[HN Gopher] IPv6 Internet is broken
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       IPv6 Internet is broken
        
       Author : stargrave
       Score  : 240 points
       Date   : 2022-12-11 08:23 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (adminhacks.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (adminhacks.com)
        
       | crizzlenizzle wrote:
       | It's generally not a good idea to be single homed anyway. My
       | first network was only upstreamed by HE and I ran into the Cogent
       | situation quite quickly. Adding more upstreams fixed it. But also
       | other NSPs don't reach everything. Sometimes there are some niche
       | networks that can only be reached over peering or some other
       | transit providers. Though it's super rare.
        
         | Bluecobra wrote:
         | True, but many small businesses don't have the hardware or
         | expertise to manage multiple full BGP tables. Also depending
         | where you are your ISP options might be limited. For example
         | one of the remote sites I manage only has Lumen/CenturyLink
         | wired to the building. If would really stink if I couldn't get
         | to anything on HE's network through no fault of my own.
        
       | based2 wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering#Depeering
        
       | zinekeller wrote:
       | Same feelings as others: avoid Cogent at all costs and encourage
       | anyone who solely uses Cogent to switch to another provider,
       | preferably in a multi-home configuration. It's not even this
       | issue, Cogent simply wants your dollars and do f***-all but the
       | absolute minimum.
       | 
       | Basically, most tier-1 providers allows settlement-free peering
       | with anyone who can meet some physical requirements (like having
       | mutual interconnection in America, Europe and Asia) and legal
       | ones (everyone wants to avoid sanctions). HE clearly meets this
       | requirement. Google also clearly meets this requirement. Both are
       | not connected to Cogent despite both are willing to interconnect
       | to Cogent.
       | 
       | Cogent just allows connections to whoever _they_ feel to connect,
       | they don 't have a criteria except for "if we allow them, will
       | they kill our business"?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | m3drano wrote:
       | I'd say this is a Cogent problem. Not an IPv6 nor an "Internet"
       | problem. Tye solution is to single out Cogent and that class of
       | ISPs, like Telefonica in ES.
        
       | oarsinsync wrote:
       | Lots of disdain for Cogent on this thread, and very little
       | comments about HE effectively having much the same business model
       | as Cogent: sell pipes as cheap as possible, run them as hot
       | (full) as possible, care little about performance implications.
       | 
       | As a transit supplier, they're both pretty low quality, suited to
       | bulk traffic only. Anything latency/loss sensitive goes over
       | other providers.
       | 
       | HE and Cogent both are best suited to their roles as carrier of
       | last resort. If you as a customer depend primarily on either of
       | them, that's a particularly unfortunate situation that should be
       | remediated if possible.
        
         | guerby wrote:
         | HE will peer with you for free on most IX AFAIK, here is an HE
         | IPv6 peering from a tiny not-for-profit ISP on FranceIX-Paris:
         | 
         | https://lg.tetaneutral.net/detail/h7/ipv6?q=HE_FRANCEIX_PARI...
         | 
         | 162016 IPv6 routes from HE. Current IPv6 full view about 166926
         | routes.
         | 
         | Cogent will not peer with you.
         | 
         | If you're starting an ISP: buy cogent and another transit, peer
         | with HE on your local IX, you should be good to go.
        
           | bradfitz wrote:
           | Yup! I have 162161 routes from HE right now (for free) on the
           | SeattleIX.
        
         | ddalex wrote:
         | Isn't this the intended business model? Different tiers for
         | different needs at different price points? I'd think that HE
         | could offer a higher service level with better quality if the
         | economics would make sense
        
       | bpbp-mango wrote:
       | ipv4 or ipv6 no one serious only has a single upstream
        
       | greyface- wrote:
       | No mention yet of the HE/Cogent peering cake?
       | 
       | https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/22/peer...
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CObnXjmDtg
        
         | Technetium wrote:
         | This is absolutely fantastic. Thank you for linking!
        
         | LeonM wrote:
         | From 2009, damn, this has been going on for 13 years now...
        
         | ehPReth wrote:
         | I remember this! Sad that it's still an issue :(
        
       | woodruffw wrote:
       | Cogent's IPv6 peering has been broken forever, as immortalized in
       | the HE "please peer with us" cake[1].
       | 
       | [1]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpetach/4031195041
        
       | kkfx wrote:
       | IPv6 have many defects BUT allow a lost thing we desperately need
       | NO DAMN needed NAT. Witch means that with a 2Gbps+ f.o.
       | connection you can host your service at home, with a static IPv6
       | global address and a domain name bound to it.
       | 
       | IMVHO many giants obstacle IPv6 NOT because it's hard and not so
       | nice BUT because they fear loosing their privileged position. Oh,
       | sure most people do not have TODAY a homeserver but how much
       | would it take to see pre-packaged pseudo-FLOSS homeservers like
       | we see for android "pirate-TV minicomputers"?
       | 
       | Try weighting that before judge.
        
         | Kadin wrote:
         | The utility of home servers and server-like devices is limited
         | by upstream bandwidth on asymmetric connections (virtually all
         | home broadband except some fiber-based services). Not IP
         | addressing.
         | 
         | Dynamic DNS has been around for decades and provides a solution
         | if you really want to run a home server behind NAT. If someone
         | wanted to market a home server box, they would just need to
         | implement something like DDNS... and Plex basically does just
         | that.
         | 
         | But most people have limited upstream bandwidth, such that it's
         | impractical to serve much content from home, except maybe to
         | yourself as a 'road warrior' via VPN, or video streams via
         | Plex, stuff like that.
         | 
         | If home broadband was symmetric, even with NAT, we would see
         | many more applications taking advantage of that upstream
         | bandwidth.
        
         | sidewndr46 wrote:
         | As others have commented, ISPs explicitly do not want this
         | happening. One of the service tiers at my house was previously
         | advertised as 900/35. 900 Mbps down, 35 mbps up. Now, there are
         | no ISPs that rate the upload speed at all. At least one of the
         | ISPs at my house has language in the contract that limits usage
         | to that initiated by a live operator, so any sort of hosting is
         | obviously prohibited. Another ISP solved this by delegating
         | several /64 addresses, but only actually routing traffic for a
         | single IPv6 address.
        
         | nly wrote:
         | ISPs don't want this. They want to upsell you to a business
         | service if you want a static IP. They'll just use dynamic IP
         | allocation aka DHCP to make the whole thing really
         | inconvenient.
        
           | philjohn wrote:
           | *some ISP's don't want this.
           | 
           | I'm on Zen in the UK and have both a static IPv4 (with
           | additional IP's available for a relatively lot fee in blocks
           | of 8 or more) and a /48 IPv6 block.
        
             | AshamedCaptain wrote:
             | So what? Almost for a decade, I used to have 15 IPv4
             | addresses with OVH _for free_, and this very December they
             | decided to start charging for them.
             | 
             | Before OVH, I also was with another similarly-cheapo ISP
             | that gave me one IPv4 for free until they decided to start
             | charging for it (and I left).
             | 
             | It's just a matter of time. Of course if your ISP is
             | expensive enough they'll just keep eating the cost for more
             | years, but .. what's the point? One IPv4 is not that costly
             | yet that is worth an expensive ISP over it...
        
             | mnd999 wrote:
             | Same with A&A, although they are a bit more expensive than
             | the likes of Sky / Virgin / BT it's definitely worth it.
        
           | kkfx wrote:
           | For sure, but while they do not want I DO WANT. With IPv4
           | they have a valid excuse: we do not have enough address, with
           | IPv6 they have no valid excuse.
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | TIL hn really hates cogent
        
         | tristor wrote:
         | For many very good reasons
        
       | larsonnn wrote:
       | I would like to know which services would not work or which
       | countries are involved.
        
         | crizzlenizzle wrote:
         | For example everything hosted by Cogent directly:
         | https://bgp.tools/prefix/2001:550::/32#dns
        
           | larsonnn wrote:
           | And when Cogent is my provider Google services would not
           | work. But is it for all countries?
           | 
           | I ask because providers in the EU have some other laws as USA
           | for example. Or is this peering globally the same ?
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | Peering disputes in Europe center around different carriers
             | generally. But the basic dispute is the same, carrier A
             | doesn't want to peer with carrier B, probably for business
             | reasons, so they try to setup their peering rules so that
             | carrier B doesn't qualify, or they won't upgrade
             | connections.
             | 
             | I know I've seen some carrier names that come up in those
             | disputes a lot, often the incumbent telco for a particular
             | country. But you've got a lot of countries there and most
             | of them had their own nationalized phone company, and only
             | one or two end up having public spats over peering. There's
             | similar stuff in some countries in Asia, where some of the
             | incumbent telcos refuse to peer locally. (and of course,
             | China has the GFW)
        
       | Joyfield wrote:
       | HE and Google could block traffic to and from Cogent until they
       | submit OR start paying THEM for access. Ill be it would take like
       | less than a week.
        
       | knorker wrote:
       | With my ISPs I've had IPv4 broken more often than IPv6.
       | 
       | To the point that I've set up an IPv4-over-IPv6 tunnel out, for
       | when IPv4 breaks.
        
         | kalleboo wrote:
         | I had IPv4 routing on my router just crash and die once, it
         | took half a day to realize since so many big properties are on
         | IPv6
        
       | hbfdhfdhadfhnfa wrote:
       | fortunately from my ISP in Czech republic I can reach both
       | destinations via IPv6 fine. However, the said ISP is giving me
       | only /64 IPV6 block therefore limiting it to one subnet. That is
       | poor, really poor implementation that does not allow ipv6 e.g. in
       | my work laptop VLAN. O2 internet(the ISP) - you suck.
        
         | zajDee wrote:
         | If this is DSL/FTTH, don't wait and switch to T-Mobile,
         | Metronet or UVTnet. O2 have been doing this wrong since 2012
         | and it doesn't look like they will fix it in this decade.
        
           | zajDee wrote:
           | Forgot to mention that while O2 provides you with a poor
           | single /64, UVTnet gives you a nice and shiny /48 (others
           | currently stick to /56s). What a difference.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | vetinari wrote:
           | Unfortunately, multiple ISPs (PODA, Vodafone-ex-UPC) are
           | doing it wrong and they do not seem to be bothered by it or
           | even trying to fix it.
        
             | zajDee wrote:
             | True dat. Some of the mishaps can be attributed to
             | incompetence and some to lack of desire to be real ISPs for
             | the future. Too bad one is usually geographically
             | restricted to one or a very few ISPs, especially when all
             | of them are doing IPv6 wrong.
        
               | kubo6472 wrote:
               | The situation is even worse here at your SE neighbors.
               | The three nation wide ISPs don't provide working IPv6 at
               | all:
               | 
               | Slovak Telekom (Deutsche Telekom Subsidiary, same as
               | Czech T-Mobile/T-Com) - FTTx, DSL, WISP
               | 
               | Orange (French Orange S.A. subsidiary) - FTTx, DSL, WISP
               | 
               | O2 (The Czech HQ'd PPF owned, not the UK one) - WISP
               | 
               | And even the more regional, but still big, aren't much
               | better.
               | 
               | UPC (Liberty Global subsidiary) - Cable
               | 
               | Antik (Slovak company) - FTTx, Cable, WISP
               | 
               | SWAN (also Slovak company) - DSL, FTTx, WISP
               | 
               | But I have to shout out my dad's ISP, it's called
               | RadioLAN, it's a slovak company, provides WISP and FTTx
               | and also IPv6 to everyone by default. So far the only one
               | I've found. Funny thing is, the peering in our country is
               | handled by two IXs: SIX and NIX both natively supporting
               | IPv6 interconection. If I've messed some terminology or
               | I've outdated info, I'm sorry. As you said, nod to until
               | we live in a very very specific location, we're left with
               | just one ISP, or basically the same one in blue. I'm less
               | than 10km behind the capital's outer borders, yet I have
               | a huge problem getting FTTH ran here. It's literally
               | connected at the both ends of our street, just not here.
               | I've considered doing something about it myself, it's
               | just simply too expensive.
        
       | wilhil wrote:
       | I'm a Cogent customer and we wouldn't be where we are without
       | them, but, they give me the most headaches out of any provider I
       | have to deal with.
       | 
       | I tried raising a complaint as their SLA states about packet
       | deliverability/guarantees - and I said "well, you have 100%
       | packet loss to HE"... I didn't get very far and they basically
       | just blamed it on HE - but, I wonder if someone had more time, if
       | they could make a complaint down this avenue?!
        
       | lwhalen wrote:
       | Netflix also refuses to accept HE IPv6 traffic. This was 'fun' to
       | find out when deploying IPv6 on my home network, and my TV could
       | no longer stream from them.
        
         | Karrot_Kream wrote:
         | Wow I did not know this. Tested this on HE's Looking Glass and
         | you're right. Ridiculous!
        
           | sgjohnson wrote:
           | People were abusing their 6to4 tunnel, which is why Netflix
           | banned them.
        
       | voxadam wrote:
       | Has there _ever_ been a conversation in which Cogent was the good
       | guy?
        
         | Youden wrote:
         | There was the Comcast peering dispute over Netflix traffic
         | (carried by Cogent) around 2014.
        
           | voxadam wrote:
           | That's funny, shortly after I made my comment I had a faint
           | recollection of _Comcast v. Cogent_. I 'm still not sure who
           | to blame in that pissing match. Comcast is one of the most
           | hated retail ISPs in the US while Cogent is one of the most
           | hated bargain basement Tier 1.5 transit ISPs in the country.
           | While I'd _genuinely_ have a difficult time picking sides in
           | such a fight I think that in the end, I 'd have to side with
           | Comcast, as much as I hate to say it. I'd love to hear from
           | people more in the mix than me on the topic.
        
             | bewaretheirs wrote:
             | "It's a pity both sides can't lose"
        
             | aidenn0 wrote:
             | I think Comcast "wins" the most evil here just because they
             | have a monopoly on broadband in many areas, so overcharge
             | their customers for substandard service, then they turn
             | around and use the monopsony of Internet access to those
             | customers to charge for peering.
             | 
             | At least Cogent charges low prices for their shit.
        
       | nonrandomstring wrote:
       | Isn't this a common failure pattern in tech now? A big company
       | gets "successful" by selling cheap or free. They build a big
       | crowd who are accepting of poor service then inflict arbitrary
       | decisions on their customers, and once the abuse is normalised
       | they spread "broken" tech through standards-breaking and non-
       | interoperability. People then justify the problem because a mob
       | of beaten-down users meekly accept the situation and anyone
       | asking for better is dubbed an "elitist" or "idealist". For
       | example, between them Google and Microsoft have wrecked email.
       | IPv6 doesn't look "broken" here, it's just under attack.
        
         | arbitrage wrote:
         | > For example, between them Google and Microsoft have wrecked
         | email.
         | 
         | How so?
        
           | phpisthebest wrote:
           | By "stopping spam" in a manner that defines all[1] email not
           | originating at Google or MS as spam, while at the same time
           | allowing thousands of spam messages to be send via their
           | infrastructure with limited ways for others to block it....
           | 
           | [1] yes I am aware not all, but unless you are a big player
           | good luck getting gmail or ms to accept your mail
        
           | peppermint_tea wrote:
           | an example that comes to mind : find me in the RFC where it
           | is stated that blocking residential ips is ok. (google does
           | this, so not compliant to original standard)
           | 
           | I would also add (but this is not email per se) : no adoption
           | for GPG/PGP this makes your cryptographic signature a bare
           | textfile attachement.
           | 
           | both microsoft and gmail spam filter = blackbox.
        
             | dspillett wrote:
             | _> find me in the RFC where it is stated that blocking
             | residential ips is ok_
             | 
             | Is there one that actually states it _isn 't_ OK, that I'm
             | unaware of?
             | 
             | It perhaps goes against the spirit of the RFCs and other
             | documentation written at the time, but that is
             | understandable because a lot of that stuff was written from
             | the standpoint of being able to trust people on the
             | Internet, including that they fully understand and have
             | properly secured the hosts under their purview...
             | 
             | I send mail from home just fine, though my connection is
             | through an ISP that is generally identified as offering
             | commercial accounts (AAISP). You do have to make sure that
             | you have SPF and DKIM configured but that is the case
             | elsewhere too.
             | 
             | My machines see quite a lot of activity (SSH login
             | attempts, attempts at brute force logins & scans for known
             | vulnerability in old versions of HTTP(S) hosted software,
             | and more, not just attempts to send junk mail) from what
             | appears to be compromised machines on residential
             | connections.
        
             | jeroenhd wrote:
             | My mail server occasionally receives mail from residential
             | ISPs and it's literally always spam.
             | 
             | If people could be trusted to manage their mail server we
             | wouldn't have this problem, but IoT crapware is still
             | listening on port 23 till this very day and the manuals
             | still state that you need to disable the firewall and
             | forward all traffic to your shitty webcam for it to work.
             | Reporting this abuse to the carrying ISPs is about as
             | useless as shouting my complaints down the toilet.
             | 
             | Until both IoT production companies and individual
             | consumers take responsibility for the awful internet
             | created by these maliciously incompetent users and the
             | laughably bad IoT devices they buy, I'm not removing this
             | filter rule from my mail server.
             | 
             | I do usually get a notification that something hit
             | quarantine so if it sounds important I can still see it,
             | but I've never had to release mail banned for this reason
             | so far.
        
               | phpisthebest wrote:
               | >>If people could be trusted to manage
               | 
               | Nice proving the OP orginal opening statement, well done
               | ....
        
               | dmm wrote:
               | Denylisting whole ip ranges is lazy and hurtful. Google
               | accepts email from residential ips. Why can't you?
               | 
               | > My mail server occasionally receives mail from
               | residential ISPs and it's literally always spam.
               | 
               | I sent mail from my home isp for years, until people like
               | you made unfeasible.
               | 
               | > I do usually get a notification that something hit
               | quarantine so if it sounds important I can still see it,
               | but I've never had to release mail banned for this reason
               | so far.
               | 
               | Most small operators refused to allowlist me even after
               | making phone calls, etc.
        
       | jesprenj wrote:
       | Why are packets not routed via peers (customers of cogent) that
       | also peer with HE, or at least peer indirectly with HE?
       | 
       | My home ISP certainly can route packets to both HE and Cogent:
       | 
       | root@tranzistor:~# ping cogentco.com PING
       | cogentco.com(cogentco.com (2001:550:1::cc01)) 56 data bytes 64
       | bytes from cogentco.com (2001:550:1::cc01): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56
       | time=21.1 ms ^C --- cogentco.com ping statistics --- 1 packets
       | transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0msrtt
       | min/avg/max/mdev = 21.107/21.107/21.107/0.000 ms
       | root@tranzistor:~# ping he.net PING he.net(he.net
       | (2001:470:0:503::2)) 56 data bytes 64 bytes from he.net
       | (2001:470:0:503::2): icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=164 ms ^C --- he.net
       | ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet
       | loss, time 0ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev =
       | 164.454/164.454/164.454/0.000 ms root@tranzistor:~#
       | 
       | Why are packets from cogent to HE not routed via my ISP?
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | Peering is for your own traffic and traffic of your customers.
         | You don't carry generally carry traffic for your peers to other
         | peers. It doesn't make business sense; if congent and HE want
         | to exchange traffic via your ISP, at least one of them is going
         | to have to be a customer of your ISP.
        
         | iptrans wrote:
         | Because your ISP is not keen on paying for third parties
         | transiting their network.
        
         | Arnavion wrote:
         | Your ISP does not want to route other people's traffic for
         | them, only its customers. So it doesn't broadcast a route for
         | arbitrary destinations through its AS.
        
           | JCharante wrote:
           | interesting, so it's like a neighborhood between 2 major
           | roads that has signs prohibiting through traffic?
        
             | hcrean wrote:
             | In this case it is a cul-de-sac between two 8-lane
             | interstate highways...
        
       | delroth wrote:
       | "broken", not really -- in practice anyone who cares about IPv6
       | connectivity does not use Cogent as their only upstream, or they
       | learn very quickly that Cogent does not provide them with what
       | they advertise. This might impact you if you're in the business
       | of buying transit from a tier 1 provider, but that's virtually
       | nobody.
       | 
       | (It's also far from the only issue you'll get as a Cogent
       | customer, they're generally, uh, pretty shit.)
        
       | evgpbfhnr wrote:
       | That article doesn't have a date (as far as I can see), is that
       | still a problem? Looking up a random cogent ip (www.cogentco.com
       | on bgp.he.net shows they have a route for it:
       | https://bgp.he.net/ip/2001:550:1::cc01 (might not be true the
       | other way around, I don't know how to check -- I can join both
       | networks, but I'm not on either...)
        
       | pera wrote:
       | It's not IPv6 that is broken, it's fucking Cogent and they have
       | always been like that
        
         | voidwtf wrote:
         | Yea, they've always been happy to sell bulk transit for rock
         | bottom prices, then try to leverage their customer base against
         | other companies.
         | 
         | Everyone in the ISP/Transit world does it though, trying to
         | double dip by charging their customers for service then trying
         | to charge other to peer with them unless it's in their favor to
         | peer freely.
         | 
         | Peering should be best effort, and as close to free as possible
         | when you already have a presence in a location. I understand
         | some cost to cover the hardware necessitated by peering, but
         | the only person being charged should be the customer you're
         | providing a service in my opinion.
        
           | phpisthebest wrote:
           | This is the classic Comcast "why does netflix get a free
           | ride" Pr spin for a few years ago where they are battling net
           | neutrality and trying to convince the public that Netflix,
           | and Google were "free riding" and "not paying their fair
           | share" for the network which is "just like water"
        
       | wolfendin wrote:
       | This is a "Cogent is broken" problem and not an IPv6 is broken
       | problem. Anyone who has to deal with getting full tables for any
       | significant length of time knows not to single home to Cogent--
       | they'll do it on v4 peerings too (See their spats with AOL and
       | Level 3)
        
         | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
         | As an end user, I don't have a "make Cogent behave differently"
         | button, but I do have an "enable IPv6" button.
         | 
         | And when turning that one off makes my internet work, and
         | turning it on makes my internet not work, guess what.
        
       | otabdeveloper4 wrote:
       | IPv6 is a religion, you will not reason with its adepts.
       | 
       | Of course they will claim that the whole world is "doing it
       | wrong", despite the collective failure of humanity to roll out
       | IPv6 for decades and decades.
        
         | unethical_ban wrote:
         | I downvoted you because this article has nothing to do with
         | IPv6 technology. It has to do with a large ISP being a dick and
         | refusing to act mature and, you know, do their goddamned job
         | and peer with other ISPs.
        
         | KyeRussell wrote:
         | I'm not a v6 evangelist. I don't work in networking, nor do I
         | know enough about it to really want to evangelise for v6.
         | Surely "humanity hasn't prioritised doing something, therefore
         | the 'something' is inherently flawed" is an argument that
         | conjures enough contemporary exceptions that you can see how
         | deeply and utterly flawed it is?
        
         | kmbfjr wrote:
         | The problem will solve itself. CGNAT will only take us so far
         | until that no longer scales to where the ISPs want to pay for
         | it.
         | 
         | That said, IPv6 is a horrible implementation.
        
           | nolls wrote:
           | Cgnat can scale forever. There are isps with dozens or even
           | hundreds of millions of clients using cgnat with no issues.
        
             | Karrot_Kream wrote:
             | As video conferencing and streaming needs increase, I'm not
             | so sure about that. Demand for low latency experiences is
             | only growing.
        
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       (page generated 2022-12-11 23:01 UTC)