=================================================================
GENERAL ARTICLES =================================================================
IPv6 in 2022
By Michiel van der Vlist, 2:280/5555
Another year has passed. When we compare the statistics as published
by the end of 2021 with those of today, we see that IPv6 in Fidonet
has grown, but the growth is falling. From 103 to 108 nodes this time.
110 -| .
-| .
100 _|
_| .
90 _|
_| .
80 _| .
_|
70 _| .
_|
60 _|
_| .
50 _|
_|
40 _| .
_|
30 _|
_| .
20 _|
_|
10 _| .
_| .
0 _|__.____________________________________________________________
| | | | | | | | | | |
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
The number of nodes flying the INO4 flag remained stable at 5.
2022 was the year that it was ten years ago that the Internet society
declared IPv6 Launch day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_IPv6_Day_and_World_IPv6_Launch_Day
It was also ten years ago that RIPE ran out of IPv4 adresses. IANA and
APNIC had already run out a year earlier. ARIN ran out in 2015. What I
find remarkable is that despite the mathematical fact that there are
only enough IPv4 adresses to give about half the world's population an
IPv4 address of their own, there are still people around that are in
denial regarding the need to make the transition to IPv6.
There are also suspicious minds that have launched the theory that
some of the players are willingly and knowingly opposing the transit-
ion to IPv6 to protect the value of their hoarded IPv4. There is no
denying that IPv4 has become a tradable commodity and that the rules
of supply and demand have caused the price of an IPv4 address to rise
sky high. In 2021 the price almost doubled from $25 to $50 and during
2022 it was quasi stable between $50 and $60. A child can see that
this is a bubble that will burst some day. When "everyone" has IPv6
the price of IPv4 will collapse. It is bound to happen but nobody
knows when. So the theory is that "forces" are opposing IPv6 to pro-
tect their investment in IPv4. While I can see that this may be the
case, I do not expect these "forces" actually have the power to sig-
nificantly delay let alone stop the coming of IPv6. IPv6 is here and
it will eventually replace IPv4.
A trend we do not really see continue is the move towards native
IPv6. Today 34 of 108 nodes use a tunnel. In 2021 it was 34 of 103.
Still about 1/3. This has been more or less constant over the past
five years. In 2017 it was 22 out of 64. Over the years The ratio
remains at about 2/3 native, 1/3 tunnel. This is not what I expected
and goes against the general trend on the InterNet that native IPv6
is slowly gaining foot and replacing transition mechanisms such as
tunnels. Maybe what we are seeing is that the Fidonet Pioneer Spirit
is still here and that sysops do not want to wait for providers to
support native IPv6 and take things in their own hands by setting up
tunnels.
The very fact that a third of the IPv6 sysops still uses a tunnel
shows that we still have a long way to go. Normally when native IPv6
is available from the provider one does not use tunnels any more. So
there is still a substantial amount of InterNet providers that do not
offer native IPv6 to their customers.
Then again, many may already have native IPv6 from their ISP without
being aware of it. ISPs and sofware developers try to make the trans-
ition from IPv4 to IPv6 invisible for the normal user. If one is not
looking for it, one may not see it. Even Fidonet sysops may miss it.
Unless your are running a very old version of your OS, (WIn 95) or
a niche OS like ArcaOS, your system is ready for IPv6. All modern
OS's had IPv6 support for wel over a decade. Surf to www.kame.net
and if you see the turtle swim, you have IPv6.
If you run a binkp server you may very well be able to make binkp
IPv6 connects with other syspos. Binkd support IPv6 from version 1.00
and many other binkp software also supports it by now. You may have
outgoing binkp capability without knowing it. Try to make a connect
with one of the IPv6 nodes published weekly in Fidonews and see what
happens. If you make a succesful IPv6 connect, you are a candidate
for the Fidonet IPv6 club. There is an active search going on for
candidate menbers, but the search is limited to those that associate
an AAAA record with the host name in the nodelist. Systems that have
outgoing IPv6 only are not detected.
Accepting inbound IPv6 connections is the next step. First you have
to create a "pinhole" in your firewall that passes port 24554 or
whatever port you use. Then you have to advertise the IPv6 address in
the nodelist by adding an AAAA record to the published host name.
If that is gibberish to you, come to the IPV6 echo to get help from
the experts or read my articles titled "A second life for the LinkSys
part x". See the end of this article.
Other than that, 2022 was not all that eventful regarding IPv6. Not
for Fidonet and not for the Internet in general. We saw steady growth
but we can't say that IPv6 is the dominant protocol yet.
In order not to have to tell the same story over and over again, I
sometimes refer people to Fidonews articles I wrote in the past.
Since there seems to be no easely available searcheable archive, I
made a list of these articles. I hope I did not miss any.
My previous Fidonews articles about IPv6:
FN 26:31 Jul 2009 FidoNet and IPv6
FN 28:04 Jan 2011 FidoNet and IPv4 depletion
FN 28:07 Feb 2011 Fido and IPv6 Day
FN 28:16 Apr 2011 APNIC runs out
FN 28:20 May 2011 The IPv6 echo
FN 28:31 Aug 2011 A SECOND LIFE FOR THE LINKSYS Part 1
FN 28:32 Aug 2011 A SECOND LIFE FOR THE LINKSYS PArt 2
FN 28:45 Nov 2011 A "first"
FN 29:04 Jan 2012 World IPv6 Launch Day, 6 June 2012
FN 29:09 Feb 2012 A SECOND LIFE FOR THE LINKSYS Part 3
FN 29:38 Sep 2012 RIPE is out of IPv4 addresses.
FN 32:17 Apr 2015 IPv6 penetration in the nodelist
FN 32:26 Jun 2015 ARIN is out of IPv4 addresses.
FN 3:252 Dec 2015 IPv6 in Fidonet by the end of 2015
FN 33:02 Jan 2016 IPv6 in two thousand SIX teen
FN 33:06 Feb 2016 Another barrier broken.
FN 34:01 Jan 2017 IPv6 in 2016
FN 34:13 Mar 2017 SixXs Sunset 06-06-2017
FN 34:30 Jul 2017 TV without IPv6
FN 34:31 Jul 2017 DS-Lite emulation experiment v2.0
FN 34:37 Sep 2017 DS-Lite emulation experiment 2.0, the results
FN 34:33 Aug 2017 DS-Lite: a solution
FN 34:38 Sep 2017 DS-Lite Emulation experiment v2.1
FN 35:01 Jan 2018 IPv6 in 2017
FN 35:53 Dec 2018 IPv6 in 2018
FN 36:52 Dec 2019 IPv6 in 2019
FN 38:01 Jan 2021 IPv6 in 2020
FN 38:20 May 2021 100 IPv6 nodes
FN 39:01 Jan 2022 IPv6 in 2021
Happy IPv6 in 2023.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
--- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0
* Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0)