(((spends weeks trying to find a router that supports it. Spends longer finding an ISP that supports it. Finds an ISP, multiple stacks poorly support it. Web browsers barely support it. major large websites still aren't running it. tools break with it enabled. Any ipv6 code needs a cluster-fuck of bind hacks to work cross-platform)))
Are you ready for the future, lads! Get ready! its coming!
? You managed to buy a router in 2024 that doesn't support IPv6?
Same reason cable modems don't mess with anything above L2 but are still reachable at http://192.168.100.1/ (no IPv6 equivalent).
Isn't that what fe80::/10 is for? (Or ff02::1 but I grant that's harder to use)
The closest analog would be something in fc00::/8 (which belongs to fc00::/7 which is the IPv6 analog to 10/8, 172.16/12, 192.168/16), but good luck getting cable modem firmware vendors to all agree on which random address to use within that and then actually implement web administration and diagnostics on it. That's what I was getting at by saying there's no IPv6 equivalent; they haven't done that.
Normally IPv6 is added as an afterthought. So it won't support many of the advanced features that the V4 interface does. E.g. its very basic to want to set static IPs -> MAC entries when running DHCP. Of the many routers I've tried that 'support' IPv6 they don't offer these features. V4 will also have features for UPnP and even though most routers are probably using miniupnpd (which has support for IPv6) the chances of it having been setup for the router are slim.
It's quite useful because UPnP can dynamically let traffic reach IPv6 global scope addresses in your network (with pin holing.) So without this feature networked software can't run services easily (arguably what was meant to be a key benefit for v6.) You know -- the funny thing is -- V6 was meant to give everyone 'public', 'routable' addresses. But the reality is because its firewalled (both at the router and the OS) coupled with the availability of services to automatically let traffic through -- I'd say its less reachable than IPv4. Those who hope that V6 is going to be the future of P2P are in for a bad surprise.
I switched to OpenWRT which has worked well enough.
Trying to get it to run from scratch on an OpenWRT x86 image is also a royal PITA, but that might be just a quirk of how the x86 image is configured by default; I haven't had a chance to try it on hardware they support properly.
I was able to finally get it work on one of my subnets, but then everything sort of just fell apart because I have a segregated network aside from my main home network and for the life of me I couldn't get it to work on two different subnets. Then throw in the whole issue of firewall rules, since since the prefix my ISP assigns is dynamic; it changes every time the router reboots. I figured I'd have to write a little service to watch the prefixes and adjust the rules as needed but just seems too like too much grief to deal with.
Left it until now when I found that android does some weird shenanigans with DNS so it's back on my radar but it's not something I'm particularly looking forward to struggling with again.
[0] https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/firewall/fw3_configurati...
My router does route ipv6 traffic, but does not firewall it, and has other critical security breaches with ipv6.
I have a netgear Orbi at home that works just fine, but when I turn on IPv6 it loses internet connectivity after a few hours and takes minutes to reset. Not wanting to be bothered with it, and not having a need for IPv6 I just turned it off. That setup is about a year old.
I use a third-party router (Synology) and only had to check the IPv6 box to get it running—even with multiple VLANs in my network.
There are plenty of IPv6 services around. If a service is behind Cloudflare, it's likely IPv6 will be enabled by default. It is the same with other services, including some cloud providers now giving IPv6 addresses but charging for IPv4.
Only thing I had to do was tick the "use ipv6" button on my router.
It seems to be that you have to choose the ISPs that support it if you want it here (im based in Australia.)