Ipv6

[rcgreen]

I saw this week that the last remaining blocks of IPV4 addresses
have been allocated. What will be the consequence of the change
over to IPV6? Will I need to buy a new cable modem? What about
routers and switches? Anyone know for sure?

[Irithori]

Two things will happen:
1) Internethosts (web, mail, etc) will be available on both ipv4 and ipv6.
Just a guess, but maybe summer/fall 2011 some of the bigger sites will resolve to ipv6 additionally.

2) Cable providers will offer ipv6 to their customers.
- The modem shouldnt need replacement. (as DSL stays the same)
- Routers need to be able to deal with ipv6 in general (linux based ones can do that)
- But as the webinterfaces and sometimes daemons (dhcp, samba, printer, etc) are only v4, there is need for a bigger firmware update.
- also, you need additional software, for e.g. a v6tov4 tunnel (if you want to keep your intranet ipv4)
- in theory, nat is obsolete with ipv6. There are more than enough addresses.
So, routing will become more common. This then has consequences on security.
- dumb switches can be used without modification. Managed ones might need an update.

Just some thoughts
Let's see what happens

[Irithori]

From my point of view, the internetsites have more pressure.
They need to be ready, before a non-neglectable number of users is ipv6 capable.
Or they exclude parts of their userbase.

On the other hands, the sites cannot do that over night.
At the very least, they need a ipv6 network and therefore contract changes/additions with their providers.
Then firewall and loadbalancer modifications.
Log analyzer need to be updated, too.

Surely I missed some hundreds of steps

[rcgreen]

If IPv6 addresses are really plentiful, I wonder if providers
will be willing to assign more than one to you without
charging an arm and a leg.

[Irithori]

I know, I open myself to "640kByte ought to be enough for everyone" jokes,
but quoting wikipedia

..this amounts to approximately 5×10^28 addresses for each of the 6.8 billion people alive in 2010..

IPv6 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Should be enough for everyone.

[Roxoff]

I know, I open myself to "640kByte ought to be enough for everyone" jokes,
but quoting wikipedia

IPv6 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Should be enough for everyone.

Yeah but, unlike silicon memory chips, IPv6 addresses could be subject to NAT if we run short. There are already schemes to NAT chunks of the IPv6 address space, just to keep admin easier for big companies.