World IPv6 Day is June 8th 2011

[Mark Martinec <Ma...@ijs.si>]

FYI, I just sent the message below to <in...@apache.org>
and to <co...@apache.org>. Let's see what comes out of it.


Most of you involved in the ICT business, either as open source
contributors or as a day job, are aware of the approaching June 8th
declared as a World IPv6 Day by the Internet Society (ISOC).

It is an IPv6 testing opportunity / awareness / promotional day
where major websites are joining for a global-scale trial of IPv6:
  http://www.isoc.org/
  http://www.worldipv6day.org/

Among the prominent organizations are names like:
  Google, YouTube, Facebook, Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft Bing,
  Cisco, Juniper, F5 Networks, D-Link, Sony Corp., AT&T,
  Verisign, MasterCard, Novell Inc., OpenDNS, MapQuest

then
  several US gov. departments, US Federal Aviation Administration,
  over 200 newspaper web sites, a bunch of prominent universities, ...

but perhaps more relevant to our OSS cause also the:
  Kernel.org (The Linux Kernel Organization), suse.org, Mozilla, ...

I was unpleasantly surprised that I couldn't find the Apache
Software Foundation in the list of participants:
  http://www.worldipv6day.org/participants/
nor as already offering an IPv6 connectivity - neither to its
web site, nor to its services offered to its members and projects.

Are we falling behind?!

The ASF mission is to develop and promote state-of-the art open
source software. Most if not all ASF projects which need to be
network-aware already does support IPv6. This is not only nice
but is a requirement of the time. But the IPv6 support offered
by the ASF infrastructure to its members seems to be lacking.

The minotaur (people.apache.org) does not have an IPv6 connectivity,
despite running a modern and up-to-date OS. Even though ASF project
members commonly use their own sites for project development, it is
not uncommon that a need arises occaionally to test some project's
feature from a remote site. The minotaur host would make a good
choice, being available to all memers, but alas, no joy.

I may be wrong, but I think the Jenkins test build environment
also does not offer an environment for testing IPv6 features
to projects under development.

I can perhaps understand that the internet service providers or
hosting providers contributing or leasing their services to the
ASF may not yet have a full native IPv6 support throughout their
entire offering. Nevertheless I would expect that ASF should be
in a position to demand an IPv6 support for its infrastructure,
or choose a provider which can offer such.

Are we supposed to produce a quality software supporting the
today's network needs, while at the same time saying to our
potential users: sorry, we are not using/offering these features
in our own ASF setup, as we are lacking will/motivation/incentive
to do so - but we do expect that you will use it, you are welcome
to be our test pilots. It's all about eating one's own dogfood.

It would be really nice if ASF would show an intention to start
supporting IPv6, not only in its code, but also as an organization
in its infrastructure, both to its developers, and to visitors.

I would suggest that as a sign of good will, as a promotional act,
and as seizing a perfect opportunity for gathering experience
which may not come back for another year, the ASF should at least
(as a start) join the World IPv6 Day by offering its web site
over dual protocols at least for that day (and keep it there
unless some sinister defect pops up).

It may be a short notice if native network connectivity is not
yet reaching the web server. As a stop-gap solution a tunnel
could be made (e.g. through http://ipv6.he.net/ which has good
world-wide connectivity and is free), or just push tne network
provider for a native dual-protocol connectivity. The existing
Apache httpd server is well capable of operating in dual-stack
environment.  Keep minTTL field of the SOA record low, try it,
then add an AAAA dns record with a short TTL, and be proud!

If something breaks briefly for a tiny percentage of users for
the World IPv6 Day, it's not too bad, these users will have
a good incentive to fix their problem and the best opportunity
to learn and understand what is going on and get help if needed.

See also:
http://labs.ripe.net/Members/emileaben/when-does-world-ipv6-day-start
http://labs.ripe.net/Members/emileaben/world-ipv6-day-ipv6-eye-chart

  Mark Martinec
  (PMC member of the SpamAssassin project)