.
My goal here is to encourage people to step back and consider what has
actually happened and how and to learn from that. My hope is that the
self governance model survives this self inflicted disaster.
The lesson is people shouldn't have dragged their feet on IPv6. The experts
told them what was coming, the experts built a replacement, and
the sheeple out there in networking and sysadmin land ignored it and
now are being smacked around because they ignored it.
Just because kicking people's asses to get IPv6 deployed isn't going to
help someone who doesn't have IP4 RIGHT NOW doesn't mean it's a wasted
effort like you claim.
The fact that it has failed for 20 years means exactly that.
It means nothing.
Electric cars have been around for a century. But claiming that they
failed for 80 years means they are failing now is idiotic because
they aren't failing now.
People tried for well over 20 years to make a vaccine for coronaviruses.
Lots of "experts" said when the pandemic started the money spend on trying to
get one would be a waste of money because they tried for 20
years to get a working one and it never worked. Then Moderna came along
and said "up yours, experts"
Charles Babbage invented the Difference Engine in 1821. A machine based
on it was finally built in 1854 by George Scheutz. Babbage invented the
Difference Engine 2 and it was finally constructed and currently sits in
the London Science Museum and it can calculate to 31 digits.
Welcome to how technology works, Joe. Lots of times an idea that works and
is valid and proved out is not implemented until decades later.
It is simply that the time wasn't right for it.
The thing that's so incredible about IPv6 wasn't that it was thought up
and built and works. It was that it was thought up and built and worked
decades before we ran out of assignable IPv4 and really needed it. Usually
inventions like it are the result of a madcap crash at the last minute and
thrown together.
Ted
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