Earlier this spring, as anticipated, the last of the IPv4 address blocks was given to the regional Internet registries that dole them out to ISPs and other corporations. Unlike many predictions that go back dozens of years, we have run out of room. Yes, it will take several months before the world is completely run out of address space, and you might be able to find an unused Class C range here or there. But for the most part, you need to get cracking on a transition plan for your company to migrate towards IPv6 now.
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Of course, people have been saying this for years now. I recall writing a humorous article back in 1992 or so where I suggested that I start a brokerage service charging for unused address blocks. While it has taken several decades, we have gotten to the point where the end of IPv4 is near. And unlike the predictions for the Rapture, this is an actual event that will need our attention.
To highlight this situation, a group of engineers under the auspices of the Internet Society have set aside next Wednesday, June 8th, to test the new protocol for an entire 24-hour period. Various Web properties will put up IPv6 versions of their sites for the day as demonstrations. And several vendors have begun to assemble copious instructions and advice to help IT network managers figure out their plans.
What is needed for a successful transition? It is a huge undertaking, not unlike the early establishment of the Internet itself.
- Internet service providers need to make IPv6 connectivity available to all of their users. In most cases this means replacing or upgrading routers and other network switchgear to handle the new protocols.
- Web companies need to offer their services over IPv6. We’ll see some of this next Wednesday, when major site operators such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo will provide IPv6 only versions as targets to connect to.
- Operating system makers may need to implement specific software updates. Most of the modern desktop OSs include support for IPv6 (see the screenshot below from a Mac as an example). If you are running an older version of XP or MacOS, this can be an issue.
- Backbone providers will need to establish IPv6 peering with each other. This has begun happening, but obviously more peering is needed, and part of next Wednesday’s tests will be to find the non-working links in particular connection paths.
- Hardware and home gateway manufacturers may need to update firmware to support IPv6. OpenDNS has a series of instructions on their site here to enable their “sandbox” to try out IPv6 support for DNS.
To see what you have in store for yourself, you can visit this test drive site created by Jason Fesler to get a detailed report of exactly what pieces in your Internet infrastructure need upgrading, as you can see from the screenshot below.
One of the best places to start your technical reading is the current issue of Cisco’s Internet Protocol Journal. They have several articles related to IPv6, including a description of what is going to happen next week with World IPv6 Day, myth busting, more details on what is happening with the exhaustion of the IPv4 address space and more. You can download a copy of the March issue here.
Enterprises have basically four different strategies to follow in implementing IPv6:
- Dual Stack IPv4 and IPv6 protocols in your routers to connect to an ISP running dual stacks as well. This is probably the simplest solution, but it does break any NAT connections and if you rely on NAT as a primitive security perimeter, you might need to check into this further, since with IPv6, your entire subnet will be directly connected to the Internet.
- 6to4 tunnels. My Mac uses this method, as can be seen with the 2002: prefix in its IPv6 address. What happens here is that the end of the IPv6 address uses the IPv4 address. This has major performance problems and some firewalls will block this particular protocol on port 41.
- Teredo tunnels is an alternative tunneling protocol that has both clients and servers to translate v4 into v6 addresses and vice-versa. Some firewalls block UDP port 3544, which will cause problems.
- Tunnel brokers and miscellaneous other mechanisms for coping.
Good luck with your transition. And don’t put it off any longer: the time has come!
See also:
An OpenDNS Sandbox to Test IPv6
Is World IPv6 Day the New Y2K?
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