Author Archives: Dan York

Slide: Making an application fully IPv6 compliant

Slides from RIPE66: Making an Application Fully IPv6 Compliant

Today at the RIPE66 meeting in Dublin, Ireland, Bert Hubert of PowerDNS fame gave a great presentation about “Making an application fully IPv6 compliant“:
Slide: Making an application fully IPv6 compliant

The video and audio for the session should be available soon. I very much enjoyed Bert’s presentation and he had a few points that I will think about adding to the next version of the book. One specific point is around collecting statistics. Bert noted that in IPv4 you again typically only have one IP address to worry about for each connection, while in IPv6 you may have many different IP addresses for a connection (or you could have). And so you may need to think about your storage of all that statistics information.

I only had two minor quibbles with Bert’s slides:

  • On slide 11, Bert suggests there could be several different ways of displaying IPv6 addresses with port numbers.  As I stated in the question time, RFC 5952 states that it should be Bert’s choice “a”.
  • On the issue of how to choose whether to use the IPv6 or IPv4 interface, the “Happy Eyeballs” technique defined in RFC 6555 is one that many developers are now using.

Overall, I was very glad to see Bert’s presentation out there as we need to have more such presentations helping application developers think about these issues of migrating to IPv6.

P.S. If you want to easily refer people to Bert’s slides, he provided the very easy URL of:

tinyurl.com/ipv6-checklist

50% Off All O’Reilly IPv6 Ebooks TODAY On CyberMonday

Given that today is “Cyber Monday” the folks at O’Reilly are naturally joining in and offering a 50% discount on ALL their ebooks and discounts. All you need to do is go visit:

http://oreil.ly/Cyber-Monday

where you can learn more. Basically, you can use the discount code “CYBERDAY” when you check out – anytime up until 11:59 pm US Pacific time tonight.

You can naturally order “Migrating Applications To IPv6 or any other IPv6-related ebook… although in truth you can use the code for ANY ebook.

The great thing about buying from O’Reilly is that all ebooks are DRM-free, so you are not locked in to using them on any particular devices.

Cybermonday

If you are looking for some good technical ebooks, today is a great day to do some shopping!

“Migrating Apps To IPv6″ Author And Editor Get To Meet Face-To-Face

A curious aspect of writing a book is that you never actually need to meet the people with whom you are working at a publisher. Everything can be done online with maybe an occasional phone call thrown in. Editors, production staff, publicists… all the interaction happens primarily through email.

It’s nice, though, when you do get a chance to put a face with a name. As shown below, I got a chance to catch up with Mike Loukides, the editor at O’Reilly who first approached me about the “Migrating Applications to IPv6” book project and who worked with me to make it happen:

York loukides

This was at the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference back in the beginning of the year. (Excellent conferences, by the way!) I just stumbled upon the photo and thought I should post it. I still haven’t met the other editors and staff who helped me with the book, but that is indeed the way it works.

Updated List of IPv6 Resources for Application Developers

Recently I noticed that my list of IPv6 resources for application developers had not been updated since the second version of Migrating Applications to IPv6 was published in June 2012.  I’ve now gone ahead and updated the list to have all the links that I added to the second release of the book.

Now, granted, some of the links may not make much sense without the context of what is in the book, but they are all there so that you can easily visit them.  (And hey, if you want the context, why not buy the book? ;-)

If you have suggestions for additional resources I should add, please do contact me as I’m always open to considering new content to add to the book.  From the beginning this has always been conceived as a collection of guidance for application developers looking to move their applications over to IPv6, so please do pass along any thoughts you think I should consider adding to the book. (Thanks!)

email-updates

New Mailing List for “Migrating Apps to IPv6″ Updates

Would you like to be notified when updates are made to “Migrating Applications to IPv6“?  If so, there’s a nifty little sign-up box over in the right sidebar that will add you to an email distribution list that I will use ONLY to alert you to news about the book.  Info about updates will also be posted here to the book’s blog, of course, and will also appear on the Google+ page and in my normal Twitter stream. But I realized recently that some readers might want to receive specific messages when updates are available.  If you purchase the ebook directly from O’Reilly, you’ll get notified through their notification system, but if you purchase through another retailer – or would just like to receive an extra update, please feel free to subscribe.  I promise I won’t spam you or do anything else with your email address outside of alert you to the new updates.

Thanks for your interest in the book!

Save 50% off the Migrating Apps To IPv6 Ebook Today In Honor of World IPv6 Launch

In honor of World IPv6 Launch, taking place today, June 6, 2012, O’Reilly has a deal running for 50% off the price of IPv6 ebooks.

NOTE: The deal expires at 11:59pm US Pacific time tonight!

So you only have about 10.25 hours left to make the purchase!

Worldipv6launch promo

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m a big fan of purchasing directly from O’Reilly because in doing so you get into their update notification program. Anytime an author has updates, you get a notification and can easily download a new version. Given that I expect IPv6 application migration to continue to evolve as we get more IPv6 availability, I’ll undoubtedly be making further updates… and by buying from O’Reilly you’ll get notified!

PLUS… all O’Reilly books are DRM-free, a topic I’ve ranted about on other sites!

Updated Version of “Migrating Applications to IPv6″ Book/Ebook Available Through O’Reilly

If you’ve bought the ebook or printed version of the book within the past few weeks, you should have received the most recent updated version.  As I mentioned previously, I submitted to O’Reilly a range of updates – and have confirmed that an updated version is now shipping.  It includes:

  • Added new section on recent events and changes that make it critical for application developers to be thinking about IPv6.
  • Added section on connecting to DNS servers over IPv6 and about DNS and DHCPv6
  • Added sidebar about RFC 5952, “A Recommendation for IPv6 Address Text Representation”
  • Expanded text about “Happy Eyeballs” algorithm and included mention of RFC 6556 for testing for happy eyeballs.
  • Added brief info about lessons learned from World IPv6 Day
  • Added info about World IPv6 Launch in 2012
  • Added new section on testing resources
  • Added new section about setting up an IPv6 test network
  • Updated IPv6 NAT info to point to RFC 6296
  • Added warning about SMTP’s way of showing IPv6 addresses
  • Added additional resources, including a new section about some informational RFCs that may be of interest to application developers.

If you previously purchased the book directly from O’Reilly, you should have been notified of this update.

I’m very appreciative of the feedback received thus far – and definitely welcome further feedback!  I’ve also received many kind words and comments that the book has been very helpful.  That’s great to hear… and exactly why I wrote it!

migratingappstoipv6-250-shadow

Updates Submitted For “Migrating Applications To IPv6″ Book

Very early this morning, I submitted a range of updates to the book to O’Reilly’s production team. As this is the first formal update I’ve made, I’m not sure of the exact process from here, but at some point soon the updated content will be available as part of the normal book.  I’ll post about it here on the site when it’s ready, and anyone who bought the ebook directly from O’Reilly will be automagically notified about how to download the updates.

Here’s a snapshot of the changes I made to the book:

  • Added new section on recent events and changes that make it critical for application developers to be thinking about IPv6.
  • Added section on connecting to DNS servers over IPv6 and about DNS and DHCPv6
  • Added sidebar about RFC 5952, “A Recommendation for IPv6 Address Text Representation”
  • Expanded text about “Happy Eyeballs” algorithm and included mention of RFC 6556 for testing for happy eyeballs.
  • Added brief info about lessons learned from World IPv6 Day
  • Added info about World IPv6 Launch in 2012
  • Added new section on testing resources
  • Added new section about setting up an IPv6 test network
  • Updated IPv6 NAT info to point to RFC 6296
  • Added warning about SMTP’s way of showing IPv6 addresses
  • Added additional resources, including a new section about some informational RFCs that may be of interest to application developers.

I’m pleased with how it came out… there’s been a great amount of new information added in the last few months that will be helpful for application developers and it was great to incorporate that into the book.

Next up, I’d like to add some images that illustrate some of the points in the book… but that’s the next update…

… and please do let me know if you have suggestions for additions you’d like to see in the book, either as a comment here or via email.

“Migrating Apps To IPv6″ Ebook Now Available in Kindle Fire (KF8) Format

KindleFireIf you use the Amazon Kindle Fire to read ebooks, the folks at O’Reilly have now optimized all their ebooks to work with the new “KF8″ format used by the Kindle Fire.

When you login to your Oreilly.com account and look at your purchased ebooks (or if you buy the book from O’Reilly), the “Mobi” file there is now a KF8 file that you can download to your computer and upload to your Kindle Fire (or any other Kindle).

Now, I don’t know that I’ve necessarily done anything to the text of “Migrating Applications to IPv6” that would strongly benefit from the new KF8 format (nor do I have one to try it on), but these regenerated Mobi files may in fact display better now on the Kindle Fire. Regardless, it’s great to know that the publisher of the book is looking at what can be done to make the books work better on newer devices.

The world of ebook publishing is at a fascinating place right now… and given some of the experiments O’Reilly is doing I’m looking forward to writing more of these updates as we all collectively continue to evolve this thing-formerly-known-as-a-book!