2012/08/31

Portable IPv6 Address Blocks need not be multi-homed

I almost forgot to mention one important IPv6 development in the Asia Pacific Region.  APNIC 34 made a decision to allow portable IPv6 address (Provider Indepedent) blocks be allocated to applicants without using multi-homed configuration.  Many companies can have their own /48 address block and they need not change their network configurations when changing serving ISP.  There is an argument that such arrangement would result in a large number of fragmented /48 blocks in the global routing table.  The design of IPv6 is to have routes in terms of  /32.  Hey, routers' performance are not really affected  by large routing table.  Who care ? We should consider the benefits to end users instead of giving less loading to equipment.

APNIC is the only RIR that waives the requirement of multi-homing in allocation of Provider Independent IPv6 address block.   Seems that the Asia Pacific region is moving faster than other regions.

2012/08/30

Greylisting in v6 SMTP servers

I have observed that many v6 SMTP servers are using greylisting.  I am not quite happy with greylisting because of the extra delay time in delivering a legitimate email. If some messages are urgent, you expect the recipient can get shortly after you click the send button.  But for IPv6, can we prove that greylisting can really help since as of today there is no IPv6-based DNSRBL?

2012/08/22

Chrome browser must not be used for speedtest

I have a 1000Mbps GPON FTTH installed at home.  Using Chrome browser for speedtest, I can only have download speeds around 350 Mbps while upload speeds are always below 250 Mbps.  But when I change to IE browser, things are quite different.  Download speeds are boosted to 800 Mbps and upload speeds around 600 Mbps.   I recalled that I had not seen such discrepancies in 100 Mbps broadband services.  I will attach screen dumps to show what I have experienced later on.  I really like to know what is wrong with Chrome.

2012/08/07

IPv6 Statistics

Last week, I heard about the number of IPv6 users in US climbed up to 3.3 million which makes US the country having the largest number of IPv6 users.  How comes this figure !! It is from :

 http://resources.potaroo.net/iso3166/v6dcc.html

I think the above is provided by Geoff Huston or APNIC.  They use advertized /64 prefixes to estimate the number of IPv6 users.  Sounds pretty logical but I have no idea of the underlying methodology. Good work, anyway.  

2012/08/05

IPv6 Prefix Delegation

This is the best and most useful description of IPv6 Prefix Delegation I have ever come across:


Prefix delegation (PD) is a mechanism developed to provide automated delegation of IP address blocks. The delegation is done from an ISP to its customer. The ISP does not require any knowledge of the customer's internal network topology. The DHCP-PD protocol runs between a Customer Edge (CE) and a Provider Edge (PE) router, the CE is called a Requesting Router (RR) and the PE router a Delegating Router (DR). The RR acts as the DHCP client, and requests prefixes from the DR (DHCP server). The DR injects a route into the provider's routing system for the delegated prefix on behalf of the RR. That way, a dynamic routing protocol between the RR and the DR is not needed; however, the RR and the DR must be  directly connected. 


Prefix Delegation requires the use of AAA Server for authentication.  I grab an illustrative diagram above.