[ale] IPv6 Subnetting

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Tue, 2011-02-15 at 17:35 -0500, David Tomaschik wrote: 
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Michael H. Warfield <mhw at wittsend.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2011-02-15 at 12:56 -0500, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> >> On Tue, 2011-02-15 at 12:14 -0500, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> >> > Don't go there if you can avoid it.  We want to avoid IPv4 mind think
> >> > here.
> >> >
> >> > If you need more than one subnet, you're suppose to get a larger
> >> > allocation and the ISP should make one available.
> >> >
> >> > Per the standards...
> >> >
> >> > If you need 1 subnet you get a /64.  If you need more than one subnet,
> >> > you should get a /48 but some ISPs such as freenet6 may break that
> >> > down further and hand you a /56 which is still 256 subnets.  Yes, most
> >> > ISPs should be handing you a /64 as a default.  That is per the
> >> > standard if that's all you need and that will be the case with most
> >> > residential customers.  If you need more, they should allocate you
> >> > more or they are in violation of the standards.
> >
> >> Oh, indeed.
> >
> >> That said, I can imagine that there will be lots of ISPs that won't even
> >> know how to handle such a request.  Hell, there are now, for IPv4, and
> >> we've been running that for decades.
> >
> > There's one major difference.
> >
> > With IPv6 they already have to allocate you a routable network, even if
> > it only has 1 subnet.  That's a /64.  It's not like allocating a single
> > address with IPv4 and then you have to change the paradigm to a
> > "routable subnet" the moment you allocate a block of addresses.  We've
> > already crossed that threashold and now we're just haggling over the
> > block size.  One would hope that these guys wouldn't be so penny ante
> > that they don't have some corporate customers who will require multiple
> > subnets, so they should have some clue as to how to deal with that and
> > allocate it as well.  Look at some of the other threads on this list
> > where people have gotten business calls v4 with multiple addresses and
> > dealt with routers they can't "open" because the ISP won't let them.
> > Tell you what.  We're all now in the same class.  Maybe they'll call it
> > business class if you have more than one subnet.  Wouldn't surprise me
> > but the reality is, it's only the bits in the subnet.  You're not
> > changing your allocation infrastructure from single address based to
> > routed subnet based.  You're there either way.  That gives me some hope
> > for optimism (note line in my signature).

> Now the challenge will be finding an ISP that gives me what I need: a
> /56 (or even a /60 or something crazy like that would be fine with
> me), decent speed, no restrictions (e.g., a neutral net connection)
> and no crappy hardware getting in my way (e.g., a modem should be just
> that: a device to convert from one physical interface to another, aka
> OSI Layer 1 & 2).  Oh, and affordable as a state employee.  Picky,
> aren't I?

Right now there aren't very many that are offering v6 native, period.
Comcast is rolling out a program but I think it's just in Colorado and
enrollment was closed due to demand.  If you want to try and get started
and start playing with it, then I would recommend you go with a tunnel
broker and get a free network.  I would start at Hurricane Electric aka
tunnelbroker.net (free /64 and /48) and learn what their certification
program offers.  If you're not behind a NAT, they've got pretty good
tunnel service.  If you are behind a NAT, you might want to go with
Freenet6 aka gogo6 (free /64 and /56).  Another alternative is SixXs,
which is actually OCCAID here in the US (free /64 and /48).  Here in the
Atlanta area, they've got a point of presence right downtown so tunnel
latency is minimal and then you're on the v6 backbone to everywhere else
in the world.

Regards,
Mike
-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
   /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/          | (678) 463-0932 |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
   NIC whois: MHW9          | An optimist believes we live in the best of all
 PGP Key: 0x674627FF        | possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 482 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20110215/dd23a0ca/attachment.bin