Martijn's IPv6 Blog
Discovering the Internet of the future
IPv6 validation in Javascript
In: Code
25 Aug 2009If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
For a bit of fun I looked into how to place an icon in the blogs sidebar if a visitor enters with a valid IPv6 address. (All in preparation, I am still working on moving this blog to a new server so it is still all IPv4 right now).
I quickly found this PHP implementation of an IPv6 validation script. As I don’t want to kill the blog page caching mechanism by being forced to generate pages for each visitor I needed something done in Javascript instead. This way the visitors web browser can decide whether or not to load the icon. Read the rest of this entry »
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- Tags: address, ipv4, ipv6, javascript
Top Level domains that (still) do not support IPv6
In: General
23 Aug 2009While I was researching yesterdays post about the state of the IPv6 nation I noticed that Mike Lebers Daily report over at Hurricane Electric mentions the Top Level Domains (TLD’s) that DO support IPv6. The ones that DO NOT support it however are not shown. At the moment nearly 80% of the TLDs support IPv6, and just 60% offer IPv6 glue opportunities.
Given the list of supporting names, it is trivial to work out the TLDs remaining that are still lacking in their support. First we need a complete list of all TLD’s, which can be found at the IANA website, at little fiddling with OpenOffice Calc later the list below appeared. Read the rest of this entry »
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- Tags: ipv6 tld
State of the IPv6 Nation: Still Unloved
In: Opinion
23 Aug 2009
The Maldives , a slowly sinking paradise. Picture by Ahmed Amir
The imminent end of the Internet as we know it approaches even faster than the end of Mayan calender. Of course the world will continue to exist (unless the Mayans were onto something) but things will be very different. With the last free block of IPv4 addresses scheduled to be depleted somewhere in 2010 the rapid growth of the internet will hit a major speed bump. Internet service providers will have to ration their stocks of existing address blocks and growth will become more difficult.
Matthew McKenzie even speculates about a black market for IPv4 address blocks where shady characters will wheel and deal and ISPs need to spend increasingly large sums to be able to ply their trade.
Of course, the problem is mostly in our heads. IPv6 addresses are plentiful and cheap. The problem is that the transition is by now already years behind of schedule. Read the rest of this entry »
A Firefox plug-in for web-surfing with IPv6
In: Tools
22 Aug 2009
Now that you are solidly connected to Ipv6 either through your internet provider directly (lucky you!) or because you have set up a link through a tunnelbroker (see also my post How to connect to the IPv6 network?) you fire up Firefox.
As you visit ipv6.google.com (to name one of those still rare ipv6 websites) you realize that everything looks the same. Firefox doesn’t congratulate you for joining the revolution, it has no special “this is an Ipv6 website” banner. In fact you don’t notice anything at all.
Of course this exactly how things should be. The underlying network layers should be completely transparent to the end-user. But what a shame, all that trouble and then no cookie!
Thankfully a firefox plugin exists that can show our progress. The ShowIP plugin shows the IP address of the website you are visiting in the bottom right corner of your Firefox window. By default Ipv4 addresses are shown in red, and Ipv6 addresses in green.
Beyond this simple function ShowIP also allows you to look up the Ipv4, Ipv6 and hostname information through a plethora of services. Netcraft is possible one of the more useful ones included by default.
Most of the default services are pretty spammy so if you intend to use this feature it is probably best if you delete them. You can add own your favorite DNS, reverse DNS or Hostname information services by simply adding them through the menu.
How to connect to the IPv6 network?
In: General
22 Aug 2009In a previous post I noted that my laptops internet connection was still solidly “old style” IPv4. To be able to experiment with the features of IPv6 I needed to setup a link.
For many ISP’s the roll-out to their end consumers is still a low priority project so if you are interested in deploying IPv6 in your organization (or simply want to get your feet wet) you will need to establish a tunnel to IPv6 over your existing Internet up link.
What is a tunnel? And what is a tunnel broker ?
To reach an IPv6 access point all your connections will have to travel over the existing IPv4 network to a tunnel broker. You IPv6 TCP/IP connections are wrapped in IPv4 packets until they reach the tunnel broker. On arrival they are then set free on the IPv6 internet. A tunnel broker is thus a provider of IPv6 tunneling services.
Several brokers around the world offer free access to anyone who signs up. For this article I looked at Hurricane Electric and Go6. Both provide easy sign up and universal access (you can sign up anywhere in the world). You own ISP might also be running its own IPv6 trial programs which you can investigate. My ISP in Holland for example is XS4All which has its own experimental IPv6 service. If possible you should always try your local service first as the the universal tunnel brokers might not have an access point near enough to you (thus adding delays to your connection as it tunnels its way through the internet).
I liked Hurricane Electric’s tunnelbroker service as it requires no software beyond that offered by the operating system itself. Several short commands later a tunnel was created. But one of its usage restrictions is a direct internet connection for the computer setting up the tunnel as it does not work well with computers located behind most IPv4 NAT routers.
As my portable travels the world and has to access the internet from wireless internet access points which are invariable behind a NAT I had a look at the service offered by Go6 instead.
Installing Go6 IPv6 on my labtop
Go6 provides:
- Free access
- Supports clients behind NATs (my main reason for picking this service)
- Support for many different operating systems (Windows 32 & 64 bit, Linux, BSD)
- An internet support forum in which you can ask questions
The first step is to register at the Go6 website for their free IPv6 tunneling service:
The second step is to download and install their client software:
I successfully installed the software for Windows Seven, despite the installer complaining about a non-supported Windows version. Setting up the link is done through the now installed Hexago Gateway6 Client Utility. For convenience I selected the “Connect Anonymously” as it does not require you to specify a username/password.
Click “Connect” and you should be connected to the geographically nearest Go6 uplink. To verify whether your IPv6 connection works properly you can now visit the Go6 Registration page which shows your IPv6 (or IPv4 address if things didn’t work out) at the top.
So whats next?
For a listing of some other public IPv6 brokers have a look at the tunnel broker page, which I am trying to keep up to date. As we are solidly connected, it is time to discover what else can be found around the IPv6 internet. Do you have any experiences with tunnel brokers? Do you know of any I have missed, drop me a note!
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- Tags: go6, hexago, ipv6, tunnelbroker
Does my computer have IPv6 enabled?
In: General
21 Aug 2009A simple test to see if your computer already has IPv6 natively enabled is to open a command window and to execute the ping command.
Type ping ::1 if you are using windows, or ping6 ::1 if you are using a Linux/Unix based computer.
In IPv6 the localhost (your own computer) is addressed as ‘::1′. The double colon stands for “all zero’s”, so ‘::1′ is (in hexadecimal) equivalent to the full IPv6 address 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001
A quick survey of the computers (default installations) surrounding me found:
| Windows XP | Not enabled by default |
| Windows Vista | Enabled by default |
| Windows Seven | Enabled by default |
| eePC 100 | Not enabled (ping 6 installed) |
| Ubuntu 8.1 | Enabled by default |
Windows XP does not have IPv6 support enabled by default, but it is quite straightforward to install it. If you want to do so, make sure you are using XP SP1 or newer for the best results.
In “My network places” select properties and in on the network card you would like to use click Properties / Install / Protocol / IPv6. Simple enough?
A bright new future with IPv6
In: General
20 Aug 2009
IPv6 is the solution. The solution to a growing problem. As we connect more and more people to the Internet we are running out of addresses to connect them to. The current estimate is that somewhere after February 2010 the pool of available empty address blocks will be exhausted. This should be a burning issue, but it is not.
In fact, beyond a small pool of technologists no red flags are being waved at all. The general attitude seems to be that a solution will be found and that the difficult problem of reconfiguring computers worldwide should be left to the experts.
What happens when we run out of addresses? Your local Internet provider will be hard pressed to expand his business. Connecting more people will become increasingly difficult. Many countries around the world haven’t yet reached anywhere near the Internet populations of most Western (and Far-East) countries. To continue to expand they will need many more addresses.
The problem has of course been known for years, in fact it became clear back in the 1980’s when the Internet was still young and continued to grow beyond expectation. A solid solution was found in IPv6, the next generation internet protocol. It provides so many new addresses that we will not run out for a long time to come.
But then development more or less halted.
IPv4 (the current Internet protocol) works solidly. Many engineers are familiar with it and most budget networking equipment sold (the kind found in houses and small offices around the world) provides little or no support for IPv6. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is also quite unlikely to provide IPv6 directly to your office or home. All these stumbling blocks together have so far stopped a full scale implementation of IPv6.
Most modern operating systems however support IPv6. Your home computer would require just some small adjustments but no new hardware.
This blog will attempt to explore, follow and discover the world of IPv6 as it unfolds over the next few years.
It also will explore technical solutions to make sure that you can connect to the IPv6 internet right now, and discover what is out there in the undiscovered country.
I am painfully aware that as I put together this first post that I am still grounded in an IPv4 world. My computer connects to the Internet over a wireless router that only understands IPv4. Even the webserver that powers this blog is currently unable to provide its content over an IPv6 connection. All these issues I will explore and address.
About this blog
The world is moving over to a whole new internet. IPv6 has been around for years, but with the imminent exhaustion (somewhere in 2010/2011) of internet addresses the changeover has become urgent. This blog explores IPv6 through its technologies, news and events.
martin@ipv6blog.net