As published in Fidonews...
IPv6 in 2021
By Michiel van der Vlist, 2:280/5555
Another year has passed. When we compare the statistics as published
by the end of 2020 with those of today, we see that IPv6 in Fidonet
has grown again. From 93 to 103 nodes.
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2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
2021 was the year that that we passed the 100 mark. In May Shelley
Petersen of 1:134/102 was listed as #100 in the list of Fidonet IPv6
nodes.
Shelley's system is listed with the INO4 flag. It can only accept
incoming calls via IPv6. It has this in common with the system of
Brandon Moore, also of net 134. Something else that is remarkable is
that these nodes have an IPv6 address in the same /64. They share
that same /64 also with 1:134/100 1:134/101, 1:134/103, 1:134/301
and 1:134/302.
Frankly, I do not know what to think of that...
2021 was also the year that it was ten years ago that the first IPv6
connection in Fidonet was made. On 1 November 2011 Andre Grueneberg
of 2:2411/525 made an IPv6 binkp connection with Benny Pedersen of
2:230/0. It was Andre Gruenebrg that added the IPv6 code to binkd.
A trend we do not really see continue is the move towards native
IPv6. In 2021 34 of the 103 nodes used a tunnel. 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.
Now that tunnels have been mentioned: I also could not help noticing
that of these 34 tunnels, only one is not a he.net tunnel. Until
2017 there was SixXs as alternative free tunnel service, but the main
driving forces Jeroen Massar and Pim van Pelt got tired of it. And
now he.net is more or less the only game in town. I wonder how long
they will continue with this wonderful free service. If they stop it
will certainly have an impact on Fidonet.
The very fact that a third of the IPv6 sysops still uses a tunnel
shows that we still have a long way to go. I know of one sysop that
has native IPv6 from his provider but who uses a he.net tunnel because
that way he has a static IPv6 pefix, but that is the exception.
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.
As I write this, Delta Fiber, a relatively small company on a world
scale will start digging in my area. The planning is that I will have
FTTH third quarter 2022. The snag is that they do not offer native
IPv6. They say they will eventually, but they will not give a time
frame, so I do not know if/when I have functional FTTH if it will
offer me IPv6. Over ten years ago I told myself I would not buy new
network equipment that does not support IPv6. Now I have a problem.
There is no competition. It is Delta Fiber or no FTTH. If I go ahead
with them now, the installation is "free". If I want it later, there
is a EUR 650 installation fee. It makes sense, calling back the
digging crew is expensive. I want FTTH, but I also want a provider
that offers native IPv6. So I compromised. I took the cheapest
subscription for a year. It is cheaper than the EUR 650 installation
fee. If they still do not offer IPv6 at the end of the first year, I
say goodbye to them and stay with the cable company that has been
offering me native IPv6 for the last five years. Or... maybe I will
reconsider, go back to he.net, show my sage badge and ask for a
tunnel again. To be continued...
I noticed something else. For the purpose of keeping the weekly
published list of IPv6 nodes up to date, Kees van Eeten and I
actively hunt for new IPv6 nodes. Kees runs a script that hunts for
AAAA records in host names in the nodelist. Whenever he finds new
AAAA records, he informs me and I try to make an IPv6 connect. If
successful, I add the node to the list. If the IPv6 connect fails,
I try to make contact and help the sysop to make the system reachable
over IPv6. Sometimes this is successful, sometimes it is not.
Remarkable is that ever so often the sysop has no idea how the AAAA
record got to be there in the first place. Someting else I do not
know what to think of.
Other than that, 2021 was not all that eventful regarding IPv6. Not
for Fidonet en not for the Internet in general. We saw steady growth
but we can't say that IPv6 is the dominant protocol yet.
Can we get rid of ipv4 yet? Obviously not, certainly when Fidonet is
concerned. But I ran across an article from SIDN (Stichting Internet Domeinnamen Nederland) (Dutch registry for Internet Domain Names
Netherlands).
https://tinyurl.com/3xe4dc5a
It is about an experiment where IPv4 is switched off completely.
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 2022.
--- GoldED+/W32-MSVC 1.1.5-b20170303
* Origin: he.net certified sage (2:280/5555)