MacOS 10.x support IPv6?

[Sam Venning]

Our Internet service provider (ISP) will soon start to offer IPv6 (tunnelling through standard IP to start with). Does anyone know if Mac OS 10.x supports IPv6?

[Brass]

Yes it does, at least at the Unix level. I don't know about the applications.

To see for yourself, open a Terminal window, and in the shell, type:

ifconfig -a

This will show you your current network interface configuration. You will see your IPv6 address(es) there as well as your older IP address(es).

[someone_else]

Originally posted by Brass:
Yes it does, at least at the Unix level. I don't know about the applications.

To see for yourself, open a Terminal window, and in the shell, type:

ifconfig -a

This will show you your current network interface configuration. You will see your IPv6 address(es) there as well as your older IP address(es).

Out of the box, only Jaguar (10.2) supports IPV6. If you need it on 10.1.x, you'll have to compile your own kernel and the userland tools. I don't think 10.0.x supports IPV6 at all.

[winterlandia]

as has been mentioned, jag does ipv6. BUT WHY? are you out of address space or something? do you need encryption? if so, why not just use ipsec (which is basically does the same as ipv6 but over ipv4). Is there any good reason to go to ipv6 these days when nobody uses it? Yes I know all the advantages of it in theory but there honestly is nothing you need over the current ipv4 unless you're completely out of address space, can't figure out nat/internal addressing, and have a big wallet to replace all your routers/firewalls/etc with ipv6 compat versions.

[Sam Venning]

BUT WHY?... you ask. I don't propose using it today, tomorrow... it is unlikely even in the next twelve months. I just want to learn more about it so that when it is a higher priority I'm not "in the dark". I think that is reasonable, no!? Sheesh! A little less agro please.

[kvm_mkdb]

Originally posted by Sam Venning:
BUT WHY?... you ask. I don't propose using it today, tomorrow... it is unlikely even in the next twelve months. I just want to learn more about it so that when it is a higher priority I'm not "in the dark". I think that is reasonable, no!? Sheesh! A little less agro please.

Go to www.xs26.net, register and follow the instructions for NetBSD.

[Mactoid]

But why!? What kind of a question is that? No true geek/hacker would ever ask such a question. The desire to try something new and learn from it is more than reason enough. If you can't understand that then don't bother, you never will.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by winterlandia:
as has been mentioned, jag does ipv6. BUT WHY? are you out of address space or something? do you need encryption? if so, why not just use ipsec (which is basically does the same as ipv6 but over ipv4). Is there any good reason to go to ipv6 these days when nobody uses it? Yes I know all the advantages of it in theory but there honestly is nothing you need over the current ipv4 unless you're completely out of address space, can't figure out nat/internal addressing, and have a big wallet to replace all your routers/firewalls/etc with ipv6 compat versions.
Here's a better question: why not switch? IPv6 has this lively little thing called backward-compatibility, you see. IPSec is part of the IPv6 standard, and I'll be blunt: You Need Encryption. Period. Everyone does; the problem is that no one's bothered making it easy or ubiquitous.

As for address space, NAT is a cheesy hack which has done far more harm than good, given the various protocols and such that it screws up completely on a regular basis.

IPv6's backward compatibility leaves no reason to not switch. The fact that it frees us from cheesy hacks -or will eventually, when enough people finally start switching- gives a very good reason to switch. So with no reasons not to and a good reason to do so, I don't see anything wrong with someone finally getting off their rear and doing something about it, by making it the default in a mainstream OS.

Microsoft is going to have no choice but to follow suit at this point now. Why? Because their whole bit against Apple is essentially "me too"; they have this apparent gnawing need to support every last feature that Apple does. And once Windows switches, maybe the router companies -particularly IPv6-luddite Cisco- will finally get off their own rears and put it in their products.

And with complete backward compatibility, you won't notice so much as a hiccup. Except perhaps that things start working better without NAT screwing it all up.

[wadesworld]

However, I don't see IPv6 changing much with respect to NAT.

While IPv6 opens up a huge new address space, that space is likely to still be controlled by your ISP. ISP's are not likely to suddenly start handing out lots of addresses, no matter how big the v6 address space is.

I think you'll still see policies of 1 IP address per household, regardless of the number of computers. Why? Because ISPs (cable companies especially) are stupid.

I would love to see the numbering authorities allow individuals to register for lots of addresses which are held by only that individual and must be advertised by whatever ISP they choose to connect to. However, I don't see it happening.

They learned the hard way with IPv4, so with IPv6 they're still likely to be very stingy about handing out addresses, and keeping the ISP as the gatekeepers on how many addresses you can get.

Wade

[ratlater]

Address space is not and will never be (not in our lifetimes at least) a problem with IPv6. There are enough possible addresses to give every toaster, refrigerator and door handle 5 IPs each and still have too many to deal with. With such an abundance it should be very possible for individuals to get decently sized blocks from their ISP.

The problem with switching now is nothing works with IPv6. If your network consists of your 2 10.2 Macs it will still be mostly useless. Sure the OS supports it, but none of the apps do. Also, almost no routers or switches know how to deal with it so don't expect many or any ISPs to switch anytime soon. Sure it is backwards compatible, but you still need the very expensive hardware to run it.

Also IPv6 suffers from a serious problem, it is unbelievably confusing. Which will make the transition that much slower. Sure it has useful new features, but you can use IPSEC right now with IPv4. It's really trivial to set it up between to Jag equipped Macs. Check out this article (http://www.afp548.com/Articles/Jaguar/ipsec-1.html) over at AFP548 (http://www.afp548.com) for simple instructions.

If you want to learn about IPv6 great, and good luck (you'll need it), but don't expect it to be used mainstream for at least 2 years. I work for a large NOC, and we have no current, nor future plans to switch. The cost would be enormous.

-matt

[Mactoid]

Originally posted by ratlater:
Address space is not and will never be (not in our lifetimes at least) a problem with IPv6. There are enough possible addresses to give every toaster, refrigerator and door handle 5 IPs each and still have too many to deal with. With such an abundance it should be very possible for individuals to get decently sized blocks from their ISP.Sure, we know that there is no reason why the ISP's can't give every person on the planet 1000 IPs and still have plenty of extras. Wades point is they still probably won't. Why would they if they can just stick with their IP4 business model and charge for each additional IP.

I suppose the only possible reason why they might be more generous is competition. If one ISP decided to give each customer a block of IP's the others may be forced to do something similiar.