New IPv6 rollout - with, or without a new trial?

[#1]

A bit of fiddling around with Plusnet's BGP IPv6 advertised routes has happened this month, so maybe some activity?

Go to:

https://stat.ripe.net/widget/announced-prefixes#w.resource=6871&w.min_peers_seeing=0

put '::' into the search bar, click "load full history", and then sort by first-seen.

I think the addresses are still coming from the same 2a02:16c8::/32 netblock used for the original IPv6 trial from nearly a decade ago by the look of it.

[#2]

That can surely only be a good sign!

[#3]

Probably too late. Various announcements of CPI + 3.9% price increases in future don't suggest Plusnet want retention and no announcements at all on IPV6 don't bode well for the future.

I'm almost certainly off to Zen - where they don't keep trying to sell TV packages.

[#4]

Hi @bobpullen Please include me if forthcoming.

[#5]

Yawn!

[#6]

I am not even sure if plusnet support this, but you can lease ipv4 and 6 addresses from a third party and have your isp advertise them.

Ideally, you need to make sure you are leasing from the IP owner directly, the less people between you and the IP owner the better because it means less fingers gumming up the works. Turn around assuming it was supported should be around 24 hours.

You lease your ip's, IP owner gives you a LoA (letter of authorisation) and you issue this to your service provider. Your service provider then advertises your ip block be it ipv4 or 6 on their routers.

With plusnet routers already advertising IPV6 addresses per the link in the earlier post, they could support this as an option, whether they will is a different matter entirely, but it could be worth looking into if they are not planning on rolling it out mainstream any time soon, firstly with plusnet of course, it would be pointless to start the ball rolling on it if they won't even entertain the idea.

I would of course like to see ipv6 rolled out with plusnet, but seeing as its already been over a decade since they tested it I am not really holding out much hope for it to be any time soon. Of course there are other concerns that got in the way. But still, its a decade.

Sorry to whoever I just replied to, its not to you directly, I just could not find a reply button that wasn't linked to somebodies reply.

[#7]

When Plusnet start supporting IPv6 I can't imagine they'd begin so with other LIR's address blocks. It'd be an added complexity that wouldn't provide any benefits, and indeed would be bad for the Internet at large given the increase in routing table size. Besides which though, I'm curious as to who you would be expecting to delegate address space to you?

[#8]

Well I just use 6to4 to get IPv6. plus.net kindly route the 192.88.99.1 route - which they forward the he.net.

This does give a IPv6 connection - not a good connection, but one the works.

Not really the point the of this thread, its really when will we get a native IPv6 connection. I've leave my ADSL router looking for the information, when it connects - in the hope one day it will start. But nothing has happened up to now ...

[#9]

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@summers wrote:

This does give a IPv6 connection - not a good connection, but one the works.

I would expect you'd find a managed 6in4 tunnel (e.g. one from HE's Tunnel Broker service) would give much better performance.

6to4 is susceptible to all sorts of issues given its general reliance on anycasting of the router relay address and whilst you might be able to observe that your outgoing traffic is being consistently routed via HE's 6to4 relay you don't have visibility of the return path and that could be going anywhere (and indeed could be the reason why the connection is problematic, depending on the symptoms you've observed). As a result of this and other issues, 6to4 has been all but deprecated and whilst HE and others might still be providing 6to4 relays it is likely only for legacy support and with little effort put into to maintaining a decent level of service (not least given they can only control half the roundtrip path and so there's only so much they can do).

[#10]

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@summers wrote:

Well I just use 6to4 to get IPv6 ...

This does give a IPv6 connection - not a good connection, but one the works.

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I've been using the Hurricane Electric 6in4 tunnel via Plusnet for at least eight years now,  my experience is that the 6in4 tunnel has less routing or buffering issues than the native Plusnet IPv4 - at the negligible expense of about 1.5ms additional latency, and loss of about 3% of maximum line speed.  So I'm curious as why you say "not a good connection, but one the works" ?

Even if Plusnet did implement native IPv6 in the future, I would probably continue using the he.net 6in4 tunnel for routing resiliency of the second ISP - with virtually no performance difference as both Plusnet and Hurricane Electric end points that my broadband connects to are both served from the same building at "Telehouse" London.

[#11]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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I've been using the Hurricane Electric 6in4 tunnel via Plusnet for at least eight years now,  my experience is that the 6in4 tunnel has less routing or buffering issues than the native Plusnet IPv4 - at the negligible expense of about 1.5ms additional latency, and loss of about 3% of maximum line speed.  So I'm curious as why you say "not a good connection, but one the works" ?

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Note that you're using 6in4 whereas @summers is using 6to4, the latter which is very susceptible to problems as touched on above (likely posted whilst you were writing your response!)...

[#12]

Yes 6to4 is depreciated, but plus.net still forwards the 192.88.99.1 routing address - so despite depreciated it works. How much my internet connection uses it - I'm not sure. but means I can use IPv6 addresses.

But I think your reply is mainly about IPv6 routing, and how it works. Both 6to4 and 6in4 (with he.net); go via he.net - now I don't know if he.net treats both equally, or gives priority to 6in4. My connection to he.net is quick, 32ms currently, going via *.faraday.ukcore.bt.net (so can see the BT involvement). So for my outgoing packets, the question is mainly how he.net deals with them. There I don't have answers.

The return packets though are less clear. What does a IPv6 router do when it sees a 2002: address? Its recognised as 6to4, but depreciated. So some routers maybe don't handle such packets - but I haven't seen this, anywhere I've looked. So I suspect that most/all current IPv6 routers do handle 2002: addresses; and the only way to handle them, is to process the next 4 bytes of the address - that give my IPv4 plus.net address - and then it can directly route to plus.net ipv4 address.

So I think the test is the speed. Can you do a traceroute6 to ipv6.google.com? This is what I get

[code]traceroute6 ipv6.google.com
traceroute to ipv6.google.com (2a00:1450:4009:81d::200e), 30 hops max, 64 byte packets
1 2002:c058:6301::1 (2002:c058:6301::1) 32.158 ms 32.812 ms 32.058 ms
2 ve210.core1.ams1.he.net (2001:470:0:24f::1) 32.198 ms 33.007 ms 33.003 ms
3 amsix-router.google.com (2001:7f8:1::a501:5169:1) 33.833 ms 45.435 ms 33.536 ms
4 2001:4860:0:f8a::d (2001:4860:0:f8a::d) 35.717 ms 2001:4860:0:f8d::c (2001:4860:0:f8d::c) 33.357 ms 2001:4860:0:f8c::c (2001:4860:0:f8c::c) 37.906 ms
5 * 2001:4860::c:4002:56ab (2001:4860::c:4002:56ab) 41.506 ms 2001:4860::c:4000:d9a9 (2001:4860::c:4000:d9a9) 45.021 ms
6 * 2001:4860::c:4000:cf5b (2001:4860::c:4000:cf5b) 38.603 ms 2001:4860::c:4002:1123 (2001:4860::c:4002:1123) 41.195 ms
7 * * 2001:4860::9:4001:45d3 (2001:4860::9:4001:45d3) 39.225 ms
8 * 2001:4860:0:1::54c9 (2001:4860:0:1::54c9) 40.749 ms 40.352 ms
9 lhr25s31-in-x0e.1e100.net (2a00:1450:4009:81d::200e) 39.039 ms 2001:4860:0:1::54c9 (2001:4860:0:1::54c9) 40.486 ms lhr25s31-in-x0e.1e100.net (2a00:1450:4009:81d::200e) 37.962 ms[/code]

[#13]

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@summers wrote:

Can you do a traceroute6 to ipv6.google.com?

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$ mtr -w -6 -c 10 ipv6.google.com

                                           Loss%  Snt  Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- my-router                           0.0%   10   0.2   0.2   0.2   0.3   0.0
  2.|-- my-tunnel.tserv5.lon1.ipv6.he.net   0.0%   10   8.3   8.5   8.3   9.0   0.2
  3.|-- 10ge3-16.core1.lon2.he.net          0.0%   10   7.5   7.6   7.4   8.0   0.2
  4.|-- 2001:7f8:4::3b41:1                  0.0%   10   7.7   7.9   7.7   8.2   0.2
  5.|-- 2001:4860::12:0:b229               30.0%   10   8.7   8.7   8.3   9.1   0.3
  6.|-- 2001:4860:0:1::54cd                 0.0%   10   7.4   7.7   7.4   7.9   0.2
  7.|-- lhr25s32-in-x0e.1e100.net           0.0%   10   7.5   7.4   7.1   7.7   0.2

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@summers wrote:

My connection to he.net is quick, 32ms currently

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LOL !  😂

[#14]

Takes me 26ms to even get to my plus.net gateway!  Another 8ms to get to he.net. Then another 8ms to get to google. So I'm loosing everywhere. Obvious difference though is I go via ve210.core1.ams1.he.net, but you have a local london machine.

Still impressed with speed, is that Fibre to the Cabinet,  or even the the front door?

[#15]

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@summers wrote:

The return packets though are less clear. What does a IPv6 router do when it sees a 2002: address? Its recognised as 6to4, but depreciated. So some routers maybe don't handle such packets - but I haven't seen this, anywhere I've looked. So I suspect that most/all current IPv6 routers do handle 2002: addresses

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Indeed. They will forward the packets towards their preferred route for 2002::/16 which could be Hurricane Electric or any other 6to4 relay announcing this address space. And that's the problem - your return path could be unnecessarily travelling halfway round the world and via anyone's 6to4 relay. With a managed 6in4 tunnel, your IPv6 address will come from a geographically-relevent address pool for the PoP you get your tunnel from and thus the return path is stable and predictable.

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[...] the only way to handle them, is to process the next 4 bytes of the address - that give my IPv4 plus.net address - and then it can directly route to plus.net ipv4 address.

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No, what you're describing there is what the 6to4 relay router does, not the 'native' IPv6-enabled enabled router between the content service provider and the relay router. To those routers the 2002::/16 address range is just another IPv6 prefix that appears in their routing tables and routed accordingly towards a 6to4 relay that then repackages the packet in IPv4.

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So I think the test is the speed.

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That's one metric but there are others too such as latency, jitter, packet loss, fragmentation, out of order delivery etc which all combine and interact to create an overall level and perception of performance. Unmanaged 6to4 is prone to far more unpredictability and variation on these aspects than managed 6in4 hence my implied suggestion to consider the latter for a potentially better non-native IPv6 experience.