Programmer Humor

fun fact, the RFC introducing NAT calls it a "short-term solution"

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1631

I know it's a joke, but the idea that NAT has any business existing makes me angry. It's a hack that causes real headaches for network admins and protocol design. The effects are mostly hidden from end users because those two groups have twisted things in knots to make sure end users don't notice too much. The Internet is more centralized and controlled because of it.

No, it is not a security feature. That's a laughable claim that shows you shouldn't be allowed near a firewall.

Fortunately, Google reports that IPv6 adoption is close to cracking 50%.

Ipv6 is broken for those that want control over their home networks thanks to Google and terribly written RFCs.

All that was needed was an extra byte or two of address space, but no, some high and mighty evangelicals in their ivory towers built something that few people understand 30 years later. Their die hard fans are sure that this will be the year of ipv6. The Year of Linux on the Desktop will come 10 years before the year of ipv6.

I hope nat burns in hell when ipv6 will become standard

bro just add another octet to the end of ipv4. That goes from 4 billion to a trillion and will most definitely outlast modern electronics and capitalism

My favorite thing to use IPv6 for is to use the privacy extension to get around IP blocks on YouTube when using alternative front ends. Blocked by Google on my laptop? No problem, let me just get another one of my 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 IP addresses.

I have a separate subnet which is IPv6 only and rotates through IP addresses every hour or so just for Indivious, Freetube and PipePipe.

Surely we can do better. Why not IPv10? That's 4 higher than 6!

The reason IPv6 was originally added to the DOCSIS specs, over 20 years ago, is because Comcast literally exhausted all RFC1918 addresses on their modem management networks.

My favourite feature of IPv6 is networks, and hosts therein, can have multiple prefixes and addresses as a core function. I use it to expose local functions on only ULA addresses, but provide locked down public access when and where needed. Access separation is handled at the IP stack, with IPv4 it’s expected to be handled by a firewall or equivalent.

Skill issue

IPv6 is easy to do.

2000::/3 is the internet range

fc00::/7 is the private network range (for non routing v6)

fe80::/64 is link local (like apipa but it never changes)

::1/128 is loopback

/64 is the smallest network allocation, and you still have 64 bits left for devices.

You don't need NAT when you can just do firewalling - default drop new connections on inbound wan and allow established, related on outbound wan like any IPv4 firewall does.

Use DHCPv6 and Prefix Delegation (DHCPv6-PD) to get your subnets and addresses (ask for a /60 on the wan to get 16 subnets).

Hook up to your printer using ipv6 link local address - that address never changes on its own, and now you don't have to play the static ip game to connect to it after changing your router or net config.

The real holdup is ISPs getting ultra cheap routers that use stupid network allocation systems (AT&T) that are incompat with the elegant simplicity of prefix delegation and dhcp.

In my personal life I will probably "never" intentionally use ipv6.

But it is a DAMNED good sniff test to figure out if an IT/NT team is too dumb to live BEFORE they break your entire infrastructure. If they insist that the single most important thing is to turn it off on every machine? They better have a real good reason other than "it's hard"

I see your satirical IPv6 meme and raise you the highest quality IPv6 evangelism you'll ever see.

Meh, the idea of having every address be globally routable makes a lot of sense. NAT is a great bandaid but it's still a bandaid. It still limits how peer to peer and multicast applications function, especially on larger networks.

I use IPv6 every day and everywhere I can. It solves so many issues in large corporate and ISP network setups. And yes 10. Wasn’t big enough, and NATing is a PitA.

Honestly we just keep pushing it off when it’s not that bad. Workaround after workaround just because people are lazy.

Also for home network I don’t won’t my IOT to have a real IP to the Internet. Using IPv4 NAT you can have a bit of safety by obscurity

Just my perspective as a controls (SCADA engineer):

I work for a large power company. We have close to 100 sites, each with hundreds of IP devices, and have never had a problem with ipv4. Especially when im out in the field I love being able to check IPs, calculate gateways, etc at a glance. Ipv6 is just completely freaking unreadable.

I see the value of outward-facing ipv6 devices (i.e. devices on the internet), considering we are out of ipv4s. But I don't see why we have to convert private networks to ipv6. Put more bluntly: at least industry, it just isn't gonna happen for decades (if it ever does). Unless you need more IPs it's just worse to work with. And there's a huge amount of inertia- got one singular device that doesn't talk ipv6 at a given generation site? What are you supposed to do?

Is this IPv5?

I'm surprised by the comments here. I use 90% IPv6. For me v4 is only present for retro compatibility. The transition was hard however.