Reply to: IPv6 - A long time in coming, and never seems to arrive

[Sysman]

I'm pretty sure my home Internet IP address isn't officially a static IP, but it has been the same for the last 3 years.

So functionally to me it works as my personal global storage.

Yes, until I moved house mine had been sitting on the same address for the last couple of years and maybe longer, and when it changed I would knobble the DNS entry to match.

But the address came out of a dynamic pool and therefore listed in various places as a likely source of spam, meaning that setting up my own mail server was a no-go.

If you really want there are various places that will do mail forwarding for you, at a cost of course. The last time I looked at those costs I could rent a load of space with gobs of bandwidth for a similar price, so it wasn't worth it for me.

[suityou01]

I was using mail servers as an example - The big picture is cloud/web services in general.

Well most companies I have worked for are clambering to move their stuff to cloud asap. Reduced the cost of ownership massively. I can't see ipv6 changing the desire to reduce overheads.

[doodab]

There is a big difference between getting something connected and making something useful. Running your own stuff can be fun and educational but most people, even hardcore techies, probably have better things to do.

[OwlHoot]

Owly old chap, listen.

To get a mail server up and running you'd need a domain name and an MX record. This would have to be provided by an ISP or web hosting service. Then you would simply install your mail server, open port 25 on your firewall and adjust your MX record to point to your external IP.

This has frak all to do with whether you are running IP4 or if IP6 comes along. It's still a piece of piss to set up.

I was using mail servers as an example - The big picture is cloud/web services in general.

[doodab]

I am seriously thinking of using Office 365 as I got a lot of free seats with my Action Pack sub. Got two people using it to test out. Migh switch one of my domains over to give it a go.

You also get both SBS and exchange proper, so perhaps have a look at those if you'd rather keep it in house.

[suityou01]

Well it seemed worth wheeling out again, to see if there'd be more ideas and opinions

and lucky I did too, or we'd have missed Suity's incisive contributions

P.S. Also, it is topical given recent attempts to resurrect the Data Communications Bill

Owly old chap, listen.

To get a mail server up and running you'd need a domain name and an MX record. This would have to be provided by an ISP or web hosting service. Then you would simply install your mail server, open port 25 on your firewall and adjust your MX record to point to your external IP.

This has frak all to do with whether you are running IP4 or if IP6 comes along. It's still a piece of piss to set up.

[OwlHoot]

I've got deja vu

Well it seemed worth wheeling out again, to see if there'd be more ideas and opinions

and lucky I did too, or we'd have missed Suity's incisive contributions

P.S. Also, it is topical given recent attempts to resurrect the Data Communications Bill

[lilelvis2000]

I entirely agree it's a complete mare to set up a home email server - I also tried, with some open source thing everyone swore by and found that it was more appropriate to be sworn at, with the dozens of arcane poorly-documented settings etc.

My setup is Ubuntu 10.04, Exim 4 (the email handler), Dovecot (the IMAP dude), OpenLDAP, Fetchmail, Clam and Freshclam (virus scanning), SquirrelMail (for when I'm at home or on the road). I can't remember what sieve I'm using (been so long since I did anything with it)

It took me three months to get all of that going. And I mean full time three months. Not part time on weekends. And it still has the odd hiccup. Especially the share folder in Dovecot which I just hacked using file permissions and "the proper way" didn't work at all.

So anyone out there wanting that setup, please do not call. I'm fed up with the damn thing.

The biggest drag on this is that the workstations all use Outlook 2010 which is tulip at IMAP. 2013 is much better but both have a nasty habit of corrupting the profile and then you can't send or receive e-mails.

One thing missing in all this is a calendar. We use Google for that and their (now defunct) sync app.

I am seriously thinking of using Office 365 as I got a lot of free seats with my Action Pack sub. Got two people using it to test out. Migh switch one of my domains over to give it a go.

what were we talking about again?

[AtW]

That plus until it's no longer possible to get IP space in this country there are no particular drivers to change that will convince the people holding the budgets.

They've solved this problem - Carriet Grade NAT for those who won't pay premium for IPv4 - why change when you can make extra money from limited resource?

[smatty]

The IPv6 rollout is being frustrated mainly because it would require a huge amount of investment by telcos and carriers and they are a bunch of cheap barstewards.

That plus until it's no longer possible to get IP space in this country there are no particular drivers to change that will convince the people holding the budgets.

[suityou01]

Once IPv6 becomes ubiquitous, it seems to me there will be little advantage, besides a bit of free disk space, for people to continue using commercial networked mail servers such as Yahoo and Google, when they can easily host their own mail servers on home PCs with static IP addresses, and even send and receive encrypted mails using public key systems.

So could it be that the long-planned IPv6 rollout is being delayed/frustrated by security agencies and companies who don't want this development to occur?

Same applies to other cloud services - The whole cloud model could be scuppered, or severely curtailed, if people can readily access their personal cloud.

(Maybe this belongs more in Technical.)

Owleeeeeeeeeeeeeey

<canned laughter>

[suityou01]

I thought glib was de rigueur for General

Yes. And de rigeur is de rigeur for pretentious twats.

[OwlHoot]

YEah I must the only idiot that has setup my own e-mail server. Though it only handles e-mail within the office, everything else goes to the hosting server and I have a task that brings down e-mail from there (and other e-mail servers) every minute.

It as a serious PITA to setup..and having LDAP on top made it that much more complex. With odd scripts here and there. Then the necissity to run a virus scanner on the e-mails...I think it took me 3 months to get it right.

Then on to setting up backups.

But back to the OP...it seems from what I've read the UK ISPs simply aren't bothered to install the upgraded firmware/hardware to do it. They're probably waiting for the gov't to give a handout.

One benefit of IPv6 is your smartphone will have a true IP address and keep it where ever you are in the world. Same with laptop etc.. If you travel that means not having to alter firewall settings all the time.

I entirely agree it's a complete mare to set up a home email server - I also tried, with some open source thing everyone swore by and found that it was more appropriate to be sworn at, with the dozens of arcane poorly-documented settings etc.

Never did get the perishing thing working properly, and had to slink back to Yahoo Mail with my tail between my legs.

You mention virus protection, but companies specializing in that are desperately casting around for killer apps to keep them viable, in the face of ever improving virus & Internet protection built into OSs such as Windows. So what if they were to incorporate a home networked email server as part of their Internet Protection package? Along with secure encrypted backups (including optional mutual encrypted offsite backups arranged with friends) and syncing to mobiles?

Once the benefits were explained, including no flashing ads, privacy from commercial and Government snooping, much better performance, and security from arbitrary storage space and time limits, a lot of even slightly savvy users would jump at the chance to sign up!

In a way, my original point can be paraphrased by saying that, from the standpoint of commercial providers and Government monitoring interests, networked storage and email systems etc, far from being the clouds perceived by end users, are actually more like readily accessible droplets, and their concern (I'd suggest) is the prospect of personal data migrating back to a throng of private statically addressed PCs where it will be far more inaccessible.

[mudskipper]

I've got deja vu

[b0redom]

One benefit of IPv6 is your smartphone will have a true IP address and keep it where ever you are in the world. Same with laptop etc.. If you travel that means not having to alter firewall settings all the time.

Really? I've not looked into ipv6 in any depth, but doesn't it work along the same principles of subnetting and routing? Assuming it works like ipv4 I can't see if you drop a device with a 10.10.10.10 address in an 11.11.11.11 subnet how you'd expect the routing to work.

I would have thought that the IPs would still be dynamic, but there would just need to be less NATting etc?