91 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
91 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
title: Corporate VPNs are dead
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---
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pub_date: 2019-12-16
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---
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author: ungleich network team
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---
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twitter_handle: ungleich
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---
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_hidden: no
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---
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_discoverable: yes
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---
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abstract:
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It's a hard truth, but that's how it is. You need to act now.
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---
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body:
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Your company has given you a VPN to securely connect to your company
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network. Now you can access resources of your company network
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securely. Great, isn't it?
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Besides it doesn't work anymore. Traditional corporate VPNs are
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dead. Literally.
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## Dead? Why?
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There is a single problem with corporate VPNs: they try to use IPv4.
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And if you are in an IPv6 only network, your corporate VPN stops to
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work.
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## IPv6 only networks - who has that?
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Turns out that
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[RIPE ran out of IPv4
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space](https://www.ripe.net/publications/news/about-ripe-ncc-and-ripe/the-ripe-ncc-has-run-out-of-ipv4-addresses).
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a couple of weeks ago. This practically means that companies cannot
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get new IPv4 addresses anymore. Modern companies have already switched
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to IPv6 only networks and mobile networks are converted to IPv6 only
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everywhere in the world.
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Basically, everyone is moving towards IPv6 only networks.
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Running dual stack networks is significantly more complexity, so the
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tendency is to skip this step and go IPv6 only directly.
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So in short:
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* IPv4 ran out
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* Networks are already switching to IPv6
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* Dual stack networks (both IPv4 and IPv6) is too complex
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* IPv6 only is the new default
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* Your corporate VPN does not work in IPv6 only enviroments
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## Can't things just stay as they are?
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Unfortunately not. The main problem is that your VPN is intended to be
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used while you are out of the office. The cost for acquiring or
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running IPv4 networks is growing on a daily basis. So while your
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company might be able to buy expensive IPv4 addresses, the network
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that you travel to, might not be able to afford IPv4 space anymore.
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## ... but I have never seen an IPv6 only network!
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That might be fully true and we have no doubt about this. However,
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providers everywhere in the world are changing to IPv6 only networks
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and especially modern IT startups will not build networks with IPv4
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anymore.
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So you are more likely to encounter IPv6 only networks in modern
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organisations. And the fact that you haven't seen one yet, does not
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make it more unlikely that you will encounter one soon.
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## ... but I need the corporate VPN
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There are two easy ways to get the corporate VPN back working:
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* update the corporate VPN to support IPv6
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* switch to an Open Source alternative that fully supports IPv6
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## Help!
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If your local network group does not know how adopt either of the two
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technologies, feel free to send a mail to **support -at-
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ungleich.ch**, we can support you in finding a solution.
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Or if you want to talk to like minded people, we invite you to join
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the [IPv6.Chat](https://IPv6.chat), where many people are successfully
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migrated to IPv6.
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Or you can checkout the [IPv6VPN](https://IPv6VPN.ch) as an
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alternative to your current VPN solution.
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