IPv6 - real vs theoretical problems

Wed Jan 12 17:34:45 UTC 2011

At 11:59 AM 1/12/2011, Jim postulated wrote:

>On 01/11/2011 01:31 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
> > It's not about the number of devices. That's IPv4-think. It's 
> about the number
> > of segments. I see a world where each home-entertainment cluster would
> > be a separate segment (today, few things use IP, but, future HE solutions
> > will include Monitors, Amps, Blu-Ray players, and other Media gateways
> > that ALL have ethernet ports for control and software update).
>
>  Your future is now, Owen.  I have four network devices at my primary
>television -- the TV itself, TiVo, PS3, and Wii (using the wired
>adapter).  All told, I have seven networked home entertainment devices
>in my house, with another (Blu-Ray player) likely coming soon.  I feel
>confident in saying that my use case isn't unusual these days.
>
>  While a lot of the scalability concerns are blown off as "not applying
>to typical consumers," we're quickly getting to the point where your
>average joe IS somewhat likely to have different classes of devices that
>might benefit from being on separate subnets.
>
>      Jima

I helped a friend setup his "home network" recently.  He is using an 
old Linksys Router with no v6 support.  I like to be conservative and 
only allocate what might be needed ... part of my "Defense in Depth" 
strategy to provide some layer of "security" with NAT (yes, I know - 
my security by obscurity is to use something from 172.16) and a 
limited amount of addresses to allocate (not to mention WPA2 - he had 
default no security when I first got there).  Used to be a /29 would 
be sufficient for any home.  But, before I knew it, he had a wireless 
printer, laptop, and 4 iPhones all needing the new wireless 
passphrase to connect, plus he was anticipating 2 more laptops (one 
each for his children - to whom 2 of the iPhones belonged), and 
addresses set aside for guests and the occasional business visitor 
(he works from home).  I left him configured with a /28, and told him 
to call me if he anticipated more.

As a side security note - we lost the laptop on the "new" secured 
network before I tracked down that it had automatically logged in to 
his neighbor's (also unprotected) network on reboot.

Ted