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points by simoncion 7 hours ago | 0 comments

> IPv6 failed to reach the "boring, just works" level after 30 years of deployment.

/me glances over at my phone, which only has an IPv6 address when connected via cellular modem.

/me thinks back to the decade+ of incredibly boring IPv6 service from the residential ISPs I've used.

Sure.

If an ISP wants to provide only IPv6 addresses to CPE, they can set things up so that happens. But if you won't be satisfied until IPv4 no longer passes over the Internet, then you're going to die unhappy about that. The goal for our lifetime is one where every residential site has a global /56 and is behind IPv4 CGN, and servers hosted by commercial entities get to choose whether they assign IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses, or both to their servers.

[–] TobTobXX 7 hours ago

/me searching through all the mobile network providers in Switzerland (a technologically advanced country) and not finding any.

Seriously, this drives me mad. There is NO WAY to get IPv6 on mobile networks in Switzerland. Neither Swisscom, nor Sunrise, nor Salt, and of course no reseller.

And Android handles this particularly poorly. I have some servers set up in my tailscale network on private IPv6 addresses, but android doesn't query AAAA addresses if it has no ::/0 route, so I HAVE to route all my traffic through my VPN which often creates other complications (with corporate wifi etc.)

[–] andix 6 hours ago

I get your frustration. But not having access to IPv6 personally does not mean IPv6 is dead. It's very much alive and handles considerable amounts of traffic.

[–] TobTobXX 6 hours ago

Well ok, not dead. Dead sounds final and I still think that we will get more IPv6 deployed in the future. And I set up all my servers as IPv6-first. So no, I don't think IPv6 is dead.

But I'd claim it failed completely. Many very public services (eg. github.com, sentry.io, office365.com, archive.org) outright don't support it. And the fact that infrastructure providers (like mobile network carriers) don't support it either, proves that it is far from "alive". In fact, I'd say it is deader than MMS, Fax and landline. For these I can still get service. For IPv6 (on the phone) I can't.

[–] andix 6 hours ago

It only failed to fully replace IPv4. But it runs perfectly fine along IPv4 and is very much alive. It replaced IPv4 where it was needed and didn't where it doesn't matter yet.

Email didn't replace letters on paper. But I wouldn't say email failed completely.

[–] simoncion 5 hours ago

> ...and didn't where it doesn't matter yet.

Given the number of scaredy-ass ISPs out there who refuse to offer IPv6 service, I disagree with this. But I do strongly agree with the rest of your comment.

I also very strongly assert that claims of the form "IPv6 is not the only version of IP used on the Internet, therefor it is a complete failure." maybe with a side of "And this 'failure' means that IPv6 is a dead protocol." are just plain stupid. v4 and v6 were very deliberately designed to coexist, and if v4 continues to run on the Internet until the day the Internet is shut down, that's totally fine.

In my opinion, the most plausible future is one I mention in my second paragraph here. [0]

[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50297244>

[–] simoncion 6 hours ago

To be clear, 'TobTobXX' isn't 'cyberax'. 'cyberax' is claiming that IPv6 is dead, whereas 'TobTobXX' is -quite justifiably- complaining that both his local cellular ISPs and Android suck.

[–] cyberax 7 hours ago

You're welcome to try to solve the challenges from my sibling post. Both of them are solved in IPv4 by a $100 router from a nearby store and with zero configuration.

[–] simoncion 6 hours ago

> You're welcome to try to solve the challenges from my sibling post.

Check my reply to your post. [0] I wrote it up before I noticed your message here. ;)

[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50295293>