1. Paola Grosso SLAC October 14 2003
IPv6 deployment at SLAC
Paola Grosso
SLAC
October

2. IPv6 pros More addresses
128 bits addresses (1030 addresses/per person)
to take care of the depletion of IPv4 addresses;
to allow new devices to be network enabled.
Better mobility
Auto configuration of nodes
to allow movement without losing network connectivity (home address vs. care-of address).
Better security
IPSec part of the protocols
to enable end-to-end services (data integrity, access control).

3. IPv6 out there… The research networks: The implementers:
Native connection to the research networks backbones (Internet2, ESnet, GEANT)
IPv6 Land Speed record by CERN and CalTech of 983 mbps
The implementers:
Asia:
Japan to convert IT infrastructure to IPv6 by 2005
DOD to transition to IPv6 by 2008
The commercial world:
Major vendors (start to) ship IPv6 enabled products

4. Starting up SLAC decided to start to experiment again with IPv6.
Issues to be addressed:
Security
Client based network
Choice of operating systems
Linux
Choice of application/services to be supported
(“must-have”and “would-like”)
Web Server: yes
Local DNS: no
Addressing schema
To detemine potential future usage on the network:

5. SLAC IPv6 network setup Cisco 3640 Rtr-ipv6 IPv6 internet ESnet
SLAC connects to the IPv6 Internet via a native connection provided from ESnet.
Cisco 3640
Rtr-ipv6
IPv6 internet
ESnet
Juniper M10
SLAC
IPv6 intranet
IPv6 configuration:
ipv6 unicast-routing
interface <int-name>
no ip address
ipv6 address <address/mask>
Not BGP, but static route.

6. IPv6 Network configuration
There is IOS code available that allows:
Cryptographic images
SSH client/server
IPv6 Access list
regular and reflexive (to be used for client-based networks)
Allowing only connection initiated from inside (client-based model)
Some things are still missing:
SNMP over IPv6 transport: no way to monitor routers performances over IPv6 (MRTG for IPv6 available but not usable)

7. IPv6 Host configuration
RedHat Linux has been our OS of choice, so far.
On the network in few steps with automatic configuration:
Add following line in /etc/sysconfig/network: NETWORKING_IPV6="yes"
Restart networking (or reboot)
Static configuration for servers (as our Www):
Add the following line in /etc/sysconfig/network: IPV6_AUTOCONF=no
Add the following line in /etc/sysconfig/ifcfg-<int>:
IPV6_INIT=yes

8. PingER for IPv6
Previous experience at SLAC with IPv6 year ago was with PingER (
Starting point = the Perl module for IPv4 PingER.
PingER-IPv6 required us minor code modifications:
To handle address/name resolution (like gethostbyname)
The installation of Perl modules that do not come with the standard RedHat distribution:
Time::CTime.pm (to format time a la ctime(3))
DB_file.pm (to tie to DB files)
Socket.pm

9. PingER metrics
The information that can be extracted is the same as in the IPv4 PingER:
Duplicate Packets
Average Round Trip Time
Minimum Packet Loss
Inter-Quartile Range
Conditional Loss Probability
TCP Throughput
Ping Unreachability
Ping Unpredictability
Minimum Round Trip Time
Packet Loss
Out of Order Packets
Zero Packet Loss Frequency
Inter-Packet Delay Variation

10. Monitored nodes
A list of ping-able nodes, put together by Bill Owens, circulated on the I2 IPv6 mailing list:
The 39 nodes are located in:
Abilene network (core routers and measurement nodes)
Front Range GigaPop
Great Plains Network
Indiana GigaPop
InterMountain GigaPop
Merit
NYSernet
Pittsburgh SuperComputing
Oregon GigaPop
WiscNet

11. SLAC IPv6 Web Server
A public IPv6 Web server (www-ipv6.slac.stanford.edu) is publishing the results of our monitoring:

12. IPv6 monitoring – results
The round trip times are mostly constant but show us the presence of congestion days

13. Next… Monitoring Infrastructure
Expand the list of monitored nodes: keen on finding partners in the ESnet community!
Publish and make available the IPv6 Pinger module (Perl module);
Port to IPv6 other monitoring tools we are using (AbwE, IEPM-BW).
Infrastructure
Add more nodes and experiment with other OSes
Windows XP and Sun Solaris (as in SLAC IPv4 environment);
Extend the services: more work on DNS, mail
Physics research applications that could benefit from running on IPv6.

14. IPv6 and HEP
Not sure what is the near future of IPv6 in the HENP community.
Will the Grid require us to move services to IPv6?
Will the Asian collaborators require us to provide some native IPv6 applications?
Sites should be prepared, gaining early experience will help understand how to make the IPv6 networks production quality.