A few years ago the Pentagon declared that it wanted the entire internet moved over to IPv6 by 2008. That date, is now 3 years away, and quite reluctantly, not much has occoured other than a few private networks and backbones that have partially moved. IP Exhaustion is still even closer to our doorstep as more and more broadband connections are being put into homes worldwide, whilst datacenters get larger, and the consumer end speed is rising to match the infrastructure that it uses.
So what gives?
http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/ipv6mess.html
This writer seems to feel that every machine should just be moved over, however this thought in itself is stupid as the biggest excuse created by ISP's and datacenters is the concern about upgrading/replacing routers and network hardware with ipv6 compatible gear. Wether or not this is just a dumb whinge or fact is yet to be seen.
Do you think that the internet is going to commence IPv6 moving anytime soon? What will happen to the millions of home routers stuck with IPv4 and NAT? What about routers and networking backbones that link millions together?
Discuss.
When the masses realize that NAT is for tools.
IPv6 requires that people know how they use their computers. Unless you want to send an MSCE/RHCE/CCNA to every single household to install the proper drivers for their O/S, IPv6 will never be put into constant use.
That being said, my ISP quietly provides IPv6 support as if they don't want ANYBODY to use it.
That also being said, I have my personal home router running IPv6 with Linux. All my clients use IPv6 as well.
Bandwidth really doesnt cost that much to them ;X. There really cant be a price on it. They just make up a price.
For everyone else who doesn't get the link in >>1 to work:
http://web.archive.org/web/20041009173258/http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/ipv6mess.html
When Windows starts to push, the rest will follow. That damn company has so much power but doesn't use it for the good. Also, a simple firmware upgrade on most routers would allow for IPv6 support. NATs and other internal networks can stick with v4. Furthermore, most routers are assigned to be DHCP servers as well, so the limiting factor is, again, the drivers for the OS.
>>3
Agreed. As it is, moving regular home machines to v6 is a non-trivial issue. That said, I've seen XP machines recently assigning themselves v6 addresses (as loopback, I think), so it's not lost just yet.
Part of the problem too, is that some of us don't yet understand IPv6.
I've got support for it on my systems, and in fact, the Linux systems all seem to set up IPv6 automatically, but I'm yet to figure out the whole details, such as which address ranges are private, how the addresses themselves are structured, etc.
e.g.
(12:22) stuartl@beast ~ $ /sbin/ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:B3:36:8F:65
inet addr:10.0.0.251 Bcast:10.0.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::202:b3ff:fe36:8f65/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2238343 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2115730 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1174219541 (1119.8 Mb) TX bytes:379584698 (362.0 Mb)
Interrupt:17however, they don't seem to agree on which network to use...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:06:29:50:E1:26
inet addr:192.168.5.1 Bcast:192.168.5.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::206:29ff:fe50:e126/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
[...]eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:5F:BE:92:DD
inet addr:192.168.10.254 Bcast:192.168.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::280:5fff:febe:92dd/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
[...]I've also looked into getting some IPv6 addresses. AARNet are providing address blocks for use on the IPv6 internet.
I've signed up, haven't done anything with it yet though, as the understanding just isn't there yet.