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According to the IAB https://www.iab.org/documents/correspondence-reports-documents/2016-2/iab-statement-on-ipv6/ the supply of IPv4 addresses is exhausted. Now the transition begins.

The main issues for me is networking equipment that is compliant with IPv6, understanding IPv6, and the security with IPv6. I've kept IPv6 off for the longest time but now it looks like it's time to dive into it and understand it.

I'm hoarding mine!

That's old news, IANA handed out the last top level address space in 2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion

If you are doing anything with networking, you need to be IPv6 aware. If your ISP doesn't provide you with native IPv6 then you can always setup a tunnel to get you IPv6 access https://tunnelbroker.net/

notfred wrote:

That's old news, IANA handed out the last top level address space in 2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion

If you are doing anything with networking, you need to be IPv6 aware. If your ISP doesn't provide you with native IPv6 then you can always setup a tunnel to get you IPv6 access https://tunnelbroker.net/

A lot of it was freed up by its corporate owners and resold before though, so it may be a more pressing matter now/soon.

In 2011 IPv6 wasn't a big deal and until now I have avoided the transition technologies especially the tunneling types that the firewall can't properly inspect. But now more and more web sites will be IPv6. So I'm curious what gerbils here might be using to be able to be able to use IPv6 and still security compliant.

From my small understanding, I just have to make sure the provider is IPv6 compliant, the modem/router also, and then I have to turn on IPv6. One thing I can say is the network seems to be a LOT more noisy with IPv6 turned on or I'm just not doing something right.

I might hold off on IPv6 for another 6-12 months but doubtful after that. Time sure flies.

I've been hearing about the exhaustion of IPv4 for a decade now and it hasn't seemed to motivate businesses much. At this point I wonder if IPv4 addresses decaying like francium would make much of a difference

In my head I hear a bunch of businesses/networks chanting in the voice of Dory from Finding Nemo - "Just keep NAT'ing, just keep NAT'ing' "

Most business people wouldn't have a clue about either IPv4 or IPv6.  If it's not put to them in an argument involving dollars or units sold, then they don't understand why it could be a problem.

TwistedKestrel wrote:

I've been hearing about the exhaustion of IPv4 for a decade now and it hasn't seemed to motivate businesses much. At this point I wonder if IPv4 addresses decaying like francium would make much of a difference

It won't. Unless you're a service provider. See RFC1918 for details.

Vhalidictes wrote:

TwistedKestrel wrote:

I've been hearing about the exhaustion of IPv4 for a decade now and it hasn't seemed to motivate businesses much. At this point I wonder if IPv4 addresses decaying like francium would make much of a difference

It won't. Unless you're a service provider. See RFC1918 for details.

Yes, I know what private IP addresses are, thank you. Did I have to specify "businesses that require publically routable IP addresses"?

TwistedKestrel wrote:

Vhalidictes wrote:

TwistedKestrel wrote:

I've been hearing about the exhaustion of IPv4 for a decade now and it hasn't seemed to motivate businesses much. At this point I wonder if IPv4 addresses decaying like francium would make much of a difference

It won't. Unless you're a service provider. See RFC1918 for details.

Yes, I know what private IP addresses are, thank you. Did I have to specify "businesses that require publically routable IP addresses"?

You could, but it wouldn't matter if you did. Oddly, sloth is a powerful motivator. 

Certainly edge devices would need a IPv6 network for public routing, but everything inside the gateways could be IPv4 for the foreseeable future, and probably will be.

IBM still holds a Class A block (9.x.x.x).

AFAICT they're mostly (or entirely) using it internally as if it was a private address space.

When I connect to the network at the office, my laptop gets a 9.x.x.x address (in theory publicly routable) via DHCP, but my public IP is on a different subnet, and is obviously going through a NAT of some sort.

Been running IPv6 since 2012 (Comcast was among the first residental-tier USA ISP to adopt it). I'm aware that most of the country isn't up to it yet.

Hell, my DSL modem for Frontier didn't pass IPv6 packets through it, so my internal Network could not use any Windows 8 and up home network features. I recently replaced it after a hard-fought battle with a new modem/router and Frontier kicking my modem off. I look at the old modem's firmware date and it is stuck at 2012. Not to mention the WiFi would bomb out after 16 devices... now I am at a whopping 32, but things perform much better with IPv6

I should mention that TR is fully IPv6 enabled:

just brew it! wrote:

IBM still holds a Class A block (9.x.x.x).

AFAICT they're mostly (or entirely) using it internally as if it was a private address space.

When I connect to the network at the office, my laptop gets a 9.x.x.x address (in theory publicly routable) via DHCP, but my public IP is on a different subnet, and is obviously going through a NAT of some sort.

The university that I used to work for had an entire public class B block and they pretty much used those as a private address space too. Plus they had some workstations on actual private addresses. It wasn't even an especially big university.

Madness.

I use IPv4 on the LAN but afaik outside-facing is all IPv6. Work, likewise, IPv4 locally and we'll never give it up because the engineers and testers spend way too much time typing in IP addresses to memorize all that hex nonsense. Our printers are way too majestic to allow the outside world to despoil them so it's kind of a moot point.

NovusBogus wrote:

I use IPv4 on the LAN but afaik outside-facing is all IPv6.  Work, likewise, IPv4 locally and we'll never give it up because the engineers and testers spend way too much time typing in IP addresses to memorize all that hex nonsense.  Our printers are way too majestic to allow the outside world to despoil them so it's kind of a moot point.

NAT is simply too good of a hack. IPv4 is especially lucky it had 65535 ports in order for NAT to work well for most people.