[SudoAlex]

Any details on exactly what you get with Digital Ocean IPv6? The page doesn't really go into much detail - and the implementation can make or break things.

Is this a single static IPv6 address with a /64 (or /56 or /48) subnet routed to it? Or is it something else?

[raiyu]

We are rolling out IPv6 initially with a single IP address to see how the network side of things handles that since we have already a large deployment of IPv4 and then evaluate from there.

Thanks, Moisey Cofounder DigitalOcean

[SudoAlex]

Is this a single IPv6 address sharing the same /64 with stateless auto-configuration, or static?

The implementation is important, over the years I've had annoying experiences with certain providers trying to do IPv6 - but not getting things quite right:

Hetzner - Gave customers a /64, but using additional IPv6 addresses required setting up proxy NDP - which at the time was annoying as only more recent Linux kernels supported it. I believe they've improved on this since though.

OVH - Requires setting up a default route outside of your normal netmask - this isn't fun. We don't do this with IPv4 - so why do some providers do it with IPv6?

Linode - Enables IPv6 auto-configuration, so many servers share the same /64 by default, and they give accounts "pools" of /116 allocations. Sites like Google considers all of them to be part of the same /64 network - so your server will probably have trouble accessing certain resources if another server is doing excessive queries.

[akerl_]

Only tangentially related, but Linode gives each server a /128 by default, and gives out /56, /64, and /116 for free on request. I use a /56 to do my own subnetting and other fanciness.

[SudoAlex]

Sorry, forgot to mention that Linode does give more options now.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

That Linode setup sounds dangerous - do they protect against NDP spoofing somehow?

[justincormack]

Hetzner is just a normal /64 now.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

A _single_ v6 address? Are you serious? I guess we'll never get rid of NAT and other idiocy if people seriously allocate single IPv6 addresses to customers ...

[neom]

I'd eat my hat if it stays that way, as far as I know it's just while we test ipv6/deploy it to more regions, eventually we'll get with the program, so to speak. :D

[akerl_]

"initially". Take a deep breath.

[justincormack]

A single IPv6 address suggests strongly that they are doing it completely wrong. A /64 is the equivalent of a single ipv4 address, and you should never be allocated less than this.

[agildehaus]

Linode did the exact same thing with their IPv6 rollout.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

Well, and unless I am mistaken, they still route the larger subnets to your interface rather than to your machine? There it nothing wrong with testing stuff with "small" subnets, even if it may be a bit pointless, but my point is that a setup that provides you with a single address just has a structure that cannot really easily be changed in a sane way into a setup that provides you with larger subnets.

A sane setup should use a transfer net on your interface, and should route your actual address space to your gateway address on that transfer net - otherwise you'll need ugly hacks such as proxy-NDP in order to be able to route addresses for sub-allocations. This flat setup without a transfer net was invented for IPv4 when IPv4 addresses became scarce, so it was a necessary evil, but it's a stupid setup that causes nothing but pain when you have billions of /64s available.

That is the reason why I don't understand why anyone would even test with single-address allocations.