Comcast begins IPV6 deployment

http://blog.comcast.com/2011/11/ipv6-deployment-technology.html

by pwg • 15 years ago

104 55 15 years ago

blog.comcast.com

jrockway• 15 years ago

Interesting rollout strategy. The people that connect one computer directly to their router don't seem like the kind of people that would care about IPv6. But starting small is better than not starting at all, and this is a great move. Someday my house will have a /48 without requiring any tunnels :)

nknight3• 15 years ago

They're minimizing the number of variables in the initial deployments. DHCPv6 only, no third-party gateways. Massively reduces the number of things that can break.

Comcast has been working on IPv6 for years, and they've got senior technical people who know it inside out, but it needs to disseminate throughout the organization all the way down to the front-line support people. That's going to be hard enough even before third-party gear is brought into the picture.

mikeash• 15 years ago

For the first step of their rollout, having few people actually using it is probably a bonus, not a problem. Start small, then work up.

ajross• 15 years ago

That demographic also includes people who run their own routers for their home network. My modem issues a single IP to a gateway box of my own, for example.

adestefan4• 15 years ago

Nope. Comcast is dual-stacking, that means no tunnels and no gateways. This initial deployment is a single IPv6 IP to one physical computer running either Windows Vista, Windows 7 or OS X Lion. It's an initial end-user modem test and will keep the external variables to a minimum.

rll• 15 years ago

So now we just need a stateful ipv6 dhcpd in something like TomatoUSB. Someone has probably already done that.

api2• 15 years ago

IPv6 is going to open a floodgate of innovation. All kinds of things are going to become so much easier to develop and more robust without the Internet-breaking devil incarnate known as NAT.

palish• 15 years ago

Like what?

dholowiski• 15 years ago

Well, companies selling firewall software are going to have a great time.

X-Istence8• 15 years ago

Voice of IP is going to be simpler. No longer will Skype have to punch holes in the firewall/NAT using various different tricks to do bi-directional communication. Since this takes advantage of the fact that everything is routed it is going to be simpler to open up devices to the outside world without having to worry about having the right ports forwarded. Setting up a game server to play with friends is going to be simpler. NAT no longer standing in the way will help with VPN.

NAT traversal was always a pain the behind...

ghshephard4• 15 years ago

The challenge will be in networking the enterprises that have decided to deploy RFC 4193 internally (and there are a lot of them), and are only deploying globally routable IPv6 addresses outside their firewall.

chair6• 15 years ago

Publicly-facing websites not v6-enabled, yet: http://ready.chair6.net/?url=comcast.com http://ready.chair6.net/?url=comcast.net

"As the world gets faster, it turns out that the glacial changes of years and decades are become more important, not less." -- Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/08/resilience-a...)

X-Istence8• 15 years ago

I want to get in on this. Even if I can only get a single IPv6 address on my gateway I can do NAT6 on my internal devices without an issue.

The questions I need to go find answer for are:

1. What do I need to do for Comcast to give me an IPv6 address? 2. What for my FreeBSD gateway do I need to modify to do DHCPv6 (stateful)? 3. What modifications do I need to make to my Firewall rules that currently assume NAT? 4. What is the easiest way for me to take the /64 and split it up so that even my test virtual machines now have direct accessible IP addresses (currently adding static routes using DHCP, which is a pain in the behind!)? 5. Start verifying that all internal devices that are requesting IPv6 and are using IPv6 are also fire-walling it correctly and all services are prepared for it. I can firewall at the border (gateway) at the moment, but eventually I don't want to police that traffic. 6. How will this interact with my IPv4 10/8 network I have set up? 7. What legacy devices are on my network that do not speak IPv6? 8. How does this change services that broadcast themselves widely and freely (looking at you mDNSResponder, Samba, UPnP media servers)?

These questions are just the ones I can think of at the moment. It is going to be interesting to see how this all works out, and I feel like I am going to have to learn networking all over again.

adestefan4• 15 years ago

Don't waste your time with #1. It's limited to systems running either Windows Vista, Windows 7 or OS X Lion. It's a test for the premise modems. It makes sense for them to do this a first time roll out to test the systems and support personnel.

However, it's an excellent time to make sure you can answer all your other questions.

X-Istence8• 15 years ago

They don't need to know what I am actually running. Each time I have had to call tech support they always ask me what router I am using, and I tell them it is a stock Linksys router. I can just as easily claim that I am running OS X Lion (which I am, just not directly on the cable modem)...

ghshephard4• 15 years ago

"Even if I can only get a single IPv6 address on my gateway I can do NAT6 on my internal devices without an issue."

Can you say a bit more about this? I haven't actually seen any implementations of NAT that will allow you to do NAT/PAT for multiple internal IPv6 hosts onto a single external IPv6 address. Does such a thing exist? If I were asked today, I would say "No." - but I clearly could be wrong.

X-Istence8• 15 years ago

I am using OpenBSD's pf firewall and you can specify IPv6 addresses the same way you would IPv4 addresses for NAT, so I could translate many internal IPv6 addresses to a single outside IPv6 address without issues.

wmf4• 15 years ago

I can do NAT66 on my internal devices without an issue.

Except the issue of doing IPv6 completely wrong.

X-Istence8• 15 years ago

Sure ... but it is a simple stop for testing purposes. I already run a test network on IPv6 (only, no IPv4) that is using internal only IP addresses much like 10/8.

codyrobbins• 15 years ago

Does this mean I’ll finally, finally be able to get a static IP (albeit an IPv6 one) for my apartment? Or are they going to ultimately pull some obscene perversion out of their hat whereby you have to pay stratospheric business-class rates to actually get an IPv6 address, and their justification is because it comes bundled with an infuriating potpourri of cut-rate “business-class” nonsense that no one wants (web hosting, email, etc.)? The fact that I can’t just pay $10/month (or whatever) for a static IP on my residential broadband connection is so exasperating.

dhugiaskmak• 15 years ago

It's Comcast, how do you think it's going to work?

wmf4• 15 years ago

Static vs. dynamic is orthogonal to IPv6. I would expect that "residential" service will continue to use dynamic addresses for the foreseeable future.

icebraining• 15 years ago

Wasn't one of the reasons for the deployment of dynamic IPs to residential users (as opposed to LAN environments) the reduced number of IPs required, since you'd have a pool all clients could share?

IPv6 doesn't have that problem, and it seems to me that keeping them fixed is probably cheaper in terms of billing and accountability.

akira2501• 15 years ago

It depends.. if they're issuing /64's, they're actually issuing networks, not host addresses anymore. I'd rather not have my entire network be renumbered every 6 hours when my DHCP updates.

doboyleltps• 15 years ago

I can't believe no one else has hit on this yet... They're limiting the number of IPV6 ip's per home to 1. They want to be able to offer a UNIQUE IP to EVERY DEVICE in your home. How long until there's a CHARGE PER DEVICE? =\

MarkSweep• 15 years ago

From the article: "When we begin our support for home gateway devices late this year, we initially plan to use a default IPv6 prefix allocation that is a /64 in length, providing over 18 quintillion IPv6 addresses."

Comcast begins IPV6 deployment

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