Deploying IPv6

The current Internet Draft for IPv6 Addressing Architecture has a couple of items worth noting. Section 2.5.1 requires that interface IDs be 64 bits long, effectively deprecating any prefix longer than a /64. (Don’t let the reference to “modified EUI-64″ scare you - hand crafted addresses are still fine.)

Later on, section 2.6.1 gives a special meaning to addresses where all the bits to the right hand side of the address are zero.

Some of this is already present in RFC3513. In any case, should this draft make it to RFC status with these sections intact, it will break the practice of using long prefixes such as /126 and /127 for point-to-point links between routers. So while we’ve been insisting that using /64s for all subnets is a good idea, it may well become required practice in the near future.

The nice people at CAIDA have produced one of their cool network maps of the IPv6 Internet. Like the CAIDA IPv4 maps, you can clearly see Asia, Europe and the US represented on the map. Interestingly, it looks like there’s lots of IPv6 ASes alive in Europe, even compared to Asia. Mind you, the “centre” of the IPv6 network is, as expected, NTT/Verio.

ISOC recently announced that Brian Carpenter has been appointed the next chair of the IETF. He’s currently a distinguished engineer with IBM, and was and is heavily involved in the IPv6 working groups. His appointment should come as a boost for the protocol, as he tends to say things like: “IPv6 is a real necessity. The challenge there is no longer one of getting the standards done, it’s the progressive deployment of IPv6″. Good news all around.

(Check out ZDnet UK for more.)