144 lines
5.6 KiB
Markdown
144 lines
5.6 KiB
Markdown
title: How IPv6 changes the world already
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---
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pub_date: 2019-11-16
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---
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author: ungleich
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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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Let's dive into the changes caused by IPv6
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---
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body:
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So we had all those nice, theoretical articles about
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how IPv6 **could** change the future. At ungleich we are already
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seeing many things changing and for that reason we start this series
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of blog articles about how IPv6 changes the world.
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## The Base Claims
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When starting a series of blog entries about how IPv6 changes the
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world, there are some assumptions and general understandings. In this
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article we will try to illustrate what we think is already given.
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## Claim 1: Everyone can have IPv6 connectivity
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We know that not every ISP provides IPv6 connectivity yet, but that
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is really not a show stopper for IPv6 connectivity. We have even
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written an [blog article about how to get
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IPv6](https://ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2019/02/05/how-to-get-ipv6/)
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and our conclusion is: **everyone can have IPv6 connectivity**.
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If you are missing options there, give us a shout, we are glad to
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add them. Point being, we are very confident saying there is nobody
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who cannot have IPv6 connectivity anymore. We even offer
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[free IPv6 connectivity to hacker spaces](https://ungleich.ch/u/blog/free-ipv6-vpn-for-hackerspaces/).
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If you very much disagree with us, we are open to be challenged by you.
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## Claim 2: Everyone can host content IPv6 reachable
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If you are in the content or publishing business, you can easily have
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your content reachable by IPv6. All bigger
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[CDNs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network) support
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IPv6 and even if you happen to host on an IPv4 only web hoster,
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there is
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[via-ipv6.com](https://ungleich.ch/u/blog/enabling-ipv4-only-sites-for-ipv6-only-networks/),
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a proxy service enabling all your IPv4 content by IPv6.
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And we don't
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say you should be using that service, you can also easily build it
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yourself: you can use any IPv6 only VM and you can setup a proxy for
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yourself.
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## Claim 3: The world is now really moving towards IPv6
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We know, there was this very, very unfortunate miscommunication many
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years ago that we already ran out of IPv4 addresses. That was
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only IANA running out of blocks to assign to the RIRs, however the
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RIRs
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([RIPE](https://www.ripe.net/),
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[APNIC](https://www.apnic.net/),
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[AFRINIC](https://www.afrinic.net/),
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[lacnic](https://www.lacnic.net/) and
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[ARIN](https://www.arin.net/)) did have plenty of IPv4 addresses
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left. This situation changed since 2011 and now
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ARIN is really out of IPv4, RIPE
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is likely to run out of IPv4 in 2019. LACNIC and
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AFRINIC are soon (probably 2020) to follow. APNIC on the other hand is already having a **per resource
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fee**, which let it run out of IPv4 slower.
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But, and there is the big but: APNIC slowing down the IPv4 run out has
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a cost. And the cost is for companies who are relying on IPv4
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addresses. So if you are in the APNIC region, you already pay around
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1800 AUD for a /22 IPv4 network yearly.
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The situation is somewhat similar in the regions that are running out
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of IPv4, only that you need to buy or lease your IPv4 space there from
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some market. The price for an IPv4 address is around $25 at the
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moment, so if you were to buy a /22 IPv4 network, you would have to
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spend more than $25'000. And this is not feasible for most SMB.
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Even if you don't acquire IP addresses directly from a RIR and
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run your service on a
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[cloud like GCP, you begin to pay more for IPv4
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addresses now](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20742965).
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So what is the alternative? It clearly is IPv6. Not because
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there are many IP addresses in IPv6, but because
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**IPv6 is affordable**.
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So in short, why the world now really moves to IPv6:
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* IPv4 now becomes a real cost factor
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* It is not easy to acquire additional IPv4 space anymore
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* IPv6 is economically more feasible
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* We take the way of the least resistance, which is now IPv6
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## Claim 4: IPv6 will re-enable end users
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Due to the long ongoing IPv4 shortage, we are very much used to
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[NAT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation). Some
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people even believe that private IPv4 addresses are more secure,
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which, generally speaking, is a bogus claim. You still need a
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firewall, as you do with IPv6.
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The bigger problem with private IPv4 addresses is that users have been
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taught that they cannot reach each other directly. And this eventually
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led to the rise of cloud services, because people were unable to reach
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each other or to exchange data directly.
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The Internet was built with the idea that everyone can reach everyone
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else directly. NAT was only introduced due to the shortage of IPv4
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addresses.
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With the advent of IPv6, there are many "new old" ways of how we can
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work together.
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## Claim 5: End users start to care
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Directly following from claim 3 & 4 and also something that we noticed
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happening in 2019: Real end users start to care about IPv6. The amount
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of tweets on Twitter containing
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[#ipv6](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ipv6) is growing and people
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are asking more vendors more often to support IPv6 on their
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infrastructure (like here for
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[discord](https://www.reddit.com/r/ipv6/comments/dx94ty/discord_users_petition_for_ipv6_support_in_discord/)).
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## The changes of IPv6 to the world
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In the next articles we will describe some real, practical changes of
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what we use and how we can work differently with IPv6. If you already
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have suggestions, we are happy to read them on **ipv6 at ungleich.ch**
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or on the [IPv6 Chat](https://IPv6.chat).
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Meanwhile, if you are
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interested in giving IPv6 only VPS a try, there is a 50% discount only
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until [Black IPv6
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Friday](https://swiss-crowdfunder.com/campaigns/black-ipv6-friday?locale=en).
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