[NTLK] IPv4 v IPv6

[Morgan Aldridge]

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 10:55 PM, Aaron Brigati <abrigati at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So someday your Newton will ask 'May I have a-web-site.com, please?' and instead of 'Go to 66.102.7.99' it will get an answer like 'Go to 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334' and the Newton will go '... what?'

Actually, it'll be significantly more graceful than that. What your
Newton will ask for is 'May I please have the DNS A Record for
a-web-site.com, please?' and the server will either respond with 'Go
to 66.102.7.99' or it'll say it can't find that record. Most websites
will support IPv4 and respond with valid DNS A Records pointing at
valid IPv4 addresses for a long time to ensure they capture as much
legacy traffic as possible (the exception being services that only
cater to IPv6 clientele for some reason).

What will be different is that when an IPv6 client tries to access
a-web-site.com, it's ask 'May I have the DNS AAAA Record for
a-web-site.com, please?' and the server will hopefully respond with
'Go to 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334'. If not, hopefully
that IPv6 client is behind some kind of IPv4 translation
server/service and then it can ask 'May I have the DNS A Record for
a-web-site.com, please?"

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 1:10 AM, L.W. Brown <lwb at mac.com> wrote:
>
> Which raises the questions: /what/ "things" - will a Newton even /need/ to access them; and, won't translation services be more widely available then (since there will be enormous numbers of legacy v4 devices/software)?

Undoubtably. There'll be a lot of money in selling devices & software
to ease the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 as people don't like to
change and a portion of them will naturally cling to their aging
devices attempting to keep them usable decades past their prime. Oh,
wait, that's us! :D

Seriously, though, it'll most likely be like WiFi. Initially we had
cards that could be used internally (and we can still use them with
some devices). Now WiFi technologies and standards the don't work
internally to the Newton, but we can buy an ethernet to WiFi bridge
that does support the new standards and that works just fine. So, we
may eventually have to buy another box to put between our Newton and
the Internet, but it should keep working for a while to come.

Hopefully, someday, we'll get native SSL support on the Newton. And
then, someday after that, maybe somebody will gift us native IPv6
support. Here's to hoping!

Morgan
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