The original feature request in this thread was about 2.5 years ago; I figure the best we can do is try to make this the longest, most-active thread in the forums

In the meantime, try a tunnel! Learn two technologies instead of just one.

(This has to hit Page 7 one of these days...)

I learned three technologies. One of my providers does support native IPv6. Another has no local 6to4, so I use an HE tunnel. Then my Fremont servers use a nice 6to4 gateway provided by HE as well.

+1 for ipv6... i work for an isv and we're starting to see actual adoption in places now... alot of it is "you must comply" type stuff coming from government org's, but it is indeed starting to be adopted and i reckon in 2 years anyone working in IT will be either ipv6 capable or out of a job (unless your job requires 0 network skills). A reasonable chunk of the work we're getting lately simply involves companies and so forth who have been told "this network must be ipv6 capable" in order to comply with some random government rule and here in AU i can count on two hands the number of people i know who even know where to begin.... i guess my point is if it interests you and you know it, nows a good time to look around and see what people are looking for (or at least advertise yourself) cause its going to be quite a skill to have soon.

and +1 for "god im sick of tunnels", they get so very messy after a while.

I think we're beholden to each of the datacenters getting IPv6 allocations first. Linode won't make it available until they can do it in all locations equally.

I've started a discussion page on the wiki to collect information about progress on this front:
http://www.linode.com/wiki/index.php/Talk:IPv6

As a customer of Linode, I'm not sure what I can do to nudge upstream along. Tactful and diplomatic suggestions welcome. We don't want to piss anyone off.

I'm another one waiting for IPv6. My home Internet line has native IPv6 and my colo server is on native IPv6, just waiting for my Linode VPS now...

_________________
Why can I not enter my IRC info in the forum profile?

Yes.

The HE tunnels are great for trying stuff out, but they're not supported as production infrastructure.


I think they'd have a lot of volunteers for an IPv6 trial in those locations that do have support. There's stuff Linode would have to add for support, like IPv6 management capabilities in the web interface.

My ISP (Time Warner Cable - Charlotte, NC) has recently done upgrades to allow DOCSIS 3.0, but still no IPv6 coming off the pipe. So while I'd love to have IPv6 native in my Linodes for delegating to customers.. I still can't use it myself.

Yet another example of resistance to the Borg. The more networks and providers that provide native support, the faster this will come along.

This may sound harsh but - what'll REALLY get people moving is for companies to start doing the same thing as the US Government did for the switch to Digital TV: Put a takedown date for their IPv4 support and force the switch. Do that, and people will get off their butt and conform. Sure - some people will need new devices. But, didn't the TV switchover require them too?? Go to Target/Walmart/Newegg/Ebay , buy new router, done. (Oh, and upgrade any archaic machines laying around that are still running Windows 3.1. Those won't be supported anymore)

My 0.02c

Last month 5 IPv4 address blocks got allocated (a total of 19 so far this year), leaving only 7 ranges left.

While estimates vary due to this recent acquisition, the estimated time till IPv4 exhaustion has been updated to reflect this. The result being around 3-4 months. I don't expect the purchase rate to stay steady, when a resource is reaching exhaustion, people will rush to ensure they have enough room for expansion. Obviously IPv6 adoption will probably increase exponentially too.

Just because the ranges are allocated there won't be addressed available on the ISP level or higher. After exhaustion addresses will probably be released by ISP's who have switched to IPv6, and due to the ease of use I would expect IPv4 to be used in hosting for quite a while, it is much easier to type an IPv4 into an address bar.

Update: Yay sage

As the RIRs have been applying for /8's from IANA roughly when they only have 2 /8's to assign, and the fact that a couple of the larger allocations are 'dirty' (the 1/8 block for instance) it is actually dire. Potaroo.net (http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html) estimates December 2011 as the time when all usable ranges of remaining IPs will be assigned to their ISPs etc.

Tunnels from companies like HE.net are great for testing and experimentation, but they are not replacements from the real thing, or at the very least an ISP/provider run tunnel with native connectivity past the tunnel. GeoDNS is a particularly key example of this. Like it or not, but IPv6 is coming.

Also for statistics sake... http://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2010-10/when.html roughly 11.3 /8's were split up and assigned to end users/etc by the RIRs Jan 2010 to Oct 2010. That is a lot of IPs.

There are effectively only two /8s left to IANA, due to the policy that each RIR gets one of the last /8 automatically when there are only 5 left.

There is some speculation that APNIC might try to grab those /8s before they need them to guarantee that they get 3 of the last 7 /8s, which could potentially lead to IPv4 exhaustion on the IANA level before the end of the year.

It will take a decent amount of time after that before the RIRs run out of IP addresses. Estimates based on normal allocation rates are that APNIC would last 8 months on their remaining stock, although if they make an early grab that would be longer. They're expected to be the first RIR to run out of IPs since they're by far the largest in terms of new allocations.

I recall reading in a report somewhere that the first IPv6-only devices are expected to start showing up on the internet by early 2012. I also recall reading in multiple reports that it's already too late, there's not enough time left for a smooth transition, so there will be pain.

This thread has been active for more than three years and I haven't seen any tangible progress by Linode in supporting native IPv6 . Does Linode even have it on their road map? I realize that the implementation won't be trivial, but Linode can start by just telling us the current plans. Would it be so hard to make a blog post or at least an official reply in this thread?

I love Linode and enjoy the services every day. But this lack of transparency about IPv6 is really frustrating. My preference has been to hold off on IPv6 deployment until Linode gets native IPv6 support. But how many more years will it take? I wish Linode would at least give us a status update, like Rackspace Cloud recently did. Some other VPS companies are already offering native IPv6 as a key feature. I'd much prefer to stay with Linode, but please let us know your native IPv6 intentions! Thanks!

PS: Some people have speculated that Linode is waiting for all of their datacenters to support IPv6, but that sounds like a cop-out. Linode already allows us to select our datacenters for new nodes and to move existing nodes. So those of us who need native IPv6 can just select the datacenters which offer it. If this is the true reason, I'd like to at least hear it from Linode themselves.

A lot of articles have been appearing on the web over the last few weeks about the last available IPv4 address blocks being allocated. That prompted me to look into whether my Linode has native IPv6 support. It was disappointing but understandable that it did not. What is frustrating, however, is that Linode does not even have a roadmap for making IPv6 available on its VPS'.

I've been a happy customer of Linode after trying several other hosting companies due to their great customer service and understanding the needs of their technically-inclined customers. I'm adding my voice to this conversation to ask Linode for some more transparency into their plans. If IPv6 support is not coming soon, then when?

Wild guess: When it actually becomes necessary, and not just a fad?
(You will be able to take away my IPv4 address only by prying it away from my cold, dead fingers...)

_________________
rsk, providing useless advice on the Internet since 2005.

I would guess it is more due to the data centers rather than any Linode specific limitation- at least as it applies to Xen.

_________________
--
Chris Bryant

hmm, it seems there are two IPv6 threads here in the forum. I initially posted this in the other one:

caker made a statement on IRC today regarding Linode's IPv6 plans. I posted it on the wiki at Talk:IPv6. I think that's about as official as we get Smile