Building The Net

My ‘Linux as an IPv6 dual stack Firewall’ Talk from SCaLE11x

— Stu

The End of IPv4… The Adoption of IPv6… “The King is Dead!, Long Live the King!”

At a ceremony today, February 3, 2011, the last five /8s were delegated to RIRs. For most people, this has little meaning, but to us that make our livings from the IPv4 protocol, and who have spent countless years learning the tricks of the trade, this marks an end of an era.

As for me, I’m ready for the ‘big switch’ to IPv6. But I know many of my friends and colleagues that have procrastinated, claiming this day would never come, or are waiting for a vendor to swoop in and save the day. Well, to those I say, WAKE UP! The companies you work for, and the customers you service will be greatly effected by the IPv4 shortage and the logical adoption of IPv6. The day is at hand, and vendors stand to make their money by just selling the upgrades to their equipment to handle IPv6, so I don’t think a magic bullet is in the cards. As of now, the best solution for your company to look at is dual stack. In as short a time as a year, you could have customers that are unable to reach your web based services, or only able to connect at modem speeds to them, due to overloaded proxies. I strongly suggest you start working on this now, especially if you have outward facing services such as a web server or email server.

That’s it for now, I’m busy preparing for the Southern California Linux Expo. This year it will be held at the Hilton LAX on February 25-27, 2011. Look forward to seeing you all there!

— Stu

Setting up IPv6 connectivity.

Back in December `09, my company ACT USA, began testing IPv6. These tests quickly advanced to our production environment. Over the last six months, I have been in the process of setting up native IPv6 connectivity for all our data centers. This connectivity is based on the dual stack model. This article attempts to cover the technology available, and the choices I made based on that technology.

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The Technology of SCALE8x – A Post Event Review. PART – 2

This is the second installment all about the technologies used for SCALE8x. The first installment dealt with the services that the technology group has setup and maintains for the event year round. This installment will cover the pre-show setup that went into the technologies that were used at the show.

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The Technology of SCALE8x – A Post Event Review. PART – 1

Every February in Los Angeles CA, a group of dedicated volunteers get together to put on what many believe to be the largest all volunteer organized open source technology conventions in the US. This three day event features talks and exhibits specifically targeted at Open Source users, programmers, and system administrators.

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S.C.A.L.E is coming! Feb. 19-21!

Sorry to take so long between posts… But I’ve been kinda busy getting ready for The So. Cal Linux Expo, coming up in Los Angeles February 19th through the 21st. This is the premier open source show on the west coast! I’ll be there as the network architect this year, with Mike Maki taking over my position as Tech Committee Chairperson.

This year, we are pushing the envelope by adding IPv6 connectivity network wide. As near as we all can gather, this makes us the first show of this type to provide a dual stack network show wide!

If you are in to opensource, or getting pressure to reduce your IT costs, come enjoy the show! A quick sumary:

• Over 80 exhibitor booths
• Over 100 talks and presentations
• B.O.F. events
• Gatherings and Fun & Games

See their web page for details http://www.socallinuxexpo.org.

Come be a part!

Hope to see you there.

— Stu

Adventures in IPv6… Or how I spent my Xmas Vacation!

Whether you are a network administrator, an end user, or someone that falls in between, you are going to be hearing a lot about IPv6 in the coming years. If you’re in the business of delivering network services, then you need to get up to speed on this… Because before you know it, you will have a client or end user come up to you with a problem that IPv6 is involved in.

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