IPv6 - 8th June 2011 "World IPv6 Day"

I've read that Google, Yahoo, FB and others are taking part in World IPv6 Day.

Does this mean that if at the moment with my current setup I can't reach http://ipv6.google.com that those sites taking part in this event will be unreachable to me?

I'm with EntaNet who have done some IPv6 preparation - but I'm assuming my router isn't compatible?
It looks like the Thomson ST585v6 can be hacked but it's not ideal.

Or have I read this wrong, as Google are saying 99.95% won't notice?
It's not very clear to me...

Google's announcement:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/world-ipv6-da...

What it means is that they'll be advertising AAAA records (IPv6 addresses) for www.google.com instead of just A records (IPv4 addresses). In practice this should make no difference at all for IPv4 only hosts. Where it does make a difference is when the host is configured for both IPv4 and IPv6, it will ask for any AAAA records before trying A records. Previously if you'd "accidentally" ended up asking for an AAAA record for www.google.com you wouldn't have been given any IPv6 records. The only time you'll actually notice any difference from this as an end user is when you have mis-configured IPv6 lying around or possibly with very slow DNS.

Providers like google etc. are scared of the flak they'll take from users with mis-configured systems if they advertised both normally, hence this "test day" is an opportunity for them to see if there is a big issue and for users to see if they have IPv6 support.

Edited by deleted (Thu 13-Jan-11 14:53:53)

Thanks for that.

Am I right in thinking that http://ipv6.google.com/ is ONLY IPv6 then and not what they are testing? It's a shame Google's own page (see earlier link) references this ipv6.google URL as it just seems to confuse things (well for me anyway!)

You mention "...for users to see if they have IPv6 support" - how will this work as surely for most users it will just fallback to IPv4?

EDIT: I've re-read your response. I think I'm starting to get it!
For those providers (rather than end users?) that have enabled IPv6 it will either work or fail? And for IPv4 only providers they won't notice?

Edited by b4dger (Thu 13-Jan-11 15:17:09)

Currently ipv6.google.com only has AAAA records and google.com only has A records. This is fairly common practice at the moment. The "test day" is (in part) about having both A and AAAA records on the main site, so everything should "just work" for v4 or v6 clients. This v4 and v6 co-existing is likely to be how the internet is for a number of years still I suspect.

(Note: to complicate things further google actually have a program whereby "trusted" DNS servers can sign up to see AAAA records everywhere - http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/)

Thanks again.
NB. You need to remove the ) on your last link.

There are a number of articles doing the rounds (papers/twitter/etc.) as well as Google's blog/tweet. The way it's being publicised I can see this generating a bit of confusion (might just be me!)

Edited by b4dger (Thu 13-Jan-11 15:24:22)

Here's an official 'test' site provided by the Internet Society: http://test-ipv6.com


So for me (via EntaNet) it reports:
"World IPv6 day is June 8th, 2011. No problems are anticipated for you with this browser, at this location."


and...
7/10 for your IPv4 stability and readiness, when publishers offer both IPv4 and IPv6
0/10 for your IPv6 stability and readiness, when publishers are forced to go IPv6 only

So I guess I'll have to change routers for when "publishers are forced to go IPv6"?
Is that when all the IPv4 allocated addresses are really exhausted?