IPv6, are you using it, should we be using it?
I’ve been adding more and more matter/thread devices to my home and since I’ve seen more local ipv6 addresses I’ve tried enabling Ipv6 fully. BUT, Ive had struggles adding matter devices. Is this just older hardware choices like we have to create a 2.4 GHz only network? Is the world of devices not yet ready for IPv6? What are your thoughts on it? Steve Thibault
I believe IPv6 will never be universally used unless there's genuinely no choice for anyone. We're out of IPv4 addresses, but technologies like NAT are making that workable (so far). *"For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one."*- Souza On Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 11:04 AM steve--- via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> wrote:
I’ve been adding more and more matter/thread devices to my home and since I’ve seen more local ipv6 addresses I’ve tried enabling Ipv6 fully. BUT, Ive had struggles adding matter devices.
Is this just older hardware choices like we have to create a 2.4 GHz only network? Is the world of devices not yet ready for IPv6? What are your thoughts on it?
Steve Thibault
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<drags out soapbox...> I distinctly remember doing my first reading on IPv6 a full 30 years ago. Since then I've seen some serious pushes to make IPv6 support ubiquitous, including World IPv6 Day, federal government requirements for full IPv6 support, and at least one site that offered unlimited free porn exclusively over IPv6. Despite all of this work, the only success stories I've ever read of around IPv6 have been carriers and hyperscalers that needed IPv6 because their internal infrastructure grew beyond RFC1918 space, and IETF conferences bragging how they enabled some new IPv6 feature... for the conference. At the end of the day, I don't believe the economics will ever favor IPv6. I have yet to see a widespread problem where the cost of adding more duct tape to IPv4 is higher than the cost of switching to IPv6. With customers not demanding IPv6 capable only systems from vendors, IPv6 support is always going to come second to IPv4, and any other features that actually drive revenue. Until someone figures out a way to make designing, building, and operating IPv6 devices and networks cheaper than what we already have running on IPv4, nothing much is going to change. Side note: if anyone wants to read some interesting opinions on IPv6 from the technical side, IPSpace has a ton of great articles: https://blog.ipspace.net/tag/ipv6/ On Sat, Apr 12, 2025 at 11:12 AM Tracie Winslow via WLUG < wlug@lists.wlug.org> wrote:
I believe IPv6 will never be universally used unless there's genuinely no choice for anyone. We're out of IPv4 addresses, but technologies like NAT are making that workable (so far).
*"For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one."*- Souza
On Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 11:04 AM steve--- via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> wrote:
I’ve been adding more and more matter/thread devices to my home and since I’ve seen more local ipv6 addresses I’ve tried enabling Ipv6 fully. BUT, Ive had struggles adding matter devices.
Is this just older hardware choices like we have to create a 2.4 GHz only network? Is the world of devices not yet ready for IPv6? What are your thoughts on it?
Steve Thibault
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-- - Frank
Frank Sweetser via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> writes:
Until someone figures out a way to make designing, building, and operating IPv6 devices and networks cheaper than what we already have running on IPv4, nothing much is going to change.
On Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 11:04 AM steve--- via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> wrote:
I’ve been adding more and more matter/thread devices to my home and since I’ve seen more local ipv6 addresses I’ve tried enabling Ipv6 fully. BUT, Ive had struggles adding matter devices.
Is this just older hardware choices like we have to create a 2.4 GHz only network? Is the world of devices not yet ready for IPv6? What are your thoughts on it?
Steve Thibault
I had no idea what is a matter/thread device. Google found a few explanations. Gotta say those are really stupid names and already used by philosophers and OS developers for much more important things. No matter. You remind me that I had a web page that I had forgotten about that recounts my experience with IPv6. Bottom line tldr: It works. I'm not surprised that matter/threads doesn't. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is no more reliable than magic." Fortunately, I don't care. I like switches that click and turn the power off and on when you push them. -- Keith PS: Where does the IPv5 Users Group meet?
I mostly agree with Frank, especially for networks run by organizations whose primary business is not supplying network connectivity or public cloud computing to others. However, these days, IPv6 pretty much Just Works(tm), by default, out-of-the-box, on all general-purpose operating systems and you may not even realize you are using it. If you have Comcast Xfinity service and you are using their provided gateway router, then you are likely using IPv6. If you have Verizon Fios, same thing. If you have a cell phone, same thing. If you are using your own router and haven't configured it for IPv6, try OpenWRT with DHCPv6-PD. Go to https://whatismyip.com/ and look. On your cell phone, try with Wi-Fi turned off and then try again with it on. You can also try "ping google.com" (on Linux at least). If you are doing cloud computing, you can either pay for public IPv4 addresses, or you can get public IPv6 addresses for free. For special-purpose systems like IoT/smart home devices and such, they may still be playing catch up. Or they may not care much about implementing IPv6 because they run in a "closed" ecosystem where they control the only servers their devices talk to. But they might start caring now that cloud providers have started charging more for IPv4 addresses. But at this point it is more of a "who cares" situation for most people. The consumer shouldn't care. It makes good business sense to at least understand if you can gain a competitive advantage somehow by using IPv6, either by saving money, making a business model/product/service possible, or whatever. That's why the cell phone companies did it. On Sat, Apr 12, 2025 at 11:31:33AM -0400, Frank Sweetser via WLUG wrote:
<drags out soapbox...>
I distinctly remember doing my first reading on IPv6 a full 30 years ago. Since then I've seen some serious pushes to make IPv6 support ubiquitous, including World IPv6 Day, federal government requirements for full IPv6 support, and at least one site that offered unlimited free porn exclusively over IPv6. Despite all of this work, the only success stories I've ever read of around IPv6 have been carriers and hyperscalers that needed IPv6 because their internal infrastructure grew beyond RFC1918 space, and IETF conferences bragging how they enabled some new IPv6 feature... for the conference.
At the end of the day, I don't believe the economics will ever favor IPv6. I have yet to see a widespread problem where the cost of adding more duct tape to IPv4 is higher than the cost of switching to IPv6. With customers not demanding IPv6 capable only systems from vendors, IPv6 support is always going to come second to IPv4, and any other features that actually drive revenue.
Until someone figures out a way to make designing, building, and operating IPv6 devices and networks cheaper than what we already have running on IPv4, nothing much is going to change.
Side note: if anyone wants to read some interesting opinions on IPv6 from the technical side, IPSpace has a ton of great articles:
https://blog.ipspace.net/tag/ipv6/
On Sat, Apr 12, 2025 at 11:12 AM Tracie Winslow via WLUG < wlug@lists.wlug.org> wrote:
I believe IPv6 will never be universally used unless there's genuinely no choice for anyone. We're out of IPv4 addresses, but technologies like NAT are making that workable (so far).
*"For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one."*- Souza
On Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 11:04 AM steve--- via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> wrote:
I’ve been adding more and more matter/thread devices to my home and since I’ve seen more local ipv6 addresses I’ve tried enabling Ipv6 fully. BUT, Ive had struggles adding matter devices.
Is this just older hardware choices like we have to create a 2.4 GHz only network? Is the world of devices not yet ready for IPv6? What are your thoughts on it?
participants (5)
-
Chuck Anderson -
Frank Sweetser -
Keith Wright -
steve＠patternsoft.net -
Tracie Winslow