nanog mailing list archives

Re: How to wish you hadn't forced ipv6 adoption (was "How to force rapid ipv6 adoption")


From: Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2015 12:44:23 -0700


On Oct 2, 2015, at 08:05 , Justin M. Streiner <streiner () cluebyfour org> wrote:

On Fri, 2 Oct 2015, Rob McEwen wrote:

it then seems like dividing lines can get really blurred here and this statement might betray your premise. A site 
needing more than 1 address... subtly implies different usage case scenarios... for different parts or different 
addresses on that block... which could slip back into... "you blocked my whole /48... but the spam was only coming 
from this tiny corner of the block over here (whether that be a one IP, a /64, or a /56)... and now other parts of 
the block that were sending out legit mail, are suffering".

Likewise, sub-allocations can come into play, where a hoster is delegated a /48, but then subdivides it for various 
customers.

That touches on the tough part of doing things like ingress/egress filtering
and spam blacklisting for IPv6.  Net every network assigns IPv6 space to
end-users the same way, and even fewer still provide good data on how they
assign to end-users (SWIP, rwhois, etc).  Networks that are blocking traffic are left to make a decision that 
straddles the line between providing the necessary level of protection for their services and minimizing the 
potential of collateral damage by blocking legitimate traffic from other users.

Or you can take the approach that there are guidelines published out there that encourage /48 per end-site, /64 per 
subnet, and figure that anyone who chooses to do otherwise has brought about their own problems.

Blocking a single IPv6 address is generally not effective because it's trivial for a host to switch to a different 
address in the same /64, and hosts that have privacy extensions enabled will do so with no further action needed by 
the owner.  This turns into an endless game of whack-a-mole.  The same thing can happen with blocking /64s.

Which is why I advocate playing a very short game of whack-a-mole with the first few /64s inside a given block and then 
detecting a “pattern of abuse” that leads to blocking on a larger level (/48, /32, shorter?).


It's often not clear if provider XYZ is assigning /56, /48, or something else to end-users, especially if the 
provider doesn't provide any publicly accessible information to that end.

Who cares… If they are shortchanging their customers in this way, they have created their own pain. It’s not your fault.

Owen


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