Friday, 10 June 2011

IPv6 upgrade looms

As some of the may know, June 8th was IPv6 day. IPv6 day is when loads of companies around the world agree to test their IPv6 support. Some of you might know from World of Warcraft - it had a bunch of IPv6 servers running for a 24 hour period.
But what is IPv6? IPv6 stands for Internet Protocol version 6. It is a web standard that controls how information and your IP addresses are communicated between computers. Currently we all run on IPv4. This is your traditional 127.0.0.1 kind of IP, pretty much everyone should know that. But the problem is we are running out of IP addresses to give to people!
That's where IPv6 comes in. It allows 340 undecillion IP addresses. That's such a stupidly huge number, we can probably never run out (think the number 34 followed by 38 zeroes). IPv4 supports a mere 4294967296 addresses, and that simply isn't enough for us humans.
But good news! After IPv6 day, a bunch of big companies like Google and Facebook have confirmed that they will be supporting IPv6 permanently in the near future. I'm thinking IPv6 will be the standard in a few years, not long to go now!
Posted by Goldfinch at 09:14

34 comments:

  1. Jonny10 June 2011 at 09:49

    I actually heard a few years ago that we were eventually going to run out of IP's. I thought it couldn't happen, proved wrong huh.

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  2. Unknown10 June 2011 at 10:01

    Sounds promising. I always love to hear about technological advancements!!

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  3. Salted Plum10 June 2011 at 10:04

    Why isn't that enough? It's several hundred times the number of people on the planet.

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  4. oinyo10 June 2011 at 11:56

    very cool info thank you!
    I wonder how long until we are forced to go to IP6 on external networks?

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  5. Unknown10 June 2011 at 12:01

    Wow I just learned a new level of numbers!

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  6. Empty10 June 2011 at 12:10

    how does IPv6 look like?
    IPv4 is seprated by 3 dots. ranging from 0-255, no? What about IPv6?

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  7. mike10 June 2011 at 12:28

    My crappy ISP hasn't upgraded to IPv6 yet...

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  8. Tech Unlocked10 June 2011 at 12:51

    Great post. Very informative.

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  9. Michelangelo10 June 2011 at 12:54

    Well, it had to come to this, hasn't?

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  10. Finding Cheap Homes10 June 2011 at 13:09

    Sweet, keep us updated!

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  11. jhonny10 June 2011 at 13:57

    good mby i should switch to IPV6

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  12. Xenototh10 June 2011 at 14:42

    Good to know they are actually looking into this before we are all screwed by the lack of IP addresses.

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  13. LightStand10 June 2011 at 15:40

    Nice, can't wait. What's an example of one of these addresses?

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  14. Johnathan10 June 2011 at 17:15

    lol, I've never even heard of the number "undecillion"

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  15. Mile2Marathon10 June 2011 at 17:20

    Makes sense really

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  16. Anonymous11 June 2011 at 01:27

    I remember running out of IP addresses was quite a scare a few yars back. Glad to hear it's all been sorted out.

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  17. D3N00B1F13D™11 June 2011 at 03:49

    I think I have seen some website that has countdown until all IPv4's have been given out.

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  18. Anonymous11 June 2011 at 03:57

    incredible man. cant wait for that. 4294 million really isnt enough haha

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  19. Neon11 June 2011 at 04:26

    Awesome, I remember reading somewhere that the IPs will soon run out, glad to see this is not the case. :)

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  20. Acidbyte11 June 2011 at 04:42

    I'm glad we're getting to the point where we really start using is as it's quite a bit faster due to the new frame setup got to love less overhead <3

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  21. echi11 June 2011 at 04:53

    This would be interesting D3N00B1F13D™. The IPs provided by IPv6 will sureley never run out.

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  22. DIYgaming11 June 2011 at 05:20

    That's really cool... didn't know about this!

    followed!

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  23. Anonymous11 June 2011 at 05:45

    oh wow! what are we trying to do, invite aliens to join our network?

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  24. d11 June 2011 at 06:47

    thx for info very interesting! followed

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  25. AIO reviews11 June 2011 at 07:09

    First I've heard of this, always nice to find out about this stuff after the fix is in, no reason to worry now. ;)

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  26. The Viking11 June 2011 at 07:33

    I didn't know that, thanks :)

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  27. Bob11 June 2011 at 07:35

    Im always going to be a IPv4 hipster. As long as they keep the internet up, im cool.

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  28. yourminigames.com11 June 2011 at 08:26

    Interesting

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  29. Jack11 June 2011 at 09:12

    thats big news, glad we figured out a permanent solution to our IP problem

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  30. Brick11 June 2011 at 09:26

    did a post on this a couple of days ago cant wait until ipv6 is the standard!

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  31. sestrenger11 June 2011 at 09:47

    Thanks for this post! I jusk know nothing about this ipv6 stuff...

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  32. Unicornsss11 June 2011 at 10:32

    didnt know this, usefull information

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  33. ScrewsAndFeathers11 June 2011 at 11:11

    Interesting! I hope the step to Ipv6 will go smoothly.

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  34. minecraft12911 June 2011 at 11:23

    haha a hundred years later.... IPv7 comes out due to over population. haha

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