Afrihost IPV6 FTTH on Openserve with Static Prefix Delegation

[Gimli_]

Hi @AfriNatic @Afrigirl,

I would like to follow up on your static IPv6 prefix delegation, on Openserve.

It's been a long time, and still you do not offer anything. Its been issues with cutover to a new BNG, then roll back, now it has been implemented but other projects have a higher priority, and so on.

You are not even attempting to bridge the gap by providing a DynDns type resolver for my IPV6 prefix and a host identifier I can configure. IPV6 service instead of what you provide for IPV4 (XXXXX.ip.afrihost.co.za). What's up with that?

Alternatives I am not doing instead of static IPV6:
- I am not going to do NAT66 with ULA on lan devices and dyndns.
- NPTv6 and dyndns is not working for me as most lan devices prioritize IPV4 above ULA IPV6 addresses, very irritating.
- I am not looking for a overlay solution, I am using selfhosted Netbird for some other use cases.
- I am a home user, I don't want a business solution.
- Static /56 IPV6 Prefix should be free.

Anyone with a few subnets at home, hosting some services are forever tied to IPV4 and an overlay network, or a home grown VPN server. I have all these, but it does not move me (or anyone) forward with IPv6 in the home, and it requires many workarounds. All I want is my router/firewall, allow a port to a static GUA, and that is it.

Dynamic Prefix Delegation is just so annoying, why do you persist with it? I've been on IPV6 for 5 years and nothing has changed.

Maybe time for me to move back to my previous ISP, I know they do static /56, just need to check pricing

 

[Gimli_]

PS. Even AFRINIC guidelines encourage ISPs to Provide Persistent/Stable Prefixes - /56 or /48 in size. (inline with international best practice)
Afrihost is providing a Dynamic /60.

 

[Afrigirl]

Hi @AfriNatic @Afrigirl,

I would like to follow up on your static IPv6 prefix delegation, on Openserve.

It's been a long time, and still you do not offer anything. Its been issues with cutover to a new BNG, then roll back, now it has been implemented but other projects have a higher priority, and so on.

You are not even attempting to bridge the gap by providing a DynDns type resolver for my IPV6 prefix and a host identifier I can configure. IPV6 service instead of what you provide for IPV4 (XXXXX.ip.afrihost.co.za). What's up with that?

Alternatives I am not doing instead of static IPV6:
- I am not going to do NAT66 with ULA on lan devices and dyndns.
- NPTv6 and dyndns is not working for me as most lan devices prioritize IPV4 above ULA IPV6 addresses, very irritating.
- I am not looking for a overlay solution, I am using selfhosted Netbird for some other use cases.
- I am a home user, I don't want a business solution.
- Static /56 IPV6 Prefix should be free.

Anyone with a few subnets at home, hosting some services are forever tied to IPV4 and an overlay network, or a home grown VPN server. I have all these, but it does not move me (or anyone) forward with IPv6 in the home, and it requires many workarounds. All I want is my router/firewall, allow a port to a static GUA, and that is it.

Dynamic Prefix Delegation is just so annoying, why do you persist with it? I've been on IPV6 for 5 years and nothing has changed.

Maybe time for me to move back to my previous ISP, I know they do static /56, just need to check pricing

Hi, thanks for the detailed feedback. I completely understand why a static IPv6 prefix is important for your use case.
At this stage, we don't offer static IPv6 prefix delegation on Openserve, and we don't have any confirmed information on whether or when it will be available. I don't want to speculate on features that haven't been officially announced.

We do appreciate the feedback, and if there are any official updates on IPv6 enhancements in the future, we'll be sure to communicate them.

 

[cavedog]

Hi @AfriNatic @Afrigirl,

I would like to follow up on your static IPv6 prefix delegation, on Openserve.

It's been a long time, and still you do not offer anything. Its been issues with cutover to a new BNG, then roll back, now it has been implemented but other projects have a higher priority, and so on.

You are not even attempting to bridge the gap by providing a DynDns type resolver for my IPV6 prefix and a host identifier I can configure. IPV6 service instead of what you provide for IPV4 (XXXXX.ip.afrihost.co.za). What's up with that?

Alternatives I am not doing instead of static IPV6:
- I am not going to do NAT66 with ULA on lan devices and dyndns.
- NPTv6 and dyndns is not working for me as most lan devices prioritize IPV4 above ULA IPV6 addresses, very irritating.
- I am not looking for a overlay solution, I am using selfhosted Netbird for some other use cases.
- I am a home user, I don't want a business solution.
- Static /56 IPV6 Prefix should be free.

Anyone with a few subnets at home, hosting some services are forever tied to IPV4 and an overlay network, or a home grown VPN server. I have all these, but it does not move me (or anyone) forward with IPv6 in the home, and it requires many workarounds. All I want is my router/firewall, allow a port to a static GUA, and that is it.

Dynamic Prefix Delegation is just so annoying, why do you persist with it? I've been on IPV6 for 5 years and nothing has changed.

Maybe time for me to move back to my previous ISP, I know they do static /56, just need to check pricing

We are no longer going to migrate Openserve to the new BNGs. The strategy has shifted now unfortunately and it's due to how this works. Openserve has 2 connection methods. IPC Offload and L2TP.

With IPC offload the NAS sits at Openserve and offers a pretty stable enviroment. This is from legacy DSL days. It has limitations and one of them is IP space. We have a massive block sitting there. We will soon replace those with private ranges.

L2TP is nice because it allows us to handle the IP space, allocate static v4 and v6 etc. The problem is the LAC tunnels from the nodes are not stable. You have these nodes far way from Teraco where we host the BNGs and that traffic needs to be super stable between the LAC and LNS. Any loss and the tunnels drop taking down 50 000 pppoe sessions with it. For small ISPs a handful of clients complaining about intermittent service is manageable but not if you have 30 - 50k clients per tunnel.

So the difference would be if an NLD goes down on Openserve side is L2TP will keep dropping the sessions and IPC Offload will just have high latency and loss but you won't lose the ppp session and because of this IPC Offload does not give us the ability to do static prefixes for v6 and it also the reason why they are so dynamic just like ipv4. They have a high churn rate between all the sessions.

 

[Gandalf the Gray]

Dumb question. I received a Static IP in 2021 (Openserve via Afrihost).

So that is only IP v4?

 

[Gimli_]

We are no longer going to migrate Openserve to the new BNGs. The strategy has shifted now unfortunately and it's due to how this works. Openserve has 2 connection methods. IPC Offload and L2TP.

With IPC offload the NAS sits at Openserve and offers a pretty stable enviroment. This is from legacy DSL days. It has limitations and one of them is IP space. We have a massive block sitting there. We will soon replace those with private ranges.

L2TP is nice because it allows us to handle the IP space, allocate static v4 and v6 etc. The problem is the LAC tunnels from the nodes are not stable. You have these nodes far way from Teraco where we host the BNGs and that traffic needs to be super stable between the LAC and LNS. Any loss and the tunnels drop taking down 50 000 pppoe sessions with it. For small ISPs a handful of clients complaining about intermittent service is manageable but not if you have 30 - 50k clients per tunnel.

So the difference would be if an NLD goes down on Openserve side is L2TP will keep dropping the sessions and IPC Offload will just have high latency and loss but you won't lose the ppp session and because of this IPC Offload does not give us the ability to do static prefixes for v6 and it also the reason why they are so dynamic just like ipv4. They have a high churn rate between all the sessions.

Ok thanks for this insight. But please help me to understand. From the above I am deducting that Afrihost opted for the IPC Offload going forwards, but as a result can not provide Static Prefixes at all as a result of a technical limitation in IPC Offload?