In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

.onion services are also part of the Internet but unreachable without TOR. Should ISPs be providing free TOR gateways?

I think that's a bit of a straw man tbh... a lot of services aren't accessible without an account, VPN etc, but the servers are.

If I've only got IPv4 and a service is on an IPv6 only server, then I can't even access the server. (eta- at least, not without some sort of kludge like a tunnel)

Edited by billford (Thu 05-Dec-19 12:45:56)

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

.onion services are also part of the Internet but unreachable without TOR. Should ISPs be providing free TOR gateways?

I think that's a bit of a straw man tbh... a lot of services aren't available without an account, VPN etc, but the servers are.

If I've only got IPv4 and a service is on an IPv6 only server, then I can't even access the server.

Last I checked you are accessing services via your connection, not servers necessarily. You can't access AWS servers, they are not publicly addressed, you can certainly access the services running on them if the owners permit it,. The service you access can be provided by a variety of servers, some of which you may not access at all, they are called by another server you can reach which provides output.

You are also wrong about VPNs and servers being reachable. I'm quite sure you can't reach my company's internal servers from outside our building without a VPN. Same goes for TOR hosted services, if they are done properly you have no access to the server over anything bar TOR.

Not a direct response to you but that providers have IPv6 running on their networks internally is likewise irrelevant.

They also have IGPs running on them, however we don't get to hook up to the BGP or OSPF instance the router we terminate on is running.

Either way we pay for connectivity to services, not specific servers, and it's services that are covered by network neutrality, etc.

Granting all you say, I think I expressed it badly by using the word "available" (edited to "accessible"). In somewhat anthropomorphic terms:

If a device of any sort has an internet address then I can make a (logical) connection to it. Granted, it may decide to ignore me, but in order to ignore me it has to know I'm there.

If it's an IPv6-only device and I'm using IPv4 I can't even get to that stage!

Another interesting point to consider is that some server providers have an inclusive IPv6 address and charge extra for an IPv4 address.

So if one was to rent a server from them, the lack of an ISP-supplied IPv6 address means having to pay extra for the server.

Top marks to the OP for raising this, and for following through with Ofcom and the ASA.

A couple of years ago I got IP6 address(es) from my ISP ( Entanet ) and a huge amount of help from them in getting that working. I have to say I spent an enormous amount of time working on this. I was determined to learn about if, if nothing else.

But at the end of the day I gained nothing real from the time and experience. IP6 is a solution that few people understand. And it is definitely not easily understood like IP4 is.

I still have that IP6 addressing, but never think or try to use it any more. My hosting server got IP6 addressing as well, over a year ago. But I cannot work up the desire or time to play with it.

Sadly I think the solution to the IP4 problem is a long way away yet. Not sure I'll be around to see it.

In reply to a post by billford:

Granting all you say, I think I expressed it badly by using the word "available" (edited to "accessible"). In somewhat anthropomorphic terms:

If a device of any sort has an internet address then I can make a (logical) connection to it. Granted, it may decide to ignore me, but in order to ignore me it has to know I'm there.

If it's an IPv6-only device and I'm using IPv4 I can't even get to that stage!

Not really. Plenty of nodes have IP addresses that are legitimate and you can't access them in any way, shape or form as their prefixes aren't advertised to you. From your point of view they don't exist.

Further devices with routable addresses don't need to know you're there to ignore you - you'll get nowhere near them before something else ignores you. Try reaching the /29 I have at home you'll get blocked when you hit the /32 on the router in front of them

Yet more have IP addresses but you are not permitted to talk to them - they have no visibility of you whatsoever, they don't talk IP natively they just carry it and unless you access the via a specific path you're getting nothing from them.

13 brnt-ic-1-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.254.42.198) 112.523 ms 205.923 ms *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 leed-core-2a-ae4-0.network.virginmedia.net (82.15.94.254) 77.059 ms 85.573 ms 61.107 ms
18 lee2-cmts-14-tenge412.network.virginmedia.net (80.0.50.198) 72.855 ms
lee2-cmts-14-tenge413.network.virginmedia.net (80.0.50.202) 65.216 ms *

14, 15, 16 all speak IPv4 and v6. Neither are interested in responding unless you know exactly how to talk to them.

The other side of hop 17 was actually manc-bb-2a-ae4-0.network.virginmedia.net. brnt-bb-2a-ae4-0.network.virginmedia.net was possibly hop 14. All have IP addresses, none of them talk to you unless you address them specifically.

With that in mind it's a very, very tricky precedent to set had they started down this road.

I see your point but with all the encapsulation options available it's tricky. A number of devices use neither IPv4 or IPv6 as their main native protocol, they only carry it and respond to it from restricted management networks.

So do we start preventing VRFs too as they restrict parts of Internet-connect devices from reachability via IP? Force ISPs to advertise all VRFs to customers via some IGP so that they can reach all devices on the publicly reachable Internet the ISP is responsible for?

Core internet protocols. Where's my MPBGP session from my provider? Core protocol.

Can of worms I don't think anyone wants to open.

Edited by CarlTSpeak (Fri 06-Dec-19 10:24:01)

the only way ipv6 is getting universally adopted is a "nudge"

But there is no way the ASA was going to do it. Why would they? no one is advertising ipv6 as a feature and then not supplying it.

Ofcom will do what the government puts in their remit, so it needs something from government.

The problem is I see is two things.

IPv6 in its current state doesnt offer anything that the typical end user see's in their applications. Nothing at all. It's benefits are invisible to the end user. Essentially it makes things easier for network admin's, server admin's etc. But because there is no visible benefits, marketing teams (who essentially drive directions of ISP's) and regulators wont push for it.

The second issue is there is reasonable arguments to be made it still isnt quite ready, e.g. vendors are still not in agreement about NAT66 or even NAT46/NAT64, some e.g. pfsense refuse to implement it, others have. Some vendors believe everyone should be using public address space on all devices, whilst there is entities and end users who actually prefer to use private address space. There is inconsistent handling of fragmented data as well.

As an example there is this guy, who thinks NAT is the bane of all evil, then what did he do? he wrote a guide on how to implement NAT66 via iptables, as he realised there was a need for it, and admitted its superior to tunnels.

https://blog.apnic.net/2018/02/02/nat66-good-bad-ugly/

I think these above issues are what's making some isps hold back, as they know it will generate support queries when things "break". They might have been more willing if ipv4 was default preference to ipv6 but its the other way round.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sun 08-Dec-19 00:01:02)

This post is off topic but I hope it is useful or interesting to some posters on this forum. It is a simple explanation of how to use apostrophes correctly.

The apostrophe is only used to indicate that letters have been omitted or that something possesses something else.

It is not used in verbs (doing words). So the typical end user see's is wrong. sees is just a form of the verb: I see, you see, they see, he/she sees.
It is not used in plurals: one apple, two apples, one ISP, two ISPs.

There are two uses:
1. Apostrophes indicate missing letters. doesn't = does not, don't = do not, o'clock = of the clock, won't = will not (!)
2. Apostrophes indicate possession. one party's manifesto, all the parties' manifestos
There is a simple way to get this right - ask yourself what is doing the possessing. In the first example it is one party and in the second it is all the parties. (Or say it the other way around - the manifesto of one party, the manifestos of all the parties - whatever comes after of is doing the possessing.) Then add apostrophe+s ('s) to the end of what is doing the possessing. If the result sounds silly just add the apostrophe and not the s. James's and Charles's sound ok, but parties's doesn't.
Examples: ladies' clothing, men's clothing, the lady's coat. The bold words are what is doing the possessing.

Exception There is one common exception - it's. When you are saying it is (it's hot, for example), this is Use 1, the missing letter, so there should be an apostrophe. But Use 2, possession (it's temperature, for example) also demands an apostrophe. To avoid confusion, Use 1 takes precedence and Use 2 doesn't get an apostrophe, so it's its temperature, meaning the temperature of it.
it's = it is
its = of it or possessed by it

Exercise Find the ten apostrophe mistakes in the linked post.

In reply to a post by Thinker27:

This post is off topic but I hope it is useful or interesting to some posters on this forum. It is a simple explanation of how to use apostrophes correctly.
...
Exercise Find the ten apostrophe mistakes in the linked post.

I think you mean �apostrophic mistakes�.

I can�t say I�m completely happy with your own lack of capitalisation here:-

In reply to a post by Thinker27:

In the telephone exchange (does it have to be a telephone exchange? are there other places? presumably it is usually here because of the existing ducts. what is the proper name for this part of the network?)

Nor am I impressed by the lack of commas or preferably semi-colons in the following:-

In reply to a post by Thinker27:

Naming and describing the ducts poles manholes cables cabinets splitters aggregators drops prisms terminals, the nature of the electrical and optical signals and the processing of them, power supplies, and anything else commonly involved.

Hi Thinker27

I'm sure most of us here try our best, but sadly we are not perfect

In reply to a post by Thinker27:

Sorry I sounded like a schoolmistress

I do have to agree with your above comment to me earlier in the year