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6Bone IPv6 Network Shutting Down Tomorrow 161

Posted by timothy from the just-a-couple-of-nines dept.
theberf writes "On June 6, 2006 the experimental IPv6 network, the 6bone, will be shut down. All 3FFE:: addresses will revert to the IANA and should no longer be used. All IPv6 traffic should now be using production IPv6 addresses delegated by Regional Internet Registries. The 6Bone has been in operation for 10 years." Here's some more information about "IPv6 day."
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6Bone IPv6 Network Shutting Down Tomorrow More

6Bone IPv6 Network Shutting Down Tomorrow

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  • Sign of the Apocolypse? (Score:5, Funny)

    by fredistheking ( 464407 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @07:32PM (#15476475)
    6bone shutting down on 6-6-6?

    Hmmm...

  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05, 2006 @07:35PM (#15476490)
    When will they start up 7bone with its 1024 bit addressing? IPv6 is just so... limiting.

    • Re:So... (Score:3, Funny)

      by HunterZ ( 20035 )
      I know what you mean. I'm trying to set up a cluster of web servers on every subatomic particle in my body, and while I haven't run out of IPv6 addresses yet, I'm also not getting any thinner these days...
    • Shouldn't the next generation called IPv8? We don't have an IPv5 in between IPv4 and IPv6, do we?
      • Shouldn't the next generation called IPv8? We don't have an IPv5 in between IPv4 and IPv6, do we?

        Yes, we do.

        But it was an experiment that didn't work out into somthing that got deployed.

        • Re:So... (Score:3, Funny)

          by Tony Hoyle ( 11698 )
          But it was an experiment that didn't work out into somthing that got deployed.

          So, just like IPV6 then.

          The 6bone dying means the last ipv6 broker I know of just went out of commission...

          In some ways it's a pity that ISPs never deployed it - it could have been in wide use by now. As it was you had to search all over the world for a broker and cope with 500ms first hop ping times & service that was never reliable.. the world has moved on and no longer needs it.
          • the 6bone shutting down is the result of thier belief that the production IPV6 network is now stable enough not to need it.

            if you wan't IPV6 and only have IPV4 connectivity then provided you have a capable machine direct on a public IP you have no need for a tunnel broker you can just use 6to4

          • Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)

            by Zarhan ( 415465 )
            Use 6to4, not a tunnelbroker. Google for 6to4 Linux if you need help (Windows XP starting from SP1 supports this automatically). Anyway, with 6to4, the nearest gateway is found by IPv4 anycast address (192.88.99.1) so you don't even NEED to know the tunnel brokers.
          • The 6bone dying means the last ipv6 broker I know of just went out of commission...

            Intersting... perhaps you should try a "search engine" to find a new tunnel broker. It's a technology that lets you enter in one or more keywords and it will try to find web pages that have that word. Here's a site that I hear it is pretty good for this:

            http://www.google.com/ [google.com]

            If that's too hard, I can recommend the following tunnel broker. I use it for a server I have in a non-IPv6 network (my server is in Amsterdam, and the b
    • When will they start up 7bone with its 1024 bit addressing?

      When you can cram enough memory into routers to handle the tables.

      (Note that some of the tables are not what you'd expect, but are from algorithm hacks to speed up searching to achieve adequate instruction/packet ratios.)

      For 1024 bits, absent algorithmic breakthroughs, you'd need so much that storing one bit per quantum on all the particles in the router wouldn't be adequate. You'd have to go to chipped or even nudged quanta (though you probably wo

    • Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Megane ( 129182 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @10:29PM (#15477230)
      I'd be careful about switching to IP version 7. [wikipedia.org]

  • Website won't load (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05, 2006 @07:38PM (#15476500)
    Looks like they decided to get going with their shutdown ahead of time.

  • Well, it ipv6 has to start somewhere (Score:4, Insightful)

    by the_humeister ( 922869 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @07:39PM (#15476508)
    As it stands, there is no real impetus to use ipv6. Hopefully we'll run out of addresses soon and then maybe we'll all switch.
    • If we are not running out, then why do I only have one IPv4 address for five computers? I thought part of the idea of IPv6 was that we could get rid of NATs, so we would not have to worry about NAT transversal hacks anymore.

      • why do I only have one IPv4 address for five computers?

        Because you are a residential customer and have no compelling need that would justify paying more money to the last mile provider. Even under IPv6, you'd still get a /128 under the billing schemes that the incumbents prefer. Don't like it? Tough feces; last mile incumbents have entered into exclusive contracts with municipalities.

        • Re:Well, it ipv6 has to start somewhere (Score:5, Informative)

          by rcw-home ( 122017 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @09:10PM (#15476914)
          Even under IPv6, you'd still get a /128 under the billing schemes that the incumbents prefer.

          No, the plan is to hand out a /48 even to dialup customers [x42.com].

        • through 6to4 everyone with a public IPV4 address gets a /48 IPV6 prefix free.

      • There is IPV6 NAT. NAT is going nowhere.

        NAT is useful to obscure corporate networks, so cisco routers all have it.... corporate desktops must *not* be directly addressable. Ever.

        • I am sorry. You are correct. NAT can be useful. I was more referring to residential users being able to easily use p2p apps, VOIP, servers, and direct IM/file transfers.
        • corporate desktops must *not* be directly addressable. Ever.

          You know, I've never understood why people are so adamant about this. Where I work, all of our desktops have direct, public IPs. As far as I've heard that's caused about zero security issues, as we have a firewall.

          • It's one less thing to worry about.

          • You know, I've never understood why people are so adamant about this. Where I work, all of our desktops have direct, public IPs. As far as I've heard that's caused about zero security issues, as we have a firewall.

            Agreed. People think that NAT is the only way to have a idiot-proof external-facing security, but they're confusing NAT and a simple stateful firewall. It's easy enough to do. A NAT implementation basically requires a stateful firewall to be useful, and it's often people's first exposure to

            • The one unique security advantage that NATs have is that it's difficult (and with enough paranoia in the configuration impossible) to tell from which computer behind a NAT router a given connection is coming from.

              Eh. You can masquerade connections on a firewall, too, and gain all of that as well. You might then ask "well, then, why have public IPs?", but with a firewall, you could choose to masquerade certain connections while leaving others live.

              There aren't really any security advantages to NATs. It's jus
            • NAT does, however, have one big advantage when you're dealing with a home network: Easy configurability. By default it's completely locked down, which is great when you try to install Windows without instantly joining some botnet. Also, I don't know what you pay for a decent router/firewall configuration, but NAT routers are pretty cheap.
      • Hmm, it may make hacking a whole lot easier...
    • As it stands, there is no real impetus to use ipv6.

      Beg to differ.

      IPv6 is used in certain foreign countries - at least partly to support mobile computing.

      You can't sell networking equipment into some of them (notably Japan) without having an IPv6 solution available.

  • IPv6day.org slowly being slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)

    by thib_gc ( 730259 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @07:46PM (#15476547)
    From the website:

    In March 2003, the IETF decided that was the right time to start the phase-out of the IPv6 experimental network (6Bone), which started in 1996. This included a phase-out plan that defined that on 6 of June of 2006, no 6Bone prefixes will be used on the Internet in any form.

    Moreover, the IETF IPv6 working group has started the process to advance the core IPv6 specifications to the last step in the IETF standardisation Process (e.g., Standard). IETF protocols are elevated to the Internet Standard level when significant implementation and successful operational experience has been obtained. Vendors with IPv6 products are encouraged to participate in this process by identifying their IPv6-enabled products at the IPv6-to-Standard site.

    This event want to acknowledge the efforts of all the 6Bone participants, the IETF community which developed IPv6, other organizations engaged in the IPv6 promotion, and operators and end-users that have been early adopters. All them have been key contributors for the success of IPv6. Service Providers and other organisations that provide on-line IPv6 services are encouraged to register those services in the IPv6 Day website.

    On June 6, 2006, end-users will be able to connect to the above web site to learn about issues like how to turn-on IPv6 in their operating systems, how to obtain IPv6 connectivity and how to try some of the available services.

    With the occasion of this virtual celebration, we have a couple of quotes from two key people on this subject:

            * Bob Fink (6Bone Project): "After more than ten years of planning, development and experience with IPv6, with efforts from all around the world, it is gratifying for me to see the 6Bone phase-out on the 6th of June 2006, having served it's purpose to stimulate IPv6 deployment and experience, leaving IPv6 a healthy ongoing component of the future of the Internet!"
            * Brian Carpenter (IBM, co-author of multiple IPv6 RFCs and IETF chair): "It's very encouraging to see IPv6 moving forward both technically and commercially, with its address assignments now routinely managed by the same registries that look after the rapidly diminishing IPv4 address pool. I look forward to the day the Internet reaches ten billion active nodes with public addresses, which will only be possible with IPv6."
    • ...they also say that if you have an IPv6-reachable service up by 6Bone Day, to write in and let them know.

      Examples of services that can be configured to be IPv6-reachable would be websites using Apache or Roxen, the games of Empire or PennMUSH - dunno if Freeciv is IPv6-aware or not, the Yum RPM updater - not sure about Apt, BIND, and probably a fair few others I can't think of right now. (They don't specify if games would be acceptable or not - but anyone who hosts a celebration on 6-6-6 is probably not h

  • Experimenting with IPv6 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @07:55PM (#15476581) Homepage Journal
    I feel that while we don't need IPv6 yet, waiting until we do need it would be foolish. Think of this in the same terms as the Y2K issue, which never became an issue because people took proactive action.

    Some useful IPv6 related links:
        - http://www.simphalempin.com/dev/miredo/ [simphalempin.com]
        - http://evanjones.ca/macosx-ipv6.html [evanjones.ca]
        - http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/ [bieringer.de]
        - http://www.hexago.com/ [hexago.com]
        - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/590/ [mozilla.org] - displays ipv6 address in firefox, if it has one
        - http://www.ipv6.org/impl/windows.html [ipv6.org]

    All that is really needed is for the pockets of IPv6 networks to join up, rather than staying as pockets. Maybe an IPv6 based P2P or something of the sorts might help provide some sort of momentum.

    • Re:Experimenting with IPv6 (Score:4, Informative)

      by Keruo ( 771880 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @08:23PM (#15476703)
      > Maybe an IPv6 based P2P or something of the sorts might help provide some sort of momentum.

      Shh. Don't tell anyone, that NNTP(usenet) is ipv6 compatible, and has free servers(ipv6 only) which don't require monthly fees.
      And bittorrent doesn't have any issues with ipv6 either.
       
    • If I recall correctly, supporting IP Multicast was required instead of optional for IPv6 implementations.

      If this is the case, a multicast-aware BitTorrent would be THE killer app, IF IPv6 were deployed sufficiently for multicast torrents to be effective.

      The way things are now, a multicast torrent would be pretty much the same trafficwise as the way things currently are for the backbone, since for the most part everyone is tunneling to one of a small handful of IPv6 brokers.
      • By design, it is difficult to move BitTorrent to multicast, since it uses stream-based TCP, and multicast only really works with datagrams. The protocol I designed and implemented as my third year project didn't have this limitation, since it was built on UDP (and even reserved some space in the headers for multicast). I should really tidy up the source code and release it at some point...
        • Yes, there are definately major issues to be dealt with for some sort of multicast support for BT (such as, for example, the fact that torrent users don't all have the same downstream bandwidth, and even when multicast support starts appearing in ISPs it'll take a long time for full penetration so the "legacy" way needs to be supported.) There's also the TCP streams vs. UDP datagrams issue.

          It would actually be easier to implement this as a seperate protocol that was designed to augment BitTorrent. (i.e. g

  • so, is *anyone* outside academia using IPv6? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by poopie ( 35416 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @07:57PM (#15476596) Journal
    Seriously.

    We've looked at it for internal use, but it's so *different*, there appear to be a bunch of compatibility issues for running a pure IPv6 network and everyone thinks it's weird and counter-intuitive.

    I'd really like to see dozens of replies from people using this... because I'd say that IPv6 adoption right now is going about as well as metric system adoption in the US has gone.

    • Re:so, is *anyone* outside academia using IPv6? (Score:5, Informative)

      by El Torico ( 732160 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @08:08PM (#15476640)
      I'd really like to see dozens of replies from people using this... because I'd say that IPv6 adoption right now is going about as well as metric system adoption in the US has gone.

      It should go faster; at least the DoD is mandating adoption of IPv6 by Service Agencies. This will prove to be an "incentive" for those ISPs that contract to the DoD, which is probably every U.S. Tier One ISP. As for pure IPv6, that may never happen completely.

      • at least the DoD is mandating adoption of IPv6 by Service Agencies

        They did the same for OSI at one stage, as did most European governments. It didn't help. Protocols tends to take off fairly rapidly, or die a horrible slow death: I can't offhand think of a protocol which sat unused for years and then suddenly burst forth. Had IPv^ just been IPv4 with longer addresses, things might have been different, but IPv6 suffered from the OSI disease of attempting to standardise things for which there was almos

        • There is nothing wrong with having every internal computer on the Internet. Proper border firewalls would allow you to be rid of the complexity of NAT/PAT, with no compromise in security.
    • Meanwhile, in the rest of the world...

    • Re:so, is *anyone* outside academia using IPv6? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You analogy of the metric system in the US is a good example of why "everyone thinks [IPv6 is] weird and counter-intuitive."

      I remember when I was in grade school they started that big push to get metric used. The biggest problem (at least from my perspective) is that, not being born in to it, I never had a native/intuitive feel for metric. I can visualize 5 1/2 miles... I can break the distance down in my head to a number of city blocks (another imperial measurement), and even spatially in comparison to the

    • Re:so, is *anyone* outside academia using IPv6? (Score:5, Informative)

      by lelitsch ( 31136 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @08:29PM (#15476729)
      Given that the Federal (US) government is required [govexec.com] by the OMB to switch to IPv6 by June 2008, I seriously hope you are not looking to do any business with them or any federal contractor after that date.

      On the other hand, in typical US government fashion, according to the GAO implementation speed is seriously behind schedule [gao.gov].
      • They might do it internally, but on their external links? Never. That'd be equivalent to cutting themselves off. ipv4 compatibility is a requirement that'll not go away soon if ever.

        Hell, the way IPV6 is going there's plenty of time for them to change their minds and dump the idea.

      • Re:so, is *anyone* outside academia using IPv6? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bastion_xx ( 233612 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @09:47PM (#15477051)
        After getting burned back in the late 80s / early 90s with the OSI protocol mandates, I'm leery of anything the US government mandates. Then again, look how well Ada turned out too.

        I'm torn on the IPv6 situation. I hate the NAT issues we run into on every project that requires site to site connectivity (we're using 172.16/16.... Oh neat, so are we!) and the NAT hoops you have to jump through. But then again, it's hard to work with "network engineers" that get lost once you start moving off of octet boundries for netmasks.

        If there was a decent ISP that provided both IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity with little to no overhead, I'd seriously start looking and doing pilot projects. Until that happens or the IPv6 killer app comes along, I don't see much movement from IPv4, which is a testament to the flexibilty and scaleability of the protocol stack. I really am in awe at what IPv4 has been able to do....

        • If there was a decent ISP that provided both IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity with little to no overhead, I'd seriously start looking and doing pilot projects. Until that happens or the IPv6 killer app comes along, I don't see much movement from IPv4.

          This is the killer bit for me, I recently moved my network from a /26 to a /28 Ipv4 (it was faster) ... and it cost a non-trivial amount. I asked about only having a /29 with ipv4 and having ipv6 too, assuming it would be cheaper (and I could handle a bunch of m

      • At once time, government projects had to use Ada. In the 80s, you had to use UNIX (it led to the development of Apple's UNIX back then). In the late 80s, OSI was going to be required.

        In the end, none of these had any effect (the UNIX stuff died long before Linux game around). I dont know if this will be any different.

        And besides, just being able to do it is probably enough. Mac OS X does IPv6, but does anyone use it?
    • I've heard IPv6 is big in Japan (they get everything first), but it appears to be more for political posturing than practical reasons. ...there appear to be a bunch of compatibility issues for running a pure IPv6 network...

      That's because you're not supposed to go pure IPv6; you should run dual-stack for 10-20 years before dropping IPv4.

    • Re:so, is *anyone* outside academia using IPv6? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @10:27PM (#15477223) Homepage Journal
      So how would one outside academia get experience with IPv6? I've seen lots of hype about it, and some low-level specs. But I've never seen anything that tells me the details of things like to get an address for a machine, how to do IPv6 routing, etc.

      Funny thing is that my Mac Powerbook has both an "inet" and an "inet6" address on its wireless port. It gets the IPv4 address from the Airport's DHCP server, but I have no idea where that IPv6 address came from. It doesn't seem very useful, either, because my gateway (linux) box doesn't have any IPv6 addresses, so I'd guess that it doesn't know how to route IPv6 packets. I have accounts on a couple of other machines with IPv6 addresses, but I wouldn't know how to use those addresses to get anything done.

      So where can I read all about the nitty-gritty details, enough to join the crowd?

  • If telecoms (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Watson Ladd ( 955755 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @08:01PM (#15476613)
    spent as much money on implementing these protocols as lobbying for two-tier networks we would all have IPv6 now.
  • I honestly don't understand the hard-on a lot of people seem to have for IPv6. I LIKE NAT. I thinks it's neat. I like the idea that my systems can have un-real IP addresses. IP addresses that can actually change! Wow -cool! When the day comes that each box on my home LAN is required to be perma-identified, I for one, will be royally pissed off.
    • Don't worry IPV6 has NAT too.

      And if you ever have an ISP that supports it they'll very probably give you a /128 and you'll be in the exact same position you are now.

      Basically IPV6 is no change to the normal user. Only large coroporate users will see the change, and they'll NAT as a basic security measure anyway.
    • IPv6 has NAT. The larger address space is only one of the changes that the new standard makes (it's just the most visible, and easiest to describe). IPv6 also allows for better security, QoS routing, and new 'plug and play' autoconfiguration capabilities (ie, generate an IP address from the hardware address)
    • IPv6 has better than NAT: Pseudorandom, non-permanent IP addresses.

    • Re:Privacy Implications of IPv6 (Score:5, Informative)

      by kestasjk ( 933987 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @09:26PM (#15476980) Homepage
      You'll still be able to use NAT if you want. The difference is you won't have to use NAT, and entire cities which are currently using NAT (Milan for one IIRC) can start to use public IPs again.

    • Re:Privacy Implications of IPv6 (Score:4, Informative)

      by adrianmonk ( 890071 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @11:38PM (#15477479)
      I honestly don't understand the hard-on a lot of people seem to have for IPv6. I LIKE NAT. I thinks it's neat. I like the idea that my systems can have un-real IP addresses. IP addresses that can actually change!

      IP addresses that can conflict with the range of addresses that some Internet cafe chose when you try to VPN into your network from outside! Conflicts that cause routing nightmares! Hey, my home network and Starbucks are both using 192.168.1.0/24 so it's impossible to tell the difference between my 192.168.1.99 and the 192.168.1.99 that another Starbuck's customer is using! Yay! ;-)

      Seriously though, the public side of the NAT has to have a routable address. With IPv6, you could have a routable address for the hosts on your private network, but you don't have to have that address visible in any packets that leave your private network. You can still do NAT, and your routable addresses won't be visible to the outside world, just like your 192.168.1.0/24 addresses aren't visible to the outside world right now.

    • I'm thinking this was intended as funny, but it was modded as insightful, so;

      are there any technical limitations against doing Nat on ipv6? Forgive my ignorance, but providing authentication/encryption is not mandatory, I don't know of a reason why Nat would not work.

      Saying this, the real reason for nat is to overcome the lack of up addresses. Hopefully, with plenty of IPv6 addresses, ISPs will allow you to have 5 or 10 etc. For the majority of purposes, using nat as a quasi-firwall is foolish, given the di

  • Yes (Score:3, Funny)

    by Apoklypse ( 853837 ) <thetechdragonNO@SPAMNOSPAM.hotmail.com> on Monday June 05, 2006 @09:49PM (#15477067)
    it's a sign ... The 5th Horseman
  • I've thought for a long time that IPv6 is going to be one area that the US will lag behind in networking. Cisco/Linksys will have support (Cisco routers all do now) as they compete in Asia, etc. where IPv6 is already in widespread use.

    Can you name 2 ISPs in the US that you can get native IPv6 assignments from?

    For some time, I had a 6-bone /48 from Sprintlink.

    I know that Verio announced IPv6 service some time ago (2+ years) and that Hurricane Electric [he.net] has had IPv6 service for a very long time (you can even
    • BTW, I tried a tunnel to freenet6 [hexago.com] (very simple interface) just now, and tested stuff like ipv6.chat.freenode.net [irc], a few random ipv6 sites, and even an FM broadcasting site [lkml.org] in mplayer. It all worked, but it was still way laggy as before... non-native (tunneled) ipv6 is just too slow. Other than the geek factor of being on freenode with an ipv6 address, I don't see the point just yet since 99.999% of the internet doesn't even support ipv6, and you have to hunt for sites that even support it (feels like the
  • Just look at how much IPv6 address space costs per year.

    Now you know why noone is using it.
  • Networks are changing their setups right about now. A series of traceroute6's from just a few minutes ago shows (note the disappearance of the 3ffe address at hop 15, and the new routing path afterwards):

    swinter@aragorn ~ $ /usr/sbin/traceroute6 www.kame.net
    traceroute to www.kame.net (2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085) from 2001:a18:1:8:205:5dff:fea1:c541, 30 hops max, 16 byte packets
    1 fwint-1.restena.lu (2001:a18:1:8::1) 1.308 ms 0.203 ms 1.282 ms
    2 gate-1.rest.restena.lu (2001:a18:0:8

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