[HN Gopher] Hello IPv6: a minimal tutorial for IPv4 users
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Hello IPv6: a minimal tutorial for IPv4 users
        
       Author : notmine1337
       Score  : 164 points
       Date   : 2021-10-07 11:28 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (metebalci.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (metebalci.com)
        
       | creativeembassy wrote:
       | I've been looking for a summary like this for years. I'm quite
       | comfortable with IPv4, but haven't understood IPv6 well enough to
       | start using it in my home network. Thanks for sharing, going to
       | read this over a few times to make sure I understand everything
       | completely.
        
         | psim1 wrote:
         | Just my experience:
         | 
         | The funny thing about IPv6 is that you see a lot of
         | curmudgeonly rhetoric about it here and elsewhere, but once you
         | dig in a little, it snaps and you think "hey, this really makes
         | sense!" And then you wonder why others are grumbling so much.
         | 
         | The main thing to do is to stop thinking about IPv4. Just put
         | the IPv4 concepts aside and start thinking about it as if IPv6
         | just showed up on the scene as the L3 protocol.
         | 
         | Forget about crusty concepts like NAT, because NAT was a kludge
         | anyway. Just think about the big address space. Understand that
         | firewalls examine traffic going from one side to the other and
         | that NAT is not part of that equation (people frequently argue
         | that NAT is valuable for network security - nonsense).
         | 
         | Just start fresh with it and resist the urge to hug your old
         | IPv4 teddy bear.
        
           | akersten wrote:
           | > (people frequently argue that NAT is valuable for network
           | security - nonsense).
           | 
           | Most of the devices on my home network should never be
           | routable from the Internet. Without NAT, they suddenly are,
           | and I have to go out of my way to configure a firewall
           | (either on the device or an intermediary appliance) just to
           | get back to that baseline. That is _more_ configuration to
           | get right and is a worse experience than when they were just
           | impossible routes under NAT. So, I get it, NAT was not
           | "designed" with security as a primary consideration, but when
           | thousands of Grandma's printers are suddenly pwn'd because
           | their 2.6.x kernels wind up answering traffic from the public
           | Internet, it's quite devilish to say "gosh, well, they should
           | never have relied on things continuing to work the way they
           | always have, because it was philosophically never meant to be
           | that way."
           | 
           | It's quite possible I'm missing something (because I haven't
           | bothered to learn much about v6 yet) and consumer routers are
           | smart enough to drop unsolicited traffic to "private"
           | addresses (however that is determined). If that's the case I
           | cede a little.
        
             | bombela wrote:
             | Network Address Translation (NAT) has the side effect of
             | ignoring incoming connections that do not match an explicit
             | port mapping.
             | 
             | A firewall will block any incoming connections unless
             | explicitly allowed.
             | 
             | Basically the NAT happens to overlap a bit the job of the
             | firewall as a side effect of how it works. In practice NAT
             | and firewall are implemented by the same system. For
             | example look at iptables on Linux.
        
             | foxfluff wrote:
             | I don't agree with this argument at all.
             | 
             | If routers can enable NAT by default, they have a stateful
             | firewall by default. The printer won't be on the internet
             | unless you punch a hole in NAT, it won't be on the internet
             | unless you punch a hole in that firewall. You can have that
             | firewall without NAT.
        
               | IshKebab wrote:
               | This is true but there is still a difference. How do you
               | know if that protection is working? With NAT, if it's
               | online then basically the only way is if NAT was used.
               | 
               | With a firewall then I have no idea. I guess you have to
               | check on the router, and maybe do some kind of online
               | test? Can't imagine grandma doing that.
               | 
               | I do think a firewall is a cleaner solution but it's
               | definitely true that NAT is way more foolproof.
        
             | throw0101a wrote:
             | > _Most of the devices on my home network should never be
             | routable from the Internet. Without NAT, they suddenly are_
             | [...]
             | 
             | Copy-pasting from a previous discussion a little while ago:
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | IPv4+NAT does not remove any more classes of problems than
             | IPv6+firewall. Firewalls under IPv6 work exactly the same
             | way as they do with IPv4.
             | 
             | An IP connection is started from the 'inside' to the
             | 'outside', and the source-destination tuple is recorded.
             | When an 'outside' packet arrives the firewall checks its
             | parameters to see if it corresponds with an existing
             | connection, and if it does it passes it through. If the
             | parameters do not correspond with anything in the
             | firewall's table(s) it assumes that someone is trying to
             | create a new connection, which is generally not allowed by
             | default, and therefore drops it.
             | 
             | The main difference is that with IPv4 and NAT the original
             | (RFC 1918?) source address and port are changed to
             | something corresponding to the 'outside' interface of the
             | firewall.
             | 
             | With IPv6 the address/port rewriting is not done.+ Only
             | state tables are updated and checked.
             | 
             | New connections are not allowed past the firewall towards
             | the inside with either protocol, and only replies to
             | connections opened from the inside are passed through.++
             | 
             | There's no magical security behind NAT: tuples and packet
             | flags are read, looked up in a state table, allowed or not
             | depending on either firewall rule or state presence.
             | 
             | The security comes from the state checking.
             | 
             | [...]
             | 
             | I have a printer with an IPv6 stack. I also have IPv6
             | addresses from my ISP. Yet somehow my Asus AC-68U prevents
             | the public Internet from reaching my printer.
             | 
             | + It is possible to have private IPv6 addresses using ULA,
             | and then the router/firewall uses NPTv6 to rewrite the
             | prefix (leaving the /64 interface component alone).
             | 
             | ++ Just like with IPv4 (NAT), to allow unsolicited 'new'
             | connections in you have to do do firewall hole punching
             | with (e.g.) UPNP. But by default things are blocked.
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28390634
             | 
             | IPv6 firewall on my Asus:
             | 
             | * https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1013638/
        
           | theteapot wrote:
           | > The main thing to do is to stop thinking about IPv4. Just
           | put the IPv4 concepts aside and start thinking about it as if
           | IPv6 just showed up on the scene as the L3 protocol.
           | 
           | That's exactly the problem with IPv6 and why its struggle to
           | get traction as a replacement for IPv4. It's the Gnome3 of
           | networking protocols.
        
       | hatch_q wrote:
       | So in essence privacy extensions (hiding of internal network) are
       | available, but disabled and unsupported by default.
       | 
       | Another thing are incoming connections - first thing i do with
       | new router is disable UPnP, so clients cannot drill ad-hoc holes
       | into my private network. How to do that with ipv6 network?
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | > So in essence privacy extensions (hiding of internal network)
         | are available, but disabled and unsupported by default
         | 
         | On Ubuntu Server: probably. Why would you want a randomized IP
         | address on a server, anyway? Netplan doesn't seem to be
         | designed for desktop, so I don't think it's a problem in most
         | cases. Perhaps you want to add privacy to a raspberry Pi
         | running a scraper or something, but there aren't many use cases
         | I can think of that require privacy extensions in a headless
         | system.
         | 
         | On user-facing operating systems (Windows, Ubuntu, Manjaro,
         | Android, probably macOS/iOS/ipadOS as well) privacy extensions
         | are enabled by default AFAIK. They're also completely
         | supported. In fact, I can find more posts online about people
         | wanting to _disable_ the feature rather than how to enable it.
         | 
         | > How to do that with ipv6 network?
         | 
         | Any decent router will put a firewall between you and the
         | internet, blocking incoming traffic. Your IP may be publicly
         | routable, but it's not reachable by default in most consumer
         | appliances. You shouldn't need to disable anything.
         | 
         | Many people will confuse NAT with a firewall, but those are two
         | entirely different things! NAT makes devices unreachable by
         | breaking the internet, but there are many NAT loopholes (port
         | knocking, NAT slipstreaming, etc.) that will bypass NAT if you
         | can get a user to install software or even open a website from
         | inside the network. In the IPv4 world the firewall and NAT
         | setup are often combined, leading to a broken firewall in many
         | cases because they automatically add the necessary firewall
         | exceptions to make NAT work.
         | 
         | UPnP generally does two things: it sets up NAT _and_ it adds a
         | firewall exception. Reserving a port on the router's public IP
         | address (NAT) is of little use if you don't accept traffic on
         | that port (firewall), after all. On IPv6 there's no need to
         | bother with NAT, but the firewall exception still needs to be
         | added for a port to be reachable.
         | 
         | Effectively, the difference is that if you have three smart
         | lightbulbs that are all reachable on port 80, you don't need to
         | forward port 80, 81 and 82 to different IP addresses to make
         | them available to the internet; you need to add three firewall
         | rules for port 80 and then just use their real IP addresses
         | instead. That's exactly how IPv4 was always designed to work
         | before the IP address shortage began and NAT became the
         | standard.
         | 
         | For rare exceptions, there are some forms of NAT available on
         | IPv6, but they're only designed in circumstances where your
         | network design is basically flawed (like for those ISPs that
         | hand out a /128 address instead of a /48 or /56 like they're
         | supposed to, forcing routers to do NAT for no good reason).
        
         | fulafel wrote:
         | That's not correct. Privacy extensions are supported and on by
         | default in Windows, macOS, mobile stuff and on generally in
         | desktop Linux setups. Not sure what the author is running as
         | they claim it's off by default in Ubuntu, as that's contrary to
         | my experience. (Guessing they have a server install as they
         | talk about netplan instead of NetworkManager?)
        
       | Steltek wrote:
       | Can someone forward this to Verizon? They can't seem to find the
       | "Enable IPv6" button with their head so far up their...
       | 
       | Ahem, I'm quite frustrated with my provider :). But sanctioned
       | monopolies are a serious drag on moving tech forward. Even if
       | IPv6 isn't a panacea, things need to be more agile than this if
       | we're going to really innovate.
        
       | iptrans wrote:
       | Currently only getting an SSL error.
       | 
       | Hug of death?
       | 
       | Edit: Google cache
       | 
       | http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...
        
       | candiddevmike wrote:
       | IMO, IPv6 sucks for home users and labs. Prefix delegation means
       | your routable IP scheme could change underneath you, and
       | firewalling connections using PD addresses is really hard
       | (unpredictable prefixes, privacy extensions change suffixes
       | constantly), though some routers make it easier, like Google
       | Wifi. I think most will end up NATing a single external IPv6 with
       | a private IPv6 network behind it.
       | 
       | I wish IANA and friends would let home users and other smaller
       | entities request global /56 address blocks and force ISPs to
       | peer/announce (nothing crazy, just a default route).
       | 
       | EDIT: end users should be able to request static blocks from
       | their ISPs for free, not IANA.
        
         | tialaramex wrote:
         | > I wish IANA and friends would let home users and other
         | smaller entities request global /56 address blocks and force
         | ISPs to peer/announce
         | 
         | You want _portable_ /56s?
         | 
         | You realise that's _incredibly_ expensive for everybody else
         | right? Today 's portable /24s are a considerable burden, and
         | you'd like to have _far_ smaller routes assigned for basically
         | your personal convenience. I don 't know for sure what it would
         | cost, but certainly thousands of dollars per year each seems
         | like a very modest estimate.
        
           | fulafel wrote:
           | That's indeed the original reasoning for building in on-the-
           | fly renumbering to IPv6, but it was supposed to still be a
           | rare event.
           | 
           | But consider: (1) that for ages the route table growth has
           | been slow due to v4 shortage, and router memory has kept
           | getting cheaper on the normal memory cost curve for this
           | plateau phase in history, and (2) Consumer ISPs have been
           | abusing this and making prefixes jump around even on CPE
           | reboots, instead of having them stable for months and years
           | like is the design, and (3) mechanisms to smooth out
           | renumbering haven't been deployed because ISPs have gotten
           | away with doing [2] without any mitigations.
           | 
           | The 'net infra could probably afford to start giving many
           | more people portable blocks, and it would be only fair that
           | ISPs would have to pay a bit for their sins regarding [2],
           | and to this would add incentives to do [3].
        
             | elktea wrote:
             | regarding (1), the route table growth is actually not
             | slowing. as we run out of IPv4 addresses there is more
             | fragmentation as bigger blocks are split up and sold.
        
           | candiddevmike wrote:
           | Fair point. Let me request them for free from my ISP then.
           | None of this "pay $20/mo for a static prefix" garbage. IPv6
           | loses all of its benefits if my entire network is ephemeral
           | and has to rely on prefix delegation propagation.
        
             | unethical_ban wrote:
             | @tialaramex is making their point rather poorly, using the
             | term "expensive" without explaining how, and being a bit
             | aggressive about it.
             | 
             | The more ASes that exist, the more routes need to be
             | propagated. If every household were theoretically assigned
             | a network that they could take with them anywhere, and
             | advertise, a well-connected router would have millions and
             | millions of routes to track and forward.
             | 
             | One of the goals of IPv6 was to make the Internet more
             | hierarchical to avoid this.
             | 
             | I agree with your point. I should be able to get a static
             | PD from my ISP (a /56 or /60 easily) and that should stay
             | the same for all time, given a MAC address. In other words,
             | PD should be stateful.
             | 
             | I have thought about setting up my LAN with "Unique Local
             | Addresses" and doing NAT66 if I can ever manage to get a
             | public IPV6 address from my ISP.
        
               | vetinari wrote:
               | You don't need to do NAT66; just enable ULA. Interfaces
               | can have multiple IPv6 addresses, not just one. So you
               | will get your static local addresses and for outbound
               | traffic, a random globally routed address from the
               | currently assigned prefix would be used.
        
             | Arnavion wrote:
             | Well, prefix delegation would be fine as long as the ISP
             | guarantees that the delegated prefix will be stable. But
             | they aren't guaranteeing that unless you pay extra for a
             | static v4 (because they're tying v6 assignments to v4
             | assignments), which is indeed asinine.
        
             | tialaramex wrote:
             | You agree it's a "fair point" that this would be incredibly
             | expensive, but then you say you want it to be free.
             | 
             | Is it simply that you don't understand _why_ it 's
             | incredibly expensive? It means everybody who does network
             | routing has to buy extra hardware to track all this useless
             | noise you've decided ought to be "free", that hardware
             | costs money.
             | 
             | Your ISP choosing to charge you for stuff that doesn't cost
             | them anything is completely separate. I would say "Choose
             | an ISP which isn't shit" but you're probably American and
             | have no such choice. Too bad?
        
               | candiddevmike wrote:
               | My correction is for static prefixes from an ISPs block,
               | I don't see that as an unreasonable free request. No
               | peering, they just static route that block to the IPv6
               | address they assign you.
        
               | tialaramex wrote:
               | Sure, yes, there's no reason this should be hard for your
               | ISP to arrange. I guess it might be slightly painful for
               | large ISPs say if you're a huge American ISP and
               | customers can just up and move all their gear from San
               | Francisco to New York and expect the IP addresses to stay
               | the same that's kind of annoying to implement and the
               | service for those customers will either suck (a user in
               | New York finds all their data routes via the West Coast)
               | or cost you more.
               | 
               | But in the general case, for a customer who is just using
               | the Internet from the same place as last time, there's no
               | benefit to changing their IP addresses and clearly
               | there's no reason static addressing shouldn't be free,
               | it's just like one database entry for them to do it.
               | 
               | I could imagine them explaining OK, you get static BUT it
               | might change if you move home or something, and that
               | feels pretty acceptable to me.
               | 
               | For what it's worth I get static IPv6 and IPv4 (although
               | of course the IPv4 is a tiny block, only a /27 IIRC
               | whereas I have a /48 of IPv6) but I'm in the UK and with
               | a specialist ISP that cares a lot about this stuff.
        
               | techsupporter wrote:
               | > For what it's worth I get static IPv6 and IPv4
               | (although of course the IPv4 is a tiny block, only a /27
               | IIRC whereas I have a /48 of IPv6) but I'm in the UK and
               | with a specialist ISP that cares a lot about this stuff.
               | 
               | Even some of the large ISPs can get it right. I used to
               | have fiber optic service from a large telephone company
               | (starts with "C" ends in "EnturyLink") and could use
               | their account management portal to go and get anything up
               | to a /26, complete with setting up reverse DNS, just by
               | clicking a button and agreeing to a relative pittance of
               | money. I think the /26 was $40 per month and the /28 I
               | had was $10 a couple of years ago. They would give me a
               | static IPv6 /48 for nothing, just a click, and delegate
               | the reverse DNS zone to me. A /56 that was supposedly
               | dynamic but never actually changed was given by default.
               | 
               | The problem seems to be which ISPs want to do what. ISPs
               | run by phone companies seem to think of their networks,
               | and the customer networks attached to them, as actual
               | internetworked networks. ISPs run by video companies seem
               | to think of their networks as extensions of distribution
               | systems for linear television channels.
        
         | throw0101a wrote:
         | > _IMO, IPv6 sucks for home users and labs._ [...] _EDIT: end
         | users should be able to request static blocks from their ISPs
         | for free, not IANA._
         | 
         | This is a technical argument _for_ IPv6, because there is no
         | reason to worry about exhaustion and scarcity with it. The
         | issue here is on the business side of things.
         | 
         | As others have mentioned: as a kludge you can assign ULA on
         | your network and then use NPTv6 for when the prefix you're
         | delegated changes in the non-static scenario.
        
         | kop316 wrote:
         | That was my experience as well.
         | 
         | I have three seperate VLANs (Untrusted Devices, Servers,
         | Normal) which is easy with IPv4/NAT/HAProxy.
         | 
         | IPv6 was unpredictable in how I could get more than a /64
         | subnet (so no VLANs allowed). After guessing at how to get it
         | for a few hours, I was able to get a /56 subnet, and set it up.
         | I even disabled IPv4 (dual stack caused it's own set of
         | issues). IPv6 was much, much slower. I was unable to track down
         | why it was so much slower, so I ended up just doing back to
         | IPv4.
        
         | admax88qqq wrote:
         | The address size, and pains of the IP scheme changing
         | underneath might hopefully push mDNS and other naming systems
         | to really catch up so that we can stop using IP addresses for
         | things like firewall rules.
         | 
         | I would much rather have a local network naming system that
         | works and use human readable names in all situations where I
         | want to specify firewall rules. It's a shame that this still
         | really isn't an option, the technology is there, it just needs
         | some polish to not require so much tweaking.
        
           | iptrans wrote:
           | Having to do a DNS lookup for each firewall rule is going to
           | suck. Not to mention blackholing traffic when cached DNS
           | replies are out of sync with the actual IP.
        
             | admax88qqq wrote:
             | Doesn't have to be DNS, could be any sort of cache on the
             | router that updates when new hosts come online or the
             | prefix changes.
             | 
             | Plus blackholing temporarily due to a stale cache is better
             | than blackholing permanently due to a stale rule pointing
             | to an old IP.
        
             | vetinari wrote:
             | I can see that there is a user-space daemon, that watches
             | TTLs in the resolved DNS records and if they change,
             | updates an corresponding ip set in the firewall.
        
         | 10000truths wrote:
         | This is an ISP problem, not an IPv6 problem. With the greatly
         | expanded address space, nothing stops an ISP from allocating
         | each customer a static prefix. To not do so is, in my eyes,
         | just another undignified attempt at rent seeking.
        
         | d00bianista wrote:
         | I'd like to disagree on IPv6 sucking and would like to steer
         | this blame towards whoever decided to not be persistent.
         | Firewalls can handle changing prefixes by masking it. Hosts can
         | request certain addresses. Cheap dual-homing is something that
         | IPv6 does not quite do, because that requires NAT66, which is
         | controversial. Also, RIPE tells us to do persistent
         | delegations:
         | 
         | https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-690#5-2--why-non...
        
           | aidenn0 wrote:
           | AFAICT pretty much all home ISPs don't offer persistent
           | delegations. Mine changes with every power outage plus a few
           | other times a year. You can upgrade to their "business plan"
           | and pay 4x as much for 1/2 the bandwidth to get a persistent
           | delegation of a /48, but "Having more than one device on the
           | internet" shouldn't require a business plan these days, and
           | so the choice is NAT66 or having all the issues that that
           | RIPE publication calls out.
        
         | psim1 wrote:
         | I have done PD of a /60 from Comcast for three years and my
         | prefix never changed. I can't imagine why it would or should.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Mine is pretty stable but anytime the cable modem gets fried
           | by lightning the new one gets a new prefix. I wish it was
           | tied to my account somehow.
        
             | d00bianista wrote:
             | That's because the DHCPv6 client in the modem generates a
             | unique DUID for itself and the new one cannot know the
             | fried modems DUID.
        
         | snuxoll wrote:
         | The solution I've come up with here is to use ULA's in addition
         | to the public prefix. If my public prefix changes it can cause
         | a temporary disruption in service availability from outside my
         | home, but on the inside everything uses the ULA prefix for
         | communication so I don't have giant messes during re-
         | addressing. This has also tackled my issues with inter-vlan
         | routing, since my switch does not have the ability to take a
         | prefix delegation but can route static IPv6 subnets just fine.
         | 
         | My big issue remains multi-homing for smaller setups like my
         | homelab and SMB's. When doing NAT (and I could do NPT with my
         | v6 network) all my policy is at the gateway - what traffic goes
         | over what link, etc. I lose all that with IPv6, and I'm still
         | trying to figure out how to deal with it - what used to be
         | simple policies like "my home office uses CenturyLink and only
         | fails over to Sparklight if that's down while everything else
         | does the opposite" now require some way to push down the client
         | or more sophisticated IFTT style setups on the router (if this
         | gateway goes down depreciate the prefix and advertise this one
         | instead).
        
           | aidenn0 wrote:
           | Do you use SLAAC or DHCP6 for assigning the ULAs? I'm looking
           | for something that lets me use ipv6 on my home network, and
           | my ISP changes my /64 PD disturbingly often.
        
             | snuxoll wrote:
             | I use SLAAC - I actually use my main switch (Juniper
             | EX2300) to advertise those since it can handle routing the
             | inter-vlan traffic on my network, and then my
             | router/firewall handles the public prefixes.
        
           | candiddevmike wrote:
           | Are you assigning a public and private IP to everything, or
           | just private and using NAT on the gateway?
        
             | snuxoll wrote:
             | Everything gets a public address as well as a ULA one.
        
           | phicoh wrote:
           | For multi-homing, you can also look at it another way: the
           | only thing you have to do to move downstream hosts from one
           | prefix and router to another is different router
           | advertisements.
           | 
           | In theory, you could actually disable router advertisements
           | on the routers themselves, and run a small daemon that just
           | announces the right information.
        
             | snuxoll wrote:
             | > In theory, you could actually disable router
             | advertisements on the routers themselves, and run a small
             | daemon that just announces the right information.
             | 
             | I actually investigated the feasibility of something like
             | this - but the way IPv6 RA's work requires they be sent
             | from the link-local address of the router itself, so I'd
             | have to run said daemon on the router itself - at which
             | point I can just write some scripts to modify configuration
             | on event triggers.
        
         | whoknowswhat11 wrote:
         | The irony for me is that I pretty easily get a static IPv4
         | block from my ISP (they do it for free for me, but should be
         | $5/month or something).
         | 
         | Trying to get a static IPv6 prefix is not possible. So there is
         | actually LESS availability of static IPv6 for some reason -
         | even through the address space is so massive, the rules around
         | using it are so restrictive you can't get something static.
         | 
         | This ripples into absolutely everything - now doing firewall
         | rules is a total pain. Additionally the machines and devices
         | are constantly changing IP addresses (on IPv6). So the old
         | small business setup model where a DHCP server is setup, some
         | static IPs configured then reservations in DHCP made, then
         | everything works great no matter what happens in DNS or other
         | servers etc is gone, which feeds mgmt dashboards so you can
         | easily do a alerts or period end report - so and so used 5TB,
         | is something wrong with their machine type stuff - get's
         | harder.
         | 
         | I am curious what recommended IPv6 solution is for this classic
         | small biz situations.
         | 
         | Dual WAN, primary ATT, secondary comcast (for failover). Local
         | DHCP server for addressing. Monitoring / reporting by User/IP.
         | VPN terminating at a sonicwall or similar.
         | 
         | 1) Without a static IP - what do I give my VPN users? 2) With
         | all the IP address changes, how do I assign IP's to users to
         | get my monitoring tools to play well with everything. 3) With
         | PD, how do I get my failover working well?
        
           | gerdesj wrote:
           | NPt - eg:
           | https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nat/npt.html or
           | NAT66 and friends for outbound. DNS for inbound. Sadly most
           | VPNs don't support SRV or similar. Wireguard perhaps.
           | 
           | It's not pretty 8(
        
             | slownews45 wrote:
             | This is the issue.
             | 
             | I wish we could have had (static) PD, then locally define a
             | netmask, and then DHCP or straight static for local
             | devices.
             | 
             | Internally, you'd ignore PD for routing within netmask - so
             | regardless of where WAN link went you'd still be ok
             | locally. But because address space is so big, and PD is so
             | big, these local addresses were also (with PD attached)
             | globally routable.
             | 
             | I'd also love if IPv6 only devices had an EASY way to hit
             | IPv4 (ie, xxx:ipv4 in IPv6 address space, with the border
             | device which could be dual stack translating over to IPv4)
             | as a default transition config. One problem is that IPv6
             | put so many new concepts in it doesn't map as cleanly as
             | maybe IPv5 might have (just an extension in size of space).
        
               | andrewjf wrote:
               | > I'd also love if IPv6 only devices had an EASY way to
               | hit IPv4 (ie, xxx:ipv4 in IPv6 address space, with the
               | border device which could be dual stack translating over
               | to IPv4) as a default transition config.
               | 
               | Doesn't NAT64 do exactly that? It translates
               | `64:ff9b::<32 bit IPv4 address>` -> `IPv4`. I get there's
               | stateful/stateless issues and "default" configs (i.e.
               | DNS64), but sounds like the technology is there.
        
               | slownews45 wrote:
               | I think 464XLAT is probably the better solution currently
               | as you can interop with things like websockets etc / SIP?
               | One problem is none of this was default, 464XLAT came out
               | because folks were trying to solve this. That's much
               | different than every router that supports IPv6 auto
               | supports a NAT64 type solution. Other issues are created
               | because of overall protocol differences etc.
        
           | na85 wrote:
           | >So the old small business setup model where a DHCP server is
           | setup, some static IPs configured then reservations in DHCP
           | made, then everything works great no matter what happens in
           | DNS or other servers etc is gone, which feeds mgmt dashboards
           | so you can easily do a alerts or period end report - so and
           | so used 5TB, is something wrong with their machine type stuff
           | - get's harder.
           | 
           | It's obviously more complex, but could this not be solved by
           | running an internal DNS resolver, assigning every machine a
           | hostname, and having those machines use e.g. ddclient or
           | similar to ensure their IPv6 address is current in the
           | internal DNS table?
           | 
           | I mean I know it's easier to remember that e.g. 192.168.1.4
           | is your printer, and .5 is the CNC router, etc. but I feel
           | like that's not how IPv4 was intended to be used.
        
             | xoa wrote:
             | > _and having those machines use e.g. ddclient or similar_
             | 
             | How does this work on my networked PDU, UPS, speaker, light
             | hub, or even printer for that matter since you mention it
             | [0]? There is vast universe of "machines" that aren't full
             | fat PCs (or if they are under the hood grant zero native
             | flexibility to the operator over any of that). But they all
             | can take a static IP fine and then get managed from there,
             | shoved into VLANs which are also straightforward with IPv4,
             | etc.
             | 
             | I agree with GP that this is a really, really common
             | scenario in SMB. And it means a lot of stuff can stay up
             | and active with quite minimal network infrastructure.
             | 
             | > _but I feel like that 's not how IPv4 was intended to be
             | used._
             | 
             | First, why not, and what source? People have been using
             | static IPv4 for this sort of thing for as long as I can
             | remember ethernet (mid 90s) at least and probably before I
             | ever did my first networking at all. But second, so what?
             | It's useful, makes sense and has tons of usage. It allows
             | basic networks to get bootstrapped in a super lightweight
             | fashion and its dependable when there are issues at higher
             | stacks. It certainly doesn't scale, but conversely at scale
             | handling more moving parts reliably also is much more
             | feasible so that's ok.
             | 
             | It definitely seems like one of those things that should
             | have been a gimme in a new standard. With the opportunity
             | to have close enough to limitless addresses why did they
             | have to make it more restrictive then the old very limited
             | system?
             | 
             | ----
             | 
             | 0: Ignoring granted that many of them don't support IPv6 at
             | all, because some already do and that number may eventually
             | be 100% or sufficiently close. And that would probably
             | happen sooner if there was more demand due to IPv6 meeting
             | existing needs.
        
               | _trampeltier wrote:
               | Also in isolated networks like industry automation or so.
               | You have a couple of devices and static addresses. Very
               | simple.
               | 
               | A couple of years ago I tryed to make my homenetworks
               | complete IPv6, but then I realised, IPv6 is a such pain
               | for me at home with a couple of VLANs and so. Of course
               | just NAT is bad, but it had also it's good points.
        
             | paxswill wrote:
             | Depending on your DHCP and DNS servers, they might already
             | have this built in. dnsmasq will maintain DNS entries for
             | the DHCP leases it hands out, and can also add AAAA records
             | if it sees a SLAAC message for a MAC address it gave a DHCP
             | lease to. BIND's servers (dhcpd, named, kea) can be set up
             | so that for each DHCP lease assigned, a DDNS update is
             | sent.
        
           | rnhmjoj wrote:
           | > This ripples into absolutely everything - now doing
           | firewall rules is a total pain. Additionally the machines and
           | devices are constantly changing IP addresses (on IPv6).
           | 
           | A dynamic prefix sucks for a number of reasons, but at least
           | for firewall rules you can just match the last 64 bits using
           | a mask. At least, ip6tables can do this.
           | 
           | > Additionally the machines and devices are constantly
           | changing IP addresses
           | 
           | You probably mean the privacy extensions addresses (AKA
           | temporary). Those are complementary to the persistent ones
           | (EUI-64) and shouldn't concern your firewall because they
           | aren't normally used for receiving connections, unless you
           | intend to block outbound traffic.
           | 
           | > I am curious what recommended IPv6 solution is for this
           | classic small biz situations.
           | 
           | For a small business, the recommendation is: get a (static)
           | /48 from your ISP, split it into several /64 subnets,
           | advertise a prefix for each subnet, a DNS server (RDNSS) and
           | let the clients assign their own addresses via SLAAC. There's
           | no need for a DHCPv6 server (in fact some clients don't
           | support it, see Android) or reservations because the
           | addresses are unique and static.
           | 
           | If your ISP is evil and doesn't give you a static prefix, you
           | can advertise a ULA prefix (basically the IPv6 version of RFC
           | 1918) and use that in place of the dynamic one. Clients will
           | use the dynamic prefix for Internet connections and the ULA
           | for local services (printers, NASs, etc.).
        
             | GSGBen wrote:
             | That works for one ISP, the issue is with two (a common
             | design for SMB network reliability). Earlier
             | recommendations I read were "get your own public /48
             | assigned and peer with both, NAT including NPT is not
             | good". But it turns out some (all?) authorities won't do
             | that for SMBs, so we're back to some form of translation,
             | probably on top of ULAs running internally.
             | 
             | Another related issue is the ULA design - they're meant to
             | be randomly generated but it's not enforced, so you just
             | know there'll be a bunch of internal networks with custom
             | duplicate ULAs that will only show up when some businesses
             | merge, so we'll be back to re-ipaddressing subnets.
             | 
             | IPv6 has changed a bit since the first RFCs (privacy
             | extensions etc) so I imagine at some point someone will
             | look at this and make some changes to suit. I wonder if
             | it'll be relaxing ULA recommendations or adding something
             | else entirely.
             | 
             | I'm insanely excited for never having to worry about subnet
             | size again but it just doesn't seem like there's a clear
             | best-practice one-true-way everyone-agrees way forward
             | right now for a whole bunch of popular use-cases.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | mindslight wrote:
         | I also haven't found it compelling to implement IPv6 on my
         | small network. If I use v6 addressing for my own nodes, what do
         | I gain? I don't need my internal network to be routeable. And
         | even if I could come up with some use, relying on those
         | addresses being routeable creates a single point of failure at
         | the tunnel gateway.
         | 
         | Alternatively, I could setup a v6 tunnel for my home network
         | and each of my remote nodes that doesn't have native v6,
         | "beyondcorp" style. But I _want_ to have an  "internal" network
         | where everything is definitely running over wireguard. But
         | wireguard over v6 just means more bytes on the wire and
         | suboptimal routing, and v6 over wireguard falls under the first
         | point.
         | 
         | Now it's true that if one of my VPS's was v6 only, then I'd
         | start to care about v6 reachability to keep my wireguard mesh a
         | full mesh. But at this time I just don't see the use, and
         | without a use anything I setup for kicks will eventually fall
         | apart like my previous few tests of IPv6 did.
        
         | p1mrx wrote:
         | What we really need is to decouple IP service from the last-
         | mile cable/DSL/fiber ISP, so they provide a dumb pipe to a
         | nearby PoP where you can choose your IPv4/IPv6 provider.
         | 
         | This system would need to support MTU >= 1500, and enforce
         | geographical locality so it doesn't get banned by Netflix.
        
       | recursive wrote:
       | Anyone have any recommendations for a beginner who would also
       | like to learn what's meant by ARP, NDP, ethernet, and basically
       | everything. I've been a developer for decades, and I understand
       | the top level of http[s] well enough, but networking is basically
       | a mystery to me.
        
         | rnhmjoj wrote:
         | I think a good way to learn networking is to set up your
         | network from scratch: either build a router using a PC with
         | some BSD, GNU/Linux or buy a router supported by OpenWRT.
         | 
         | Start with something simple at first: a basic home network. You
         | need to set up a firewall and NAT rules, a DHCP server, a DNS
         | relay or maybe a recursive server. You'll learn a good deal
         | about how the protocols works and why they work that way just
         | by reading the manual pages and trying to configure the
         | software. Also, read the RFCs, really, most are well written
         | and do a better job at explaining how stuff works than a random
         | tutorial. For more practical skills, you can also make your own
         | cables by buying STP/UTP cables and connectors.
         | 
         | Then try to build an IPv6-only network, this is especially fun
         | if you don't have native IPv6 from your ISP (i.e. set up a 6in4
         | tunnel). With IPv6 you can try subnets and routing more easily,
         | also configuring NAT64 and talking to old v4 devices from v6 is
         | pretty fun. Finally you can experiment with more exotic stuff
         | like IPSec encryption between your machines, hosting your email
         | or authoritative DNS server, a VPN, etc.
        
         | anthk wrote:
         | Networking 101
         | 
         | ftp://vert.synchro.net/main/INTERNET/NETWK101.ZIP
         | 
         | A text file. Yes, old. But it works.
         | 
         | EDIT: damn, the file is wrong.
        
         | stusmall wrote:
         | Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach is a great text book
         | on this. It is a huge text book but written in a way where you
         | can drop in on the parts of the stack where you need to.
        
         | gradstudent3145 wrote:
         | I recommend watching Ben Eater's series on networking. He
         | starts from sending a signal over a basic cable and builds up a
         | networking model from there.
         | https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypH19whXTVoG3oKS...
        
         | ithrow wrote:
         | Read a CCNA book for the fundamentals and basics.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | (2020)
        
       | zoomablemind wrote:
       | > ...This post is aimed for home and small office networks. So if
       | you know about ARP, DHCP, and NAT, and if you wonder how these
       | work in IPv6 networks, this post is perfect for you.
       | 
       | Hardly a home user friendly introduction. An acronym soup begins
       | right at the start, where the author describes his network setup.
       | 
       | Not sure if users would feel convinced to adopt IPv6 on their
       | networks without understanding the benefits first.
        
         | jrochkind1 wrote:
         | So you're not the target audience, and you discovered that
         | right at the start, from a clear statement. Sounds like the
         | author succeeded to me.
        
       | Wazako wrote:
       | the difficult part with ipv6 is that we can't use it as a url,
       | contrary to ipv4, so what's the use ?
        
         | senden9 wrote:
         | You can use it in a URL. Just put square brackets around it.
         | Like http://[::1]/
        
       | idiotsecant wrote:
       | This is very digestible, thanks so much for this. I'm going to
       | set up a little test IPv6 network this weekend and play around!
        
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