IPv6 when?

[#1]

Quote from: Epyon

So if im having problems connecting via IPv6 can i jump back on v4 straight away?

You'll never "not be on IPv4"- unless something goes badly wrong and it gets broken Assuming IPv4 doesn't get broken, then you'll be able to just turn off IPv6 at your end and carry on as before.

[#2]

I had to laugh at this...
Many years ago I was at a BT research lab listening to a talk by one of their 'technology evangelists' and the focus was on IPv6. As entertaining as he was everyone considered the chap to be, shall we say, a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
Anyway, he kept going on an on about 'IPv6 on a lightbulb' and, lo and behold, his vision has only gone and turned into reality:
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/emerging-tech/2011/05/16/nxp-greenchip-connects-light-bulbs-to-the-inter...
I dare say there's a lesson to be learnt for me there about pre-judging other people's state of mind... 😉
Mathew

[#3]

The IPv6 lightbulb is just the combination of 2/3 bits of "obviousness", which we've forgotten a little in this limited "IPv4 NAT" world.
IP was invented for internetworking - ie connecting together all manner of networks. At the time, there were many network variants, and IP helped interconnect them. It is easy to forget when, today, we just appear to have one network called the internet.
IPv4, then, connected everything, each with an address. There was no NAT to hide things; if there were no NAT today, we'd be used to thinking of every device on the internet naturally.
As for lightbulbs... We've had protocols (wireless & wired) for controlling electrical items in the home for decades now. X10 and Cbus spring to mind, but there are others. The steps to gateway these protocols to IP have already been taken, with various home automation systems. Jumping to native support of IP (in this case IPv6) would have been an obvious step to those who put IPv4 together in the first place. Who probably were nutty professors, anyway (or Al Gore  ).
Gradually, every switch & sensor will be online, or at least capable of it...

[#4]

JoJo,
do you know when the trial will start?

[#5]

In about 2 weeks is last I heard from an authoritative source yesterday.

[#6]

Hi,
This will probably start out as a bit of a mini FAQ so I'll be adding to this as more questions get answered.

>So if im having problems connecting via IPv6 can i jump back on v4 straight away?
We are going to create everyone on the trial an IPv6 test username. This will be offer dual stack IPv4 (different IP to your normal account) and IPv6. We'd recommend using dual stack but would like people to disable IPv4 as a test and see what works and doesn't work. As you have a test username should there be problems you will be able to switch back to your own username at any time and get your old IPv4 address (if static).
>One question however will the /64 (I assume we're not going to get a /48) we get in the trial be the one we have for life?
It's a /56 but you would only have this during the trial as it's been assigned to the test account
>So i put my DG384G <or insert name of router here> into bridge mode and use PPPOE and it will work?
In theory yes it should so long as you have a PC/router connected to it with a PPPoE client that will support DHCPv6. Windows 7 should work fine.
>do you know when the trial will start?
We're aiming for internal trials next week and so long as all is fine the trial with customers would begin before 8th June. There's no end date set but we may choose to withdraw the trial at any time.
---
We'll provide everyone taking part in the trial their test username and password once our platform is ready. We'll have a couple of Thomson 585v8 routers which can be configured in bridge mode and can show people how to change an existing 585v8 in to bridge mode to work on the trial but apart from that we won't have any hardware available to try out.
It's very important to stress that while the support team will be informed we are testing IPv6 they will NOT be able to provide any kind of support unfortunately. We can try and answer questions here in the forum but the trial is pretty much going to be trial and error
Usage data for IPv6 traffic may be incomplete as we haven't finished building the collection part yet.

[#7]

Thanks for the update Dave. I was keeping my finger's crossed that you'd be ready to roll for 8th June as I was intending to open my cat feeder to public control for that day and it would be momentous (in the smallest definition of the term!) to offer native v6 connectivity to it rather than a tunnel.
Incidentally, I note that you are not listed as a participant on the World IPv6 Day site - is this intentional? I think it'd be a great opportunity to shout about what you're up to!
Mathew

[#8]

Are you going to create a new forum under the "Plusnet Trials" category for the trial?

[#9]

Thanks for the update dave.
Think i'm going to use my GT for this
also the exact number of IPv6 addresses available is....
"340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456"
hmmm 

[#10]

Quote from: dave

>So if im having problems connecting via IPv6 can i jump back on v4 straight away? We are going to create everyone on the trial an IPv6 test username. This will be offer dual stack IPv4 (different IP to your normal account) and IPv6. We'd recommend using dual stack but would like people to disable IPv4 as a test and see what works and doesn't work. As you have a test username should there be problems you will be able to switch back to your own username at any time and get your old IPv4 address (if static).

Hmm, that could be a bit of a problem for me as I have services (particularly mail) I run on a fixed IP.
I take it the test account can't have the same fixed IPv4 address as my main account ?

[#11]

As a heads up in case it's of any use, Firefox users might be interested in the ShowIP plugin which shows the IP address for the site you are currently on (IPv6 address taking precedence if both exist). Whilst I use the plugin primarily for the sake of interest it could prove useful during the upcoming trial.
A word of warning however about how it works, and an issue that many users of it with an IPv6 interest are probably quite unaware of, is that even though it might be displaying an IPv6 address it does not necessarily mean you are connecting to the site over IPv6. For example, whilst a site may have A and AAAA records then ShowIP will show the IPv6 address even though you might actually have connected over IPv4 (e.g. if your IPv6 transport is not working).
Firefox 4 users will need to enable the 'Add-on Bar' (Firefox > Options) in order to see the address and should also download the very latest version (1rc3 rather than the Mozilla-published 0.8.19).
Mathew

[#12]

Quote from: dave

We are going to create everyone on the trial an IPv6 test username. This will be offer dual stack IPv4 (different IP to your normal account) and IPv6.

If you can't continue to provide the existing IPv4 service at the same time then you'll need to remove me from the trial.

[#13]

They'll effectively be giving you (us) two accounts - your existing IPv4-only account and a dual stack IPv4/IPv6 account. You can only be 'logged in' to one account at a time hence if the dual stack is causing you trouble then you can always fall back to your existing account.
Obviously if, for whatever reason, any potential problems with the dual stack account will cause you grief you might indeed be better off giving up your place on the trial for someone else (I hope that doesn't come across the wrong way - my intent is just to point out that it'll be the problems experienced during this trial that will be of greatest benefit to all).
Mathew

[#14]

We have just tested our first IPv6 broadband connection on our 'live' platform with no issues.  We'll do some more testing over the next couple of days then I'll ask Dave and Co. to start passing trial users login details.

[#15]

Any news yet on whether we can have the same static IPv4 address for the test login as we currently have with our live login ? While it's not the end of the world, it'll be a bit of an inconvenience changing IPv4 address as it affects both inbound mail and access to systems at work.
adie:quote