Why do we still need IPv4 when we are migrating to IPv6...

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2015, Phil Mayers wrote:

> None of this should be a problem for non-NATed IPv6. The absence of NAT 
> will mean an ICMP error doesn't "block" a NAT translation - there's no 
> such thing to block - so a CPE can send errors or not.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out.

So currently there are multiple providers disallowing incoming connections 
to IPv6 addresses for customers. But if I understand correctly, including 
what you described before, this would work:

U1=User1, U2=User2...
HGW1=HomeGateWay, belonging to U1.
Assume IPv6 and no NAT.

U1 and U2 are going to play a game together. They're speaking to the game 
server. U1 says "please talk to me on <U1IP> UDP port <U1PORT). U2 says 
"please talk to me on <U2IP> UDP port <U2PORT>. Game server informs 
respective user about the other users' IP/PORT combination.

Now, U1 sends a UDP packet from U1IP,U1PORT to U2IP,U2PORT.
HGW1 creates flow state for U1IP,U1PORT<->U2IP,U2PORT.
Packet reaches HGW2, which has no flow state, and is dropped. ICMP error message might be created.
In case of ICMP error message, U1 should ignore this.
U2 sends a packet from U2IP,U2PORT to U1IP,U1PORT.
HGW2 creates flow state.
Packet hits HGW1 which already has a flow state, and packet successfully 
reaches U1.
U1 now can start sending packets to U2 as well and they've worked around 
both of them having HGWs with stateful firewalls disallowing new 
connections to them.

Right?

The crucial step here seems to be the fact that initial packets might be 
dropped and error messages be generated, but these should be ignored by 
the application. Is this commonplace? Is it a problem at all?

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se