except for nor using it at all, of course.
So I want to make my homelab IPv6 ready, because I have too much free time, i guess. There are two decisions that I’m currently unsure about:
- ULA or not. Do you have local only addresses or do your clients communicate using the global IPv6 address? Does not using ULAs work without a static IP from the ISP?
- DHCPv6 or is SLAAC enough?
For each question both options seem to be possible and I’m interested in your experience
Cheers
I can’t get IPv6 in any worthwhile form from my ISP. IMHO IPv6 isn’t any more useful than IPv4 if you only have ULA. And NAT is not as well supported since it wasn’t intended to even be really necessary for example. So even if you are starting from scratch or just using it internally, there are some disadvantages to implementing it over just sticking with IPv6. But if your ISP actually provides IPv6 it might be worth it as long as your devices all support it. But otherwise you’re going to need to set up IPv4 in addition, anyway, so you’re just going to create problems for no good reason, IMHO.
Dual stack setups are not an issue unless your router doesn’t support it or your ISP sucks.
But why bother if you get ULAs. It doesn’t enhance anything and adds complexity if you use NAT or other routing as you need to add rules for both IPv4 and IPv6. Most ISPs, in the US anyway, don’t offer true IPv6 only what was supposed to be transitional technology decades ago like 6rd. I hate to say anything good about Comcast, but it’s the single thing I miss from that they actually do. But having such limited upstream speeds on cable just isn’t reasonable for much of anything these days, but definitely not when self-hosting. 1-10Mbps up on Cable or most DSL just doesn’t cut it.
If you’re starting from scratch implementing IPv6 on your LAN might be worthwhile if you dont mind the limitations of or don’t require the transitional technologies on your LAN like NAT64 and the hit to performance from the translations/tunneling when accessing the internet doesn’t bother you (it sure annoyed the hell out of me every time I accessed a website, among other things).
But dual stack, seems like it’s not worthwhile. Just choose one or the other. Few software applications or modern hardware are going to have an issue with IPv6. But if you’re using both ULAs and IPv4 private addresses, it seems like a lot of extra hassle to write duplicate routing rules for everything.
Like I said: unless your ISP sucks. I don’t see the issue with dual stack and I don’t know why you’re bringing other transition mechanisms into this. Obviously they kinda suck. Dual stack really doesn’t have much of a downside or a performance hit unless your clients or DNS are doing something stupid. In which case you can still choose to configure a client to use one over the other. Many ISPs, especially outside the US, don’t have enough IPv4 address space and have to use CGNAT, in which case you’re much better off with a dual stack setup and a DNS config that prefers AAAA records, imho. IPv4 only leaves you with NAT, which sucks and IPv6 only isn’t feasible currently.