Is it that difficult to setup, or are people biased against it when something they've got works, and something new doesn't?
When IPv6 doesn't work, it's easy to blame it, turn it off and stick with IPv4 because it works. When IPv4 doesn't work it's a problem that has to be fixed to access the vast majority of services online.
If your DNS can't resolve A records, you'd immediately complain and get it fixed.
For a few years now, I've tried enabling IPv6 at home (not exclusively, just dual stack). Every time I do, I inevitably turn it off because something breaks (usually some website that pretends to have an AAAA record but then it times out and has to fall back to IPv4).
Until it's easy for nerds like me, I just don't see it taking off. So far I haven't found a compelling reason to spend the time to get it to work well, and it doesn't work well out of the box, so I see no reason to use IPv6.
First of all, it is not reasonable to blame the protocol for your ISP's inability to configure it properly.
Secondly, I don't get this mentality that IPv6 is some totally inferior thing and I really don't get people advising others to disable IPv6 just because they don't understand it.
Statements like "IPv4 does everything I need!" are, ultimately, totally missing the point. The fact is that we have hit the scale ceiling of the IPv4 address space and other cracks are showing and now the entire world needs something that will scale for the next few hundred billion devices.
IPv6 is the protocol that will lift the scale ceiling higher, not just for you and your needs, but for everyone. It won't really change anything performance-wise, nor will it change how higher-layer protocols like TCP and UDP work, but that's intentional.
You can hold out on principle if you like but it won't gain you anything. The world will just migrate around you eventually.
I think the main barrier is that for most people IPv4 works just fine and they've never experienced a problem that IPv6 would solve. Maybe they will, some day, like if Facebook and Google shut down their IPv4 IPs.
For me IPv6 sucks because it doesn't really solve my problems in a better way, and instead seemingly introduces a lot more fragility and complexity.
I still have to mess with the firewall to open ports, not much different from doing IPv4 NAT as my router software (pfSense) automatically creates firewall rules tracking the port mapping. Except it is worse, because my firewall software don't track IPv6 changes so breaks whenever the device gets a new IP (say new prefix).
When exposing services to the internet it's even more PITA since each device needs a DynDNS client configured, whereas with IPv4 just the router needs one for my single public IP.
IPv6 on the LAN is quite a pita due to the massive "random" prefix, gone are the days of easy addresses like 10.0.0.12. Yeah I guess I could just use the local address space but what does that really bring over the IPv4 that I know?
And then there's the software that just doesn't follow the times. My router just doesn't handle getting a new prefix. Yeah OK the initial IPv6 wet dream was for an eternal prefix. But clearly that's been unrealistic for quite some time, and sadly not all software has caught up.
I will admit that some of it is probably down to me learning more. But I struggle to find the motivation. There's no "killer app", just a lot of pain so far.
"although software support is virtually a requirement these days"
Who's fault is this again?
-------------
"- IPv6 is absolutely ready for prime-time and has been for awhile
BUT
"- About half of the internet sites I rely on support IPv6 natively, so there needs to be more pressure on site admins and CDNs to support IPv6 natively"
That is a contradiction.
-----------
"There seems to be a lack of drive (judging by forum posts) to enable IPv6 on internet services by admins, either because they don’t care to, or it’s more work to manage a public IPv4 and public IPv6 presence"
Again, who's fault is it that its so hard? What is the payoff for the extra work?
-----------
- Networks should be designed IPv6-first instead of IPv4-first, and this design approach largely solves most of the major issues
K thanx, but that's not the way virtually every company works. Mayyyyybe a startup? This is unrealistic.
-----------
"Other operating systems are bit of hit or miss"
so... IPV6 is NOT NOT NOT ready for prime time, is that what you are saying?
-----------
What dream world are the ipv6 people living in?
I love this. Who should be implementing ipv6 stacks in OS's? Probably ipv6 people, but ... where are they again? The amount of blame is crazy.
A protocol switchover of this magnitude is about outreach and assistance. The ipv6 crowd has NEVER displayed that, just arrogance, dismissal, and waited for things to get "so bad" in ipv4 that it transferred.
Which is why ipv6 people HATE HATE HATE NAT. It has delayed their grand moment by decades.
...
In an ideal world, the ip++ protocol would have been easier, not harder. BLog posts wouldn't be victim blaming, throwing around NAT64, 464XLAT, DNS64
DNS64 kills me. WHy is there a totally different service for ipv6? Isn't DNS just a key-value store? People put all types of crap into DNS, including, I believe, ipv6 addresses.
Why isn't there a DNS record type that basically lists both an ipv4 and ipv6 for a name, along with negotiation information? Might that make transition a lot easier? Maybe it does, but it isn't in this article.
Just ... all the same problematic attitudes, no progress on issues, my way or highway, and denial.
I understand that. I'm just saying that the people who don't want to try IPv6 aren't motivated by that. For many the calculus is simply functionality divided by effort. They're not configuring IPv6 because it's hard or because it doesn't work. They're not configuring IPv6 because they already use IPv4 and it still works for them.
Well put. I’ve been shocked by the elitist attitude by many commenter who don’t see the issue IPv6 has for _most_ non-IT professionals.
Facts are these: IPv6 is a failure; it didn’t provide a way to conexist with IPv4 [1] and it did _not_ have a _compelling_ benefit to most people. The benefits cited makes no difference to most.
you've /never/ heard anyone call ipv6 long, confusing, and complicated? I've basically /only/ heard people say that.
This is probably because the idealized world of "only network engineers" is leaky. Programmers, sysadmins, people trying to get their network printer to work, non-specialists have to interface with network addresses constantly.
Saying they shouldn't is not a description of reality. Not everyone who needs to set up or diagnose a network do so as a career path.
Almost all hardware and software has supported ipv6 for many many years. The humans using it are the ones that shut it off or disable it. Unless you address the human behavior of why that is, this problem will not be addressed.
I claim there needs to be a friendlier, casual interface that makes people's lives easier. It can be a crude kneecapped sheen so long as it addresses the needs of the general user. Then they'll use ipv6, not for ideology or virtue reasons about the commons but because it makes their lives easier
It's all very well if you _have_ an IPv4 address range. But if you don't you're screwed. IPv6 fixes this, it should be adopted everywhere. Those against it seem to be the same ones who make money from the artificial scarcity of IPv4, funny that...
Amen, brother. Fact is, all critical limitations with IPv4 were hacked around by necessity, so the average user doesn’t care.
The main failure case is that it’s a painful or possibly impossible to setup your own public internet server from home, but ISPs are probably happy about that and games have figured out a work-around.
If IPv6 was a project at work, it would probably get killed as not a priority.
It's honestly not that hard. Looking at your other posts, you think it's hard because you're unfamiliar with it, because you're trying to overcomplicate it, and because you're trying to do everything all at once rather than gradually.
None of these things are IPv6's fault.
Hell, give me remote access to your network and I'll set it up for you -- at least enough to get you started on it if not 100% on every single thing. I don't expect you'll take me up on that offer, but it'd be easier to just do it than tell you about it, since you can't tell people anything: http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-an...
Here you are supporting the network problem. If no ISPs support IPv6, it makes no sense for websites to support it. If no websites support it, it makes no sense for ISPs to support it.
You're right that everyone with an address needs no new address to be globally reachable, but in order to actually fix the issue we need everyone to switch. The protocol versions just don't inter-operate.
I read most reddit posts that mention IPv6, as well as comments on any blog post, news story etc that makes the rounds. People bitch and moan about every little problem with v6, including blaming it for problems caused by v4 or by completely unrelated causes and with no regard for whether the problem has been fixed 20 years ago or was just imaginary in the first place. They'll even complain about the benefits it gets them.
If 30-minutely prefix changes were common, people would definitely be complaining about it.
...but okay, I won't claim that I catch everything. Can I ask which ISP this is, or at least which country? Perhaps it's common in places that don't have much presence in the English-speaking parts of the internet.
It's nice to hear that it mostly works for you. It should do, but a lot of software is terrible at handling dynamic changes -- it seems to be something that programmers struggle with. The biggest problem should be that long-running connections aren't possible.
Any implementation that prefers IPv4 over IPv6 is broken by design, see RFC3484. While I do understand people will do whatever it takes to get things working in the face of incomplete and barely functional IPv6 roll out, that road can only lead to chaos; the only solution is to stick to the standards and fix the actual problems.
As for my "laughable reasoning", you aren't really comparing apples with apples. There clearly needs to be multiple types of devices with different capabilities and it's only natural to support your users. On the other hand there is no need for IPv4 on the internet, quite the contrary, almost all of the backbone infrastructure is dual stack for years and we have the solutions to support and isolate legacy IPv4 systems where that really makes sense. So it's not a technical problem, it's an economic and political problem: the people hurt most by IPv4 can't really do anything to force the rest of the internet to move forward.
But coming back to your argument: sure, standard compliant clients are preferable and I will absolutely drop support for clients that cost me more than they are worth. I can't afford to do that with IPv4 but I feel I need to send a message, for what it's worth. Sure, my site is small and I can afford it, maybe next year more people will do it and so on. Some day you will thank us :)
It's because there are still significant issues in the average user's stack. If I enable IPv6, my ISP puts me behind a single address still and requires NAT that my router won't do.
When IPv6 doesn't work, it's easy to blame it, turn it off and stick with IPv4 because it works. When IPv4 doesn't work it's a problem that has to be fixed to access the vast majority of services online.
If your DNS can't resolve A records, you'd immediately complain and get it fixed.
reply