Turning off ipv6

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Thu, 2010-02-11 at 17:31 +1000, Dan Irwin wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 11:48 PM, Patrick O'Callaghan
> <pocallaghan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > No doubt IP6 will eventually arrive because it will become necessary,
> > but the chances of a significant number of end-users "demanding" it are
> > close to zero
> 
> And while none of the users who have a need ask (eg: yourself) the
> ISPs won't do anything about it.
> 
> You appear to have a need (eg your OS supports it, but your lack of
> connectivity is the problem).

The fact that the OS supports it doesn't mean that I need it. Fedora
supports lots of things which I don't need. The "problem" is not that
the ISP doesn't support it but that Fedora appears to expect it.

Note that I don't have any connectivity problem, my original post was
about IP6-related stuff cluttering up /var/log/messages. I'm not aware
of any Internet host that I care about only being available via IP6.
Ergo, although it might be nice to have, and might benefit me personally
if I get a head start on the inevitable transition to IP6, I don't for
the moment *need* it.

> > as long as it provides no obvious benefit to them. And I include myself in that group.
> 
> Clearly it provides a benefit. The existence of IPv6 in the kernel is
> obviously causing problems. Why fight the inevitable? The funny thing
> is, it's probably easier to connect to a tunnel broker than to try out
> all the things suggested in this thread.

The benefits of IP4 are mostly collective (setting aside certain
potential security-related improvements for the sake of argument), and
as such will become manifest once a critical mass of people start to use
it and ISPs to support it. This is of course a chicken-and-egg
situation. The point I'm trying to make is that only a *very* small
minority of Internet users even understand the issues, let alone care
about them, so this critical mass is not going to be reached by standard
grass-roots activism. It's going to happen when the ISPs have no
alternative because the IP4 address space is running out.

poc