• Is IPv6 available to me? Should I care?

    From Richard Owlett@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 15:20:02
    I date from era of CPUs with 12AX7s powered via 5U4GBs with attached
    KSR33. I bump up against my 2GB/mo bandwidth allowance maybe 3 times a
    year ;}

    How would I check?
    For such as I, is there a relevant distinction between IPv4 and IPv6
    except address space?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Michael P. Soulier@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 15:30:01
    On 2026-02-19 09:14, Richard Owlett wrote:
    I date from era of CPUs with 12AX7s powered via 5U4GBs with attached
    KSR33. I bump up against my 2GB/mo bandwidth allowance maybe 3 times a
    year ;}

    How would I check?
    For such as I, is there a relevant distinction between IPv4 and IPv6
    except address space?

    Not really. Bandwidth is determined by your ISP.

    I find these helpful:

    man interfaces

    https://wiki.debian.org/IPv6PrefixDelegation

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From John Hasler@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 15:40:02
    Richard writes:
    How would I check [for IPv6]?

    ping6 debian.org

    For such as I, is there a relevant distinction between IPv4 and IPv6
    except address space?

    None if you only use email and the Web.
    --
    John Hasler
    john@sugarbit.com
    Elmwood, WI USA

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Andy Smith@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 15:40:02
    Hi,

    On Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 08:14:21AM -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
    I date from era of CPUs with 12AX7s powered via 5U4GBs with attached KSR33.
    I bump up against my 2GB/mo bandwidth allowance maybe 3 times a year ;}

    How would I check?

    If you type "ip address show" (can be abbreviated to "ip a" and see any
    line with "inet6" (not "inet") giving an address with "scope global"
    (not "scope link" nor "scope host" then you are using it.

    (You could still be using it locally over localhost or private addresses
    but this is splitting hairs.)

    For such as I, is there a relevant distinction between IPv4 and IPv6 except address space?

    You have described your network configuration before and I seem to
    recall it is somewhat unconventional for the 21st century. If what you
    have works then I don't think you need to spend any time wondering about
    IPv6 unless you specifically want to. You may even be using IPv6 on your
    end without knowing.

    If you do want to learn about it then even if your current provider
    doesn't offer it, you can use it through a free tunnel, but it isn't
    going to provide much except a learning experience.

    Thanks,
    Andy

    --
    https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Richard Owlett@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 15:50:01
    On 2/19/26 8:20 AM, Michael P. Soulier wrote:
    On 2026-02-19 09:14, Richard Owlett wrote:
    I date from era of CPUs with 12AX7s powered via 5U4GBs with attached
    KSR33. I bump up against my 2GB/mo bandwidth allowance maybe 3 times a
    year ;}

    How would I check?
    For such as I, is there a relevant distinction between IPv4 and IPv6
    except address space?

    Not really. Bandwidth is determined by your ISP.

    I find these helpful:

    man interfaces

    https://wiki.debian.org/IPv6PrefixDelegation


    That has interesting links that have their own set of interesting links.
    Thank you.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Andy Smith@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 16:00:01
    Hi,

    On Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 08:39:03AM -0600, John Hasler wrote:
    Richard writes:
    For such as I, is there a relevant distinction between IPv4 and IPv6
    except address space?

    None if you only use email and the Web.

    This is not true in the general case for web since IPv6 will not have to
    go through the possibly multiple layers of NAT that increasingly have to
    be used by Internet access providers due to the shortage of IPv4
    addresses. Such so-called Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT) setups are slower
    than end-to-end connectivity.

    On average, IPv6 conversations with top web servcies are about 2ms
    faster than IPv4 and have been for more than a decade:

    https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/DPPPN4A2PTO2343MEVNEALU6FKPRR5TF/

    However, given what I know of Richard's setup in particular (a USB
    connected cellular dongle), he specifically is not going to notice any difference.

    Thanks,
    Andy

    --
    https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Richard Owlett@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 16:50:01
    On 2/19/26 8:36 AM, Andy Smith wrote:
    Hi,

    On Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 08:14:21AM -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
    I date from era of CPUs with 12AX7s powered via 5U4GBs with attached KSR33. >> I bump up against my 2GB/mo bandwidth allowance maybe 3 times a year ;}

    How would I check?

    If you type "ip address show" (can be abbreviated to "ip a" and see any
    line with "inet6" (not "inet") giving an address with "scope global"
    (not "scope link" nor "scope host" then you are using it.

    The only "scope global" I see is associated with "inet" not "inet6"
    So, as expected, I'm connected to web via IPv4.

    I also see references to "scope link" and "scope host".
    Time to visit manpage to learn more.


    (You could still be using it locally over localhost or private addresses
    but this is splitting hairs.)

    For such as I, is there a relevant distinction between IPv4 and IPv6 except >> address space?

    You have described your network configuration before and I seem to
    recall it is somewhat unconventional for the 21st century.

    Me? Unconventional? *ROFL!!!*
    I left my former ISP when they terminated "dial-up".
    Not wanting to be restricted to using laptop only at home - I went cellular. T-mobile's salesman was the only one that:
    1. actually listened to what what I wanted to accomplish.
    2. did *NOT* tell me I had no choice but a "smartphone"(sic).
    He offered a WiFi Hotspot which I treat similarly to my old acoustic
    coupler (the WiFi portion disabled by software ;).

    If what you
    have works then I don't think you need to spend any time wondering about
    IPv6 unless you specifically want to. You may even be using IPv6 on your
    end without knowing.

    If you do want to learn about it then even if your current provider
    doesn't offer it, you can use it through a free tunnel, but it isn't
    going to provide much except a learning experience.

    There are things I do explicitly for that purpose.



    Thanks,
    Andy


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Richard Owlett@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 17:00:01
    On 2/19/26 8:54 AM, Andy Smith wrote:
    Hi,

    On Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 08:39:03AM -0600, John Hasler wrote:
    Richard writes:
    For such as I, is there a relevant distinction between IPv4 and IPv6
    except address space?

    None if you only use email and the Web.

    This is not true in the general case for web since IPv6 will not have to
    go through the possibly multiple layers of NAT that increasingly have to
    be used by Internet access providers due to the shortage of IPv4
    addresses. Such so-called Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT) setups are slower
    than end-to-end connectivity.

    On average, IPv6 conversations with top web servcies are about 2ms
    faster than IPv4 and have been for more than a decade:

    https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/DPPPN4A2PTO2343MEVNEALU6FKPRR5TF/

    However, given what I know of Richard's setup in particular (a USB
    connected cellular dongle), he specifically is not going to notice any difference.

    As I said in my reply to you, I effectively don't distinguish between it
    and my old acoustic coupler ;}


    Thanks,
    Andy


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From John Hasler@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 17:30:01
    Andy Smith wrote:
    On average, IPv6 conversations with top web servcies are about 2ms
    faster than IPv4

    Richard isn't a gamer.
    --
    John Hasler
    john@sugarbit.com
    Elmwood, WI USA

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Andy Smith@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 18:10:02
    Hi,

    On Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 10:12:42AM -0600, John Hasler wrote:
    Andy Smith wrote:
    On average, IPv6 conversations with top web servcies are about 2ms
    faster than IPv4

    Richard isn't a gamer.

    Your brevity forces me to interpret what you are trying to say, so I may
    have misunderstood, but if you were implying that latency of web traffic
    is only important to gamers then again I would have to disagree.

    Most modern web pages are composed of many embedded assets so a browser
    trying to put them together is going to do so over multiple requests.
    Although browsers get better at this all the time, they can't lay out
    the page until they know the positions and sizes of the assets, so every
    bit of latency can hurt the experience.

    You also deleted the part where I said "in general, not Richard
    specifically".

    Thanks,
    Andy

    --
    https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Niall O'Reilly@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 18:40:01
    On 19 Feb 2026, at 15:40, Richard Owlett wrote:
    T-mobile's salesman was the only one that:
    1. actually listened to what what I wanted to accomplish.
    2. did *NOT* tell me I had no choice but a "smartphone"(sic).
    He offered a WiFi Hotspot which I treat similarly to my old acoustic
    coupler (the WiFi portion disabled by software ;).
    T-mobile offering varies by geographical region.
    It may be available in yours on request, rather than by default.
    It's probably worth asking, if you want to learn something about
    IPv6. Some of what I learned about IPv4 turned out not to be
    transferable. YMMV.
    In Germany, IPv6 just works on their cellular network.
    I know this from roaming there from my home network in Ireland.
    /Niall
    PS. KSR33, I recognize. The other part numbers, not. 8-) /N


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From tomas@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, February 19, 2026 19:10:01
    On Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 05:20:25PM +0000, Niall O'Reilly wrote:
    On 19 Feb 2026, at 15:40, Richard Owlett wrote:

    T-mobile's salesman was the only one that:
    1. actually listened to what what I wanted to accomplish.
    2. did *NOT* tell me I had no choice but a "smartphone"(sic).
    He offered a WiFi Hotspot which I treat similarly to my old acoustic coupler (the WiFi portion disabled by software ;).

    T-mobile offering varies by geographical region.
    It may be available in yours on request, rather than by default.
    It's probably worth asking, if you want to learn something about
    IPv6. Some of what I learned about IPv4 turned out not to be
    transferable. YMMV.

    In Germany, IPv6 just works on their cellular network.
    I know this from roaming there from my home network in Ireland.
    This from Germany, behind a Telekom DSL "modem"/router (I think
    Deutsche Telekom is how we spell T Mobile over here); I snipped
    out the boring stuff (link-local, v4, lo and that):
    tomas@caliban:~$ ip address show
    [...]
    3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether e4:b3:18:ca:29:84 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname wlp4s0
    [...]
    inet6 2003:eb:170c:37f9:e6b3:18ff:feca:2984/64 scope global dynamic mngtmpaddr
    valid_lft 172777sec preferred_lft 86377sec
    so this lowly Linux laptop is picking up a global IPv6 from the
    router. And it points to...
    tomas@caliban:~$ host 2003:eb:170c:37f9:e6b3:18ff:feca:2984
    4.8.9.2.a.c.e.f.f.f.8.1.3.b.6.e.9.f.7.3.c.0.7.1.b.e.0.0.3.0.0.2.Ip6.aRpA domain name pointer p200300eb170c37f9e6b318fffeca2984.dip0.t-ipconnect.de.
    (sorry for the long line: "dialup" IPv6 reverse DNS names are
    like that).
    The domain "t-ipconnect.de" belongs to Deutsche Telekom, afaik (whois
    could be a bit more informative, though).
    Cheers
    --
    t


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Marco Moock@3:633/10 to All on Friday, February 20, 2026 10:40:01
    On 19.02.2026 15:20 Uhr Richard Owlett wrote:

    How would I check?

    You need to check in your router too, if it is enabled. You also need
    to know (ask them) if your ISP supports it (or it needs to be requested
    etc.).

    --
    kind regards
    Marco

    Send spam to 1771510802muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Richard Owlett@3:633/10 to All on Friday, February 20, 2026 12:50:01
    On 2/20/26 3:18 AM, Marco Moock wrote:
    On 19.02.2026 15:20 Uhr Richard Owlett wrote:

    How would I check?

    You need to check in your router too, if it is enabled. You also need
    to know (ask them) if your ISP supports it (or it needs to be requested etc.).


    "Available" may have been a poor word choice.
    I was thinking in terms of:
    1. what is supported by my existing hardware/configuration?
    2. did I have an active IPv6 connection?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Marco Moock@3:633/10 to All on Friday, February 20, 2026 16:30:01
    On 20.02.2026 12:50 Uhr Richard Owlett wrote:

    On 2/20/26 3:18 AM, Marco Moock wrote:
    On 19.02.2026 15:20 Uhr Richard Owlett wrote:

    How would I check?

    You need to check in your router too, if it is enabled. You also
    need to know (ask them) if your ISP supports it (or it needs to be requested etc.).


    "Available" may have been a poor word choice.
    I was thinking in terms of:
    1. what is supported by my existing hardware/configuration?

    Current operating systems (Windows, Linux, BSD) support IPv6. In most
    cases, it is enabled by default. If you have an fe80 address, it shows
    you that IPv6 is enabled for this interface. If you have a GUA address (2000::/3), you can reach other machines in the internet (if nothing is faulty).
    Your router needs to support IPv6 (most current routers do, post your
    model in case you are unsure). Your ISP needs to support it and provide
    you a network via DHCPv6-Prefix-Delegation.

    2. did I have an active IPv6 connection?

    Check your router, most likely it will show that. Then check your
    machine for an address beginning with digit 2.

    --
    kind regards
    Marco

    Send spam to 1771588201muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From John Hasler@3:633/10 to All on Friday, February 20, 2026 16:50:01
    Richard writes:
    what is supported by my existing hardware/configuration?

    Debian has supported IPv6 out of the box by default for quite some time.

    did I have an active IPv6 connection?

    It would appear not, but that may be due to changes you made or because
    your router is not configured for it.

    T Mobile uses IPv6 but their support for it on the home routers is
    reportedly a bit broken according to this and others found by searching
    for "tmobile ipv6" (no quotes):

    https://forum.openwrt.org/t/ipv6-setup-behind-tmobile-home-internet-router/191589

    Some videos from Hurricane Electric about IPv6:

    https://ipv6.he.net/presentations.php

    Wikipedia has a good article on IPv6. Of course, you need to know IPv4
    before studying IPv6.
    --
    John Hasler
    john@sugarbit.com
    Elmwood, WI USA

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Nate Bargmann@3:633/10 to All on Friday, February 20, 2026 16:50:01
    * On 2026 20 Feb 05:47 -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
    "Available" may have been a poor word choice.
    I was thinking in terms of:
    1. what is supported by my existing hardware/configuration?
    No idea as I don't know what you have.
    2. did I have an active IPv6 connection?
    See https://ip6.biz/
    Unless you're really curious, IPv6 is not mandatory. At some point,
    likely post my lifetime (I'm in my early 60s), IPv4 will be deprecated,
    and then perhaps decades later disabled on the Internet entirely. In
    the mean time, most users won't need to concern themselves with IPv6.
    When they do, the task will fall upon ISPs to help, or the ISP have an
    internal IPv4 to IPv6 gateway in place, or...
    IPv6 traffic per Google is just under 49% as of 16 Feb: https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html
    Large swaths of the globe aren't anywhere close to even that level of
    IPv6 capability:
    https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/
    As an aside, I am curious about IPv6 but my ISP doesn't offer IPv6 connectivity. So I have a "6in4" tunnel with an IPv6 broker to access
    the Internet via IPv6. That tunnel exists between my router and the
    broker. My LAN is dual-stack meaning IPv6 capable devices are also
    capable of using IPv4. Some devices are still IPv4 only, even recently purchased cameras and a Gigabit switch. Sigh...
    One other thing to note, if installing home automation devices using the
    Matter protocol, then only IPv6 is supported by Matter.
    - Nate
    --
    "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
    possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."
    Web: https://www.n0nb.us
    Projects: https://github.com/N0NB
    GPG fingerprint: 82D6 4F6B 0E67 CD41 F689 BBA6 FB2C 5130 D55A 8819


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Marco Moock@3:633/10 to All on Friday, February 20, 2026 17:30:01
    On 20.02.2026 16:50 Uhr John Hasler wrote:

    Wikipedia has a good article on IPv6. Of course, you need to know
    IPv4 before studying IPv6.

    No, learning IPv6 is easier, as you do not need to know about NAT for
    global communication.

    --
    kind regards
    Marco

    Send spam to 1771602601muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From John Hasler@3:633/10 to All on Friday, February 20, 2026 18:00:01
    I wrote:
    Wikipedia has a good article on IPv6. Of course, you need to know
    IPv4 before studying IPv6.

    Marco writes:
    No, learning IPv6 is easier, as you do not need to know about NAT for
    global communication.

    You still need to know IPv4 because all of the available tutotials and documantation assume that you do.
    --
    John Hasler
    john@sugarbit.com
    Elmwood, WI USA

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)