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Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel to tschmidt

Premium Member

to tschmidt

Re: Win7 firewall & Core Networking rules

Hang on here. I am not getting something. Please explain to me why it matters if my ISP uses IPv6 or not when I am on a home LAN behind a router? Doesn't that mean that all the traffic (IPv6 or not) stops at my router and gets turned into IPv4 traffic if that is all my home router can handle on the LAN side?

I was thinking that if I never plug this PC directly into the internet (in other words I never plug it directly into my ISP modem with no router and thus get an IP address from the ISP) then it will never utilize or need any IPv6 support because my router (on the LAN side at least) is only doing things via IPv4. The traffic on my LAN is all IPv4 right?
My thought was that I wold only need IPv6 support if I plugged this PC directly into the ISPs modem.

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

tschmidt

MVM

IPv4 and IPv6 are incompatible with each other. There are several translations methods but it varies by ISP.

If your ISP does not support IPv6 it does not make any sense to use it locally (with some exceptions) since you will not be able to connect to IPv6 sites on the Internet.

As supergeeky See Profile posted it is unlikely that your router even supports IPv6. Support for IPv6 for home LANs is still pretty early and judging by the compatibility testing done at UNH implementations are not very good.

If you want to play with IPv6 check to see if your ISP supports it. If they support it find out how, there are different ways for ISP to support IPv4 and IPv6.

/tom
Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel

Premium Member

No no. Don't get me wrong. I don't necessarily want anything to do with IPv6. My point is that if my router does not support or do anything with IPv6 and my entire LAN (all my PCs and stuff) is behind that router, then I don't need any of those firewall rules that are directly related to IPv6 stuff so therefore I can safely disable those rules without any fear of hurting anything.

Am I right here?

PS:
The IP address that my modem gets from my ISP does not appear to be IPv6. It looks like and old fashioned xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx type IP address so I thing that my ISP supports any IPv6 stuff either. This, I would think, would strengthen the argument FOR disabling all the firewall rules that deal with IPv6 as they are likely not needed and won't do anything anyways.

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

1 edit

tschmidt

MVM

If IPv6 is not supported then IPv6 firewall rules are irrelevant.

To utilize IPv6 it must be supported by your ISP and router. So just becaue your router only has a IPv4 address does not necessarily mean your ISP does not support IPv6.

/Tom
Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel

Premium Member

said by tschmidt:

If IPv6 is not supported then IPv6 firewall rules are irrelevant.

I understand. Thank you for that info but, I am speaking not of a "networking" point of view but from a security perspective. I am trying to remove or disable any rules that are not needed in order to tighten up the firewall. So if those rules are not needed I wold prefer to disable them.
said by tschmidt:

To utilize IPv6 it must be supported by your ISP and router. So just becaue your router only has a IPv4 address does not necessarily mean your ISP does not support IPv6.

So then I have 2 related questions if you don't mind:
1. How do I tell if my ISP uses IPv6?
2. Whether they do or not, isn't it irrelevant if my router does not handle it, and thus all the PCs behind it don't need it either?

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

tschmidt

MVM

said by Sentinel:

I am speaking not of a "networking" point of view but from a security perspective.

Perhaps I don't understand your question. If it is not being used then it doesn't matter. I don't know how else to explain it.
said by Sentinel:

1. How do I tell if my ISP uses IPv6?

Ask them.
said by Sentinel:

2. Whether they do or not, isn't it irrelevant if my router does not handle it, and thus all the PCs behind it don't need it either?

If you want to use IPv6 then your router must understand the protocol. Assuming your ISP supports IPv6 then the router needs to support IPv6 and so do the PCs on your LAN if you want to connect to IPv6 hosts on the Internet.

In a mixed IPv4/IPv6 environment there are different ways for the ISP to support IPv4 as they roll out IPv6. Remember the reason IPv6 has become so important is that we have used up all the IPv4 addresses. New user are not going to get Public IPv4 addresses, they are all gone, they are going to get private addresses from their ISP and the ISP will use NAT to map to routeable address. Similar to how home networks are set up today but on a much larger scale.

/tom