[tor-relays] IPv6

[Dr Gerard Bulger]

"One of the property that the network should have (even though it is not
always true) is that every relays should be able to talk to every other
relays. And thus if we have IPv4 only relays that cannot talk to IPv6 relays
only, we partition the network and this is no good."

A very good point, but means we are stuck with IPv4 "both ways" forever.
There are many situations now (CGNAT for example) where only way in to
potential server is via an IPv6 address via pinhole on the router.  A device
with IPv6 only OR port input route can almost always connect outgoing to all
IPv4 addresses.    I was not thinking of entirely IPv6.  Just being able to
define the OR port as IPv6 when not having a viable IPv4 route in, IPv4 out
is OK.

For other purposes I have SOCAT on my VPS running so IPv4 ran reach my IPv6
machines behind the Fibre internet company's shared IPv4 CGNAT "firewall").
I cannot have my personal VPS seen as a Tor node, so cannot do that.

Gerry 


-----Original Message-----
From: tor-relays <tor-relays-bounces at lists.torproject.org> On Behalf Of
David Goulet
Sent: 25 February 2021 13:16
To: tor-relays at lists.torproject.org
Subject: Re: [tor-relays] IPv6

On 24 Feb (12:02:11), Dr Gerard Bulger wrote:
> Thinking of IPv6:
> 
> How far has the team got in implementing IPv6 only OR port facility ?

As of tor 0.4.5.x release, IPv6 is fully supported for tor clients and
relays.

> 
> Currently you can only run tor relay of any sort if there is open IPv4 
> OR port to the internet.  This is getting a bit quaint.

That is one piece of it. We still require an IPv4 as in a relay can not run
with *only* an IPv6 at the moment.

One of the property that the network should have (even though it is not
always
true) is that every relays should be able to talk to every other relays. And
thus if we have IPv4 only relays that can not talk to IPv6 relays only, we
partition the network and this is no good.

> 
> I am sure I am not alone in having much wasted bandwidth that could be 
> put to good Tor use but they are only accessible via IPv6, while they 
> can exit of course IPv4 and IPv6
> 
> I realise that so far, despite IPv6 being open on my main exit for 
> some years, there is still little IPv6 traffic, but that might suddenly
change.

As the network migrates to tor >= 0.4.5.x, inter relay communication will
start to ramp up on IPv6.

Cheers!
David

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