[nycbug-talk] IPv6 Lit in my Brooklyn Apartment

[Isaac (.ike) Levy]

Hi All,

Wanted to share some of the excitement, I was beginning to think this day would never come:

I have seen the kame.net turtle swimming, in Brooklyn.  I got IPv6 internet connectivity at home, via bway.net DSL, and PFSense 2.1.  Small step for mankind, but I'm leaping up and down over it!

$ traceroute6 www.kame.net
traceroute6 to orange.kame.net (2001:200:dff:fff1:216:3eff:feb1:44d7) from 2607:d300:400:202::200, 64 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  dsl-ike-1.v6.bway.net  0.943 ms  1.027 ms  0.804 ms
 2  dsl-1-5.v6.bway.net  7.572 ms  7.968 ms  7.959 ms
 3  ge-9-16.car4.newyork1.level3.net  7.895 ms  7.869 ms  8.056 ms
 4  2001:1900:19:5::8  7.337 ms  7.715 ms  8.121 ms
 5  ntt-level3-40g.newyork1.level3.net  9.050 ms  8.181 ms  8.538 ms
 6  ae-2.r22.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net  7.703 ms  8.192 ms  8.716 ms
 7  ae-4.r21.sttlwa01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net  87.058 ms  86.447 ms  86.691 ms
 8  ae-0.r20.sttlwa01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net  91.569 ms  96.513 ms  96.750 ms
 9  as-3.r20.tokyjp01.jp.bb.gin.ntt.net  184.096 ms  182.371 ms  262.385 ms
10  ae-2.r24.tokyjp05.jp.bb.gin.ntt.net  176.980 ms  174.575 ms  171.101 ms
11  po-1.a15.tokyjp01.jp.ra.gin.ntt.net  185.841 ms  171.228 ms  176.871 ms
12  ge-8-2.a15.tokyjp01.jp.ce.gin.ntt.net  197.859 ms  195.162 ms  195.575 ms
13  ve44.foundry6.otemachi.wide.ad.jp  186.157 ms  194.800 ms  198.215 ms
14  2001:200::180a:a6ba:dbff:fe1d:19f4  200.877 ms  200.561 ms  187.447 ms
15  2001:200:dff:fff1:216:3eff:feb1:44d7  185.424 ms  188.674 ms  192.542 ms
$ 

--
My home bway.net DSL is lit up passing native dual-stack V4/V6, no tunnels.  Charles Sprickman, a NYC*BUG oldschooler, was on the other end and has really driven the whole thing on the bway.net side.  (Thanks spork!!!)  I believe they are the first (and only?) ISP serving residential IPv6.
A word of warning: I had to setup my own DSL modem, the provisioned gear is *not* nice to work with, and Bway has only rolled out a few of these.  If you do this, expect some difficult DIY setup time.  I'm certain this will get better as they roll more of these out...

In PfSense 2.1 (currently RC1), IPv6 capabilities have become a full-fledged equal citizen, making it very simple and clear for an IPv6 neophyte like myself to get it all working sanely.  The IPv6 UI elements surely beat any of the V6 bits in the large brand-name enterprise products I handle regularly at work.
For fun/testing, I even set up "clones" of the wireless interface, so I could have an IPv6-only AP, an IPv4-only AP, and a dual-stack AP.  Kindof stupid, but I wanted to separate them as I explore and start messing around with slicing up the *massive* block of addresses I now have.

I'm still confused and learning more about DHCPv6 vs. stateless auto-negotiation and whatnot, but on my first pass setup, the PFSense DHCPv6 lights up machines on my network with no fuss or problems.

--
No NAT!

One of the most difficult parts of IPv6 connectivity, for me, is the "every IP is internet routable" aspect.  Both awesome, and frightening.  Obviously this raises security, privacy, and anonymity issues that are pretty open ended for IPv6.  As I dive into the fray, at least there are tools as mature as PF :)

Best,
.ike