The article calls this a game of chicken between Hurricane Electric and Cogent, but later also mentions that Cogent refuses to peer with Google. It seems therefore that a better title would be “Cogent’s IPv6 is broken”
The Wikipedia entry for Cogent also states:
Although Cogent is not a Tier 1 ISP by definition, due to lack of complete IPv6 connectivity, the company still advertises itself a Tier 1 ISP.
Many, if not most, ISPs will only give you a single /64 that they constantly change through DHCP-PD, so you can’t count on anything and have to either use IPv4 internally (which is what everyone does) or resort to IPv6 NAT (which also defeats the purpose). That’s now even about hosting servers, it’s about any communication within the home network unless can fully rely on mDNS and friends for everything.
Many ISPs in many places don’t provide even that, they don’t provide any working residential IPv6 at all.
Countries with Internet censorship are hindering IPv6 adoption because their mass surveillance and censorship technologies were designed for IPv4 and ban tunnel brokers (once a viable alternative) because they also allow people to bypass their censorship.
I’m not exactly hopeful for the future of IPv6, but at least the first part can be fixed by regulation in more-or-less normal countries.
The post has at leaset some connection to “the IPv6 internet” and why it is broken[0], but this sounds more like mosts IPSs are broken.
Many, if not most, ISPs will only give you a single /64 that they constantly change through DHCP-PD
So your ISP don’t give you proper access to the internet? In other words your ISP is broken not the IPv6 Internet.
Most ISPs I know (german home ISP, I don’t know about mobil) give you a /56 via DHCP-PD. Yes the change the prefix regularly for privacy reasons. On request you get a static prefix. For the most private (and smal non IT business) this exactly what they need.
it’s about any communication within the home network
You know about ULAs (private IPv6 address space) and DHCPv6? Setup your local service to do dhcpv6 and configure a ULA prefix on your network. This works the same way as in IPv4 and has also the same downsides (clients can’t dhcp, only have static dns servers, …).
Many ISPs in many places don’t provide even that, they don’t provide any working residential IPv6 at all.
Again the ISP don’t provider proper IPv6 internet and not the IPv6 internet is broken.
Countries with Internet censorship are hindering IPv6 adoption
Yes Countries with Internet censorship censor the Internet. Still don’t see how this means the Internet is broken.
Yes there are Issues with ISPs providing proper Internet (v4 and v6), but this doesn’t mean the Internet is broken. It bugs me when it is claimed inverted. Because then the details get lost over time and some people only remember ipv6 is bad. Also most of the hacks we have in place for working ipv4 are often forgotten.
[0] but the question is: is ipv6 is the cause of the problem?
Many, if not most, ISPs will only give you a single /64 that they constantly change through DHCP-PD, so you can’t count on anything and have to either use IPv4 internally (which is what everyone does) or resort to IPv6 NAT (which also defeats the purpose). That’s now even about hosting servers, it’s about any communication within the home network unless can fully rely on mDNS and friends for everything.
This isn’t worse than the situation with IPv4, where a lot of ISPs give you a new IP address and NAT your network. Or, worse, add carrier-grade NAT on top of local NAT.
Oh, and you aren’t restricted to using v4 internally. IPv6 was designed to support multiple IP addresses per client device, so you can have a static address and (changing) globally-reachable address pretty easily with most mainstream operating systems.
… why would you use your public IPv6 address for LAN communication? You can have multiple v6 addresses per interface, use private v6 addresses for LAN same as you do for private v4 addresses. Doesn’t require NAT since you also have the global v6 address for internet things
Yeah I’m confused as well, this is what site-local ipv6 addresses are for, to decouple your public ipv6 from your site ipv6. Or I guess now just use unique local addresses instead, same diff. Think ipv4 is polluting people’s minds into thinking you need to have a single ip address per machine. ipv6 is really not like ipv4 and the more you try to treat it that way the more you start just repeating the sins of the past in it.
Bonus is with ipv6 ULA’s you get to know exactly who you’re connecting to to boot.
If you want to route them you can even with a /64 from upstream if they’re not playing via the rfc and providing at least a /56 or /48. But even a /64 is pretty gihugic.
Wow, snarky. What makes you think this is purely a US problem? Cogent’s website says “Cogent serves over 219 markets in 51 countries.” There’s a headline that they’re taking over T-Mobile’s wireline business. T-Mobile being Deutsche Telekom.
I didn’t intend to be snarky; I just don’t know anything about these US corporations (except for google), or how to find out how big of a problem it is.
Edit: having found a map on their website, I still don’t know what to make of it. There are no dots where I live but I guess that doesn’t mean that I’m not affected, for example.
I don’t know this part of the story very well - do other parties pay for peering ipv6 specifically? I always assumed companies will peer both v4 and v6 under the same agreement without any extras.
Whatever the case may be, everyone on the Internet should be able to reach everyone else connected to the Internet. This is true when it comes to IPv4.
No it’s not. China is a very large exception to that. So is anyone else behind a firewall.
Before blaming Cogent, keep in mind that Amazon and Google like to bully ISPs so that they can get something (charging their customers for bandwidth used) for nothing (refusing to pay for bandwidth used).
I don’t know the specific details in this particular case, so I’m not laying blame; I’m just suggesting that there is often more to a story than first appears. On the other hand, for a long time, Cogent has had a pretty bad reputation on this topic.
My ISP doesn’t even provide an IPv6 address. And in general, the availability of IPv6 accessible services is rather thin. I’d like to work more with IPv6, but some people seem to hate it.
The article calls this a game of chicken between Hurricane Electric and Cogent, but later also mentions that Cogent refuses to peer with Google. It seems therefore that a better title would be “Cogent’s IPv6 is broken”
The Wikipedia entry for Cogent also states:
Afaik in Europe governments usually require that ISP’s allow peering with each other and set maximum caps on the prices involved, while US lets them do whatever they feel like. Either way, here’s an example of Cogent being bitchy about this sort of thing from 2008: https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/03/isps-disconnect-from-each-other-in-high-stakes-chicken-game/
As if it was the only way it’s broken!
I’m not exactly hopeful for the future of IPv6, but at least the first part can be fixed by regulation in more-or-less normal countries.
The post has at leaset some connection to “the IPv6 internet” and why it is broken[0], but this sounds more like mosts IPSs are broken.
So your ISP don’t give you proper access to the internet? In other words your ISP is broken not the IPv6 Internet.
Most ISPs I know (german home ISP, I don’t know about mobil) give you a /56 via DHCP-PD. Yes the change the prefix regularly for privacy reasons. On request you get a static prefix. For the most private (and smal non IT business) this exactly what they need.
You know about ULAs (private IPv6 address space) and DHCPv6? Setup your local service to do dhcpv6 and configure a ULA prefix on your network. This works the same way as in IPv4 and has also the same downsides (clients can’t dhcp, only have static dns servers, …).
Again the ISP don’t provider proper IPv6 internet and not the IPv6 internet is broken.
Yes Countries with Internet censorship censor the Internet. Still don’t see how this means the Internet is broken.
Yes there are Issues with ISPs providing proper Internet (v4 and v6), but this doesn’t mean the Internet is broken. It bugs me when it is claimed inverted. Because then the details get lost over time and some people only remember ipv6 is bad. Also most of the hacks we have in place for working ipv4 are often forgotten.
[0] but the question is: is ipv6 is the cause of the problem?
This isn’t worse than the situation with IPv4, where a lot of ISPs give you a new IP address and NAT your network. Or, worse, add carrier-grade NAT on top of local NAT.
Oh, and you aren’t restricted to using v4 internally. IPv6 was designed to support multiple IP addresses per client device, so you can have a static address and (changing) globally-reachable address pretty easily with most mainstream operating systems.
… why would you use your public IPv6 address for LAN communication? You can have multiple v6 addresses per interface, use private v6 addresses for LAN same as you do for private v4 addresses. Doesn’t require NAT since you also have the global v6 address for internet things
Yeah I’m confused as well, this is what site-local ipv6 addresses are for, to decouple your public ipv6 from your site ipv6. Or I guess now just use unique local addresses instead, same diff. Think ipv4 is polluting people’s minds into thinking you need to have a single ip address per machine. ipv6 is really not like ipv4 and the more you try to treat it that way the more you start just repeating the sins of the past in it.
Bonus is with ipv6 ULA’s you get to know exactly who you’re connecting to to boot.
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4193
If you want to route them you can even with a /64 from upstream if they’re not playing via the rfc and providing at least a /56 or /48. But even a /64 is pretty gihugic.
I was left wondering what this problem with US corporations means for the rest of the world that could warrant such a title.
I assume it spills out but I don’t know how to find out.
Wow, snarky. What makes you think this is purely a US problem? Cogent’s website says “Cogent serves over 219 markets in 51 countries.” There’s a headline that they’re taking over T-Mobile’s wireline business. T-Mobile being Deutsche Telekom.
I didn’t intend to be snarky; I just don’t know anything about these US corporations (except for google), or how to find out how big of a problem it is.
Edit: having found a map on their website, I still don’t know what to make of it. There are no dots where I live but I guess that doesn’t mean that I’m not affected, for example.
I don’t know this part of the story very well - do other parties pay for peering ipv6 specifically? I always assumed companies will peer both v4 and v6 under the same agreement without any extras.
It has historically been the case that adding v6 peering to a v4 peering arrangement was a no-brainer if both sides had the capability.
Cogent is infamous for playing these games for years.
It looks like this has been going on since 2016 for Google and Cogent https://web.archive.org/web/20160307153324/http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2016/03/google-blocking-ipv6-adoption.html
No it’s not. China is a very large exception to that. So is anyone else behind a firewall.
My ISP provides IPv6 to me (in Finland). Is there a tool to easily get an overview/map of where on the internet my connection is v6 and where it’s v4?
There’s a browser plugin that might help:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ipvfoo-pmarks/
Thanks! I was looking more for an overview of many different sites, preferably distributed around the world. This looks useful too though.
Before blaming Cogent, keep in mind that Amazon and Google like to bully ISPs so that they can get something (charging their customers for bandwidth used) for nothing (refusing to pay for bandwidth used).
I don’t know the specific details in this particular case, so I’m not laying blame; I’m just suggesting that there is often more to a story than first appears. On the other hand, for a long time, Cogent has had a pretty bad reputation on this topic.
My ISP doesn’t even provide an IPv6 address. And in general, the availability of IPv6 accessible services is rather thin. I’d like to work more with IPv6, but some people seem to hate it.