IPv6 discussions

[xiaofan]

I suppose can't be helped until you upgrade

I have the Linksys EA7500v2 myself (free as someone threw it away and I picked it up, without power supply, but I have the Linksys WRT1900AC v1 and the power supply is compatible).

The best upgrade is to use OpenWRT, say latest OpenWRT 23.05 version.
https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/linksys_ea7500_v2

1) Linksys EA7500 v2 has no non-Starhub FW upgrade since 2019.

https://www.linksys.com/sg/support-article/?articleNum=317124

Firmware
Ver. 2.0.8.194281
Latest Date: 8/15/2019
Download 33.0 MB

Release Notes

IMPORTANT: The EA7500 v2 firmware is not compatible with the EA7500 v1.

2) Even with Starhub, I tend to believe thre are no new FW either for some time.
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/linksys-ea7500-by-starhub.5659102/page-8#post-134955946

Last time I heard about it was in June 2021.

The new StarHub firmware will add the IPTV feature to the following routers:

Linksys EA7500 v2 and v2.1 with firmware version 2.0.8.203018 or higher
Linksys EA8100-AH v1 with firmware version 1.0.2.203018

NOTE: After the firmware upgrade, there is a new soft SKU change for EA7500 from EA7500-AH to EA7500-SH, the purpose of these changes is to know the difference between the retail SKU and the StarHub SKU.

 

[lobukong]

M1 don't even have a good connection for ipv4 to china to begin with.. heh

Though the ping results are not so good for M1, it was able to access the ipv4 IPTV of that repo, quite smooth actually.(IPV4 links were recently removed and no longer available). General web browsing of China websites is also no problem.
But IPV6 seems quite unusable.

 

[xiaofan]

Thank you for testing & suggestions.
I can use some application for IPTV that can auto refresh the links so it's not that troublesome as long as author keeps updating the links. Then it's difficult to find back-to-China VPN on appleTV.
To me, this is the only use case that needs ipv6 where ipv4 simply cannot work. So I finally got a reason to try to get ipv6 to work. After some config, I think ipv6 is finally working properly (router getting RA from ISP, router sending RA to devices). If ipv4 is disabled from my pc, youtube and netflix still works well, but many websites, including this forum, don't work.

Use Apple TV for what it is good at. Then get a Cheap Android TV box like Xiaomi Mi Box S Gen 2 (less than S$70 from local Xiaomi stores) if you want to use China VPNs like Transocks.

As mentioned, the links change often and the author usually can not catch up and give up after a while.

 

[bert64]

Thank you for testing & suggestions.
I can use some application for IPTV that can auto refresh the links so it's not that troublesome as long as author keeps updating the links. Then it's difficult to find back-to-China VPN on appleTV.
To me, this is the only use case that needs ipv6 where ipv4 simply cannot work. So I finally got a reason to try to get ipv6 to work. After some config, I think ipv6 is finally working properly (router getting RA from ISP, router sending RA to devices). If ipv4 is disabled from my pc, youtube and netflix still works well, but many websites, including this forum, don't work.
Then the IPTV is very choppy. So I assume M1 doesn't have good connections for IPV6?

M1 IPv6 used to have good international transit through HE.net, but seems they switched transit providers and it's gone downhill. You could try calling them and complain about the latency, see if they will change routing preferences (they have for me in the past). Usually by default they will use the *cheapest* route even if there are better routes available.

As for transit to China i don't know, i actually get better latency to those video streams in china from my servers in the UK than any of the machines i've tried in asia (SG, TH, MM)... In many cases it seems to route to europe (france) first. Perhaps try ripe atlas to see which networks have better routes to the destination addresses.

China has a government mandate to go IPv6-only. Also many pirate streams are rebroadcast from someone's home line, and in China like many other countries you'll be stuck with CGNAT and won't get public legacy IP at home unless you pay a lot for it but you will get public IPv6.

BTW if you keep legacy IP disabled but use a DNS64 capable resolver (see https://nat64.net) you can access legacy sites too. M1 actually operate a NAT64 service which i've mentioned in some other posts.

 

[lobukong]

It's very confusing to see the push for 10Gbps local bandwidth while difficult to achieve 5Mbps international bandwidth for ipv6.

 

[seowbin]

It's very confusing to see the push for 10Gbps local bandwidth while difficult to achieve 5Mbps international bandwidth for ipv6.

From where to where ?

 

[lobukong]

From where to where ?

from m1 to this for example.

IP:	2409:8087:7000:20::11
Country:	China
State:	Beijing
City:	Beijing
Latitude:	39.9075
Longitude:	116.3971
ISP:	China Mobile Communications CorporationGet Protected Now!

 

[xiaofan]

from m1 to this for example.

IP:	2409:8087:7000:20::11
Country:	China
State:	Beijing
City:	Beijing
Latitude:	39.9075
Longitude:	116.3971
ISP:	China Mobile Communications Corporation

What is your ping result?

Here is from Singtel native IPv6, using wireless.
First result from Asus RT-AX82U, Double NAT (behind OpenWRT)
Second result from Asus RT-AX86U (Single NAT)

PS C:\work> ping -6 2409:8087:7000:20::11

Pinging 2409:8087:7000:20::11 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=190ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=270ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=209ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=195ms

Ping statistics for 2409:8087:7000:20::11:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 190ms, Maximum = 270ms, Average = 216ms

PS C:\work> ping -6 2409:8087:7000:20::11

Pinging 2409:8087:7000:20::11 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=198ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=200ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=191ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=235ms

Ping statistics for 2409:8087:7000:20::11:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 191ms, Maximum = 235ms, Average = 206ms

 

[Mach3.2]

China

Transit into china is very expensive, most consumer plans are not using the more expensive transit options, which is why they have terrible ping RTT into China. The cheaper IP transit's capacity is probably oversubscribed to hell and back too.

What is your ping result?

tracert 2409:8087:7000:20::11

Tracing route to 2409:8087:7000:20::11 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  0.0.4.7.1.0.4.2.ip6.arpa [2401:7400:c80a:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx]
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3     2 ms     2 ms     3 ms  0.0.4.7.1.0.4.2.ip6.arpa [2401:7400:800:3::2]
  4     3 ms     7 ms     3 ms  0.0.4.7.1.0.4.2.ip6.arpa [2401:7400:800:3::1]
  5     4 ms     4 ms     4 ms  2401:7400:0:1::33
  6     *        4 ms     4 ms  snge-b4-link.ip.twelve99.net [2001:2035:0:24c::1]
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8     *       80 ms     *     tky-b3-v6.ip.twelve99.net [2001:2034:0:27e::1]
  9   181 ms   181 ms   181 ms  port-b3-v6.ip.twelve99.net [2001:2034:0:281::1]
 10   181 ms   181 ms   181 ms  port-b2-v6.ip.twelve99.net [2001:2034:0:218::1]
 11   186 ms   185 ms   185 ms  sea-b3-v6.ip.twelve99.net [2001:2034:0:122::1]
 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *        *      239 ms  2402:4f00:1000:100::696
 16     *      246 ms     *     2402:4f00:1000:100::73e
 17   266 ms   262 ms     *     2409:8080:0:4:2f6:294:1:1
 18   248 ms   249 ms   263 ms  2409:8080:0:4:2c6:2f6:2:1
 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 20     *      286 ms   269 ms  2409:8080:0:1:205:703:0:1
 21   269 ms   263 ms   268 ms  2409:8080:0:2:703:773:0:1
 22   277 ms     *        *     2409:8070:a:3::7035
 23     *      267 ms   269 ms  2409:8087:7000:20::11

Trace complete.

ping 2409:8087:7000:20::11 -n 20

Pinging 2409:8087:7000:20::11 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=270ms
Request timed out.
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=277ms
Request timed out.
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=287ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=288ms
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=275ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=283ms
Request timed out.
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=285ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=273ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=267ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=267ms
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=268ms
Request timed out.
Reply from 2409:8087:7000:20::11: time=280ms
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 2409:8087:7000:20::11:
    Packets: Sent = 20, Received = 12, Lost = 8 (40% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 267ms, Maximum = 288ms, Average = 276ms

Seems like it went from M1 to one of their upstream IP transit provider, Arelion, then the rest is history.

Arelion (SG) > Arelion (Tokyo) > Arelion (Seattle) > China Mobile (HK) > China Mobile (China)

 

[lobukong]

So I don't have any reason to continue using M1 already.
Need some Sleeping Dragon and Young Phoenix in forum to email MR to support IPV6 on their gamer plan then.

 

[seowbin]

from m1 to this for example.

IP:	2409:8087:7000:20::11
Country:	China
State:	Beijing
City:	Beijing
Latitude:	39.9075
Longitude:	116.3971
ISP:	China Mobile Communications CorporationGet Protected Now!

got url to test download or not? or it's a video stream?

 

[lobukong]

got url to test download or not? or it's a video stream?

It's the first one in the iptv link list :
https://github.com/fanmingming/live/blob/main/tv/m3u/ipv6.m3u

 

[seowbin]

i think cannot work like that leh

i have server that is using china mobile ipv6, can ping , can download the m3u file but can't open the stream also via vlc player

 

[lobukong]

The author just updated the repo and many channels seem to work pretty well, using PotPlayer, Singtel native IPV6 (not 6rd IPv6, not deployed to all Singtel customers yet).
https://github.com/fanmingming/live/blob/0f15d392f30cdd87310e6f2de0f1e938a139587e/tv/m3u/ipv6.m3u

According to Xiaofan's testing on post #46, singtel native ipv6, the iptv seems to work pretty well.

Edit: But VLC probably is not working. All the good results are tested using potplayer.

 

[xiaofan]

i think cannot work like that leh

i have server that is using china mobile ipv6, can ping , can download the m3u file but can't open the stream also via vlc player

Use PotPlayer and try again.

VLC does not work for me either.

Not all the channels work well though. For example, CCTV1 and CCTV 5+ seem to be choppy now.

Again, as I mentioned before, no point to use such play list as it will change often and usually the author can not catch up. Use official app and pay for the China VPN instead.

 

[seowbin]

Initially I thought it is china mobile side congested when returning traffic to SG, so I cheated a bit by sending traffic directly to them. Latency dropped to 80+ms.

CCTV1 works flawlessly. Windows resource monitoring showing around 1,3xx,xxx kind of thing .

When I removed the cheat, by sending it far away, it still works well

If I start a new session directly via a longer path (higher latency), max I can get is 1,0xx,xxx . Can't remember it is bps or what.

In summary, seems like it is due to http /tcp issue. Cannot scale up to higher transfer rate with higher latency network.

 

[lobukong]

Initially I thought it is china mobile side congested when returning traffic to SG, so I cheated a bit by sending traffic directly to them. Latency dropped to 80+ms.

CCTV1 works flawlessly. Windows resource monitoring showing around 1,3xx,xxx kind of thing .

When I removed the cheat, by sending it far away, it still works well

If I start a new session directly via a longer path (higher latency), max I can get is 1,0xx,xxx . Can't remember it is bps or what.

In summary, seems like it is due to http /tcp issue. Cannot scale up to higher transfer rate with higher latency network.

may I know how to cheat and get 80+ms?
I tried Hurricane Electric Free IPv6 Tunnel Broker just now, it's ok for local traffic but even worse for traffic to China.

 

[Mach3.2]

Hurricane Electric

They are essentially taking the same path as M1 IPv6.

atlas (2001:470:xxxx:xxxx::xxxx:xxxx) -> 2409:8087:7000:20::11 (2409:8087:7000:20::11)    2024-02-23T01:14:10+0800
Keys:  Help   Display mode   Restart statistics   Order of fields   quit
                                                                    Packets               Pings
 Host                                                             Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. xxxxxxx-1.tunnel.tserv25.sin1.ipv6.he.net                      0.0%   101    5.5   6.4   4.5  17.3   2.1
 2. (waiting for reply)
 3. snge-b5-link.ip.twelve99.net                                  87.0%   101    4.3   4.3   3.5   7.2   1.1
 4. snge-b7-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                    93.0%   101    4.9   6.7   4.0  18.8   5.4
 5. tky-b3-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                      0.0%   101   76.0  78.4  74.9 120.6   5.5
 6. port-b3-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                     0.0%   101  184.2 183.5 180.7 209.2   3.9
 7. port-b2-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                     0.0%   100  182.9 185.2 182.3 225.8   5.4
 8. sea-b3-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                      0.0%   100  187.8 186.9 184.9 200.6   2.6
 9. sea-b2-link.ip.twelve99.net                                   97.0%   100  234.1 227.2 223.3 234.1   6.0
10. chinamobile-ic342124-sea-b2.ip.twelve99-cust.net              89.9%   100  224.6 225.8 224.1 229.5   2.1
11. 2402:4f00:1000:100::d5                                        90.9%   100  225.7 225.7 222.8 229.1   2.0
12. 2402:4f00:1000:100::696                                       76.8%   100  233.0 228.8 226.0 237.3   2.6
13. 2402:4f00:1000:100::742                                       42.0%   100  412.4 411.2 408.8 418.2   2.3
14. 2409:8080:0:4:2f6:294:1:1                                     39.0%   100  247.6 247.9 245.1 257.8   2.6
15. 2409:8080:0:4:2c6:2f6:2:1                                     36.0%   100  391.0 392.5 390.2 398.9   2.1
16. 2409:8080:0:1:206:2c6::                                       28.0%   100  255.1 249.6 243.8 267.1   4.5
17. 2409:8080:0:1:206:704:0:1                                     36.0%   100  273.2 276.0 269.9 301.2   4.9
18. 2409:8080:0:2:704:774:1:1                                     35.0%   100  269.9 273.7 267.9 291.1   4.3
19. 2409:8070:a:4::7035                                           33.0%   100  274.2 276.6 273.8 286.4   2.4
20. 2409:8087:7000:20::11                                         42.4%   100  418.9 420.1 416.1 434.3   3.1

atlas2 (2401:7400:c80a:xxxx::xxxx:xxxx) -> 2409:8087:7000:20::11 (2409:8087:7000:20::11)2024-02-23T01:14:49+0800
Keys:  Help   Display mode   Restart statistics   Order of fields   quit
                                                                    Packets               Pings
 Host                                                             Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. 0.0.4.7.1.0.4.2.ip6.arpa                                       0.0%   101    0.1   0.1   0.1   0.3   0.1
 2. (waiting for reply)
 3. 0.0.4.7.1.0.4.2.ip6.arpa                                       0.0%   101    2.6   3.1   1.8  30.2   3.2
 4. 0.0.4.7.1.0.4.2.ip6.arpa                                       0.0%   101    7.7   4.2   2.4  22.5   2.7
 5. 2401:7400:0:1::f                                               0.0%   101    3.0   4.3   2.9  34.1   3.3
 6. snge-b4-link.ip.twelve99.net                                   4.0%   101    3.0   3.7   2.8   4.2   0.2
 7. snge-b7-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                    91.0%   101    4.6   4.5   4.2   5.0   0.2
 8. tky-b3-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                      0.0%   100   87.7  92.8  87.3 263.2  24.1
 9. port-b3-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                     0.0%   100  182.2 181.6 180.5 187.3   0.8
10. port-b2-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                     0.0%   100  181.2 181.9 180.3 208.6   4.7
11. sea-b3-v6.ip.twelve99.net                                      0.0%   100  182.1 182.4 181.9 183.5   0.3
12. sea-b2-link.ip.twelve99.net                                   93.9%   100  265.1 226.4 218.5 265.1  18.9
13. chinamobile-ic342124-sea-b2.ip.twelve99-cust.net              92.9%   100  213.9 214.3 212.9 215.0   0.7
14. 2402:4f00:1000:100::d5                                        81.8%   100  213.4 213.9 213.3 215.0   0.5
15. 2402:4f00:1000:100::696                                       69.7%   100  217.8 217.2 213.4 218.2   0.9
16. 2402:4f00:1000:100::73e                                       69.7%   100  243.6 244.4 242.9 245.5   0.6
17. 2409:8080:0:4:2f6:294:1:1                                     27.3%   100  248.4 245.8 243.2 248.6   0.8
18. 2409:8080:0:4:2c6:2f6:2:1                                     46.0%   100  249.1 246.1 243.3 249.1   0.8
19. 2409:8080:0:1:206:2c6::                                       36.0%   100  250.4 247.7 244.3 256.1   1.7
20. 2409:8080:0:1:206:704:0:1                                     37.4%   100  276.7 273.1 270.2 281.5   1.6
21. 2409:8080:0:2:704:774:1:1                                     35.4%   100  273.6 273.1 269.0 289.9   3.6
22. 2409:8070:a:4::7035                                           36.0%   100  280.7 274.7 272.9 281.2   1.7
23. 2409:8087:7000:20::11                                         30.3%   100  272.5 271.1 268.2 272.5   0.7

how to cheat and get 80+ms?

He doing his own traffic engineering

I pulled some IP addresses from atlas probes and collated the results, plus some results shared in this thread.

Ping RTT results are for IPv4. IPv6 could very well take another path, plus ISPs like myrepublic, simba and viewqwest doesn't offer IPv6.

 

[xiaofan]

Oops, after changing my OpenWRT virtual router from the old Intel J4105 mini PC (PVE 7.4) to Intel N100 mini PC (PVE 8.0), it seems to me I can no longer get Singtel Native IPv6 to work.

Today I reboot my Asus router and it seems to me I can not get Singtel Native IPv6 to work any more. The router and clients still get an IPv6 address but can not reach out to the IPv6 address over the internet.

Guess I have to wait for the issues to be sorted out by itself (not so sure how long).

Testing from router.

xiaofan@RT-AX86U-2D40:/tmp/home/root# ping -6 www.google.com
PING www.google.com (2001:4860:4802:32::78): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: Network is unreachable

 

[xiaofan]

Today I reboot my Asus router and it seems to me I can not get Singtel Native IPv6 to work any more. The router and clients still get an IPv6 address but can not reach out to the IPv6 address over the internet.

Guess I have to wait for the issues to be sorted out by itself (not so sure how long).

Ah, it is back after a while. Nice that it is working now.

xiaofan@RT-AX86U-2D40:/tmp/home/root# ping -6 www.google.com -c 6
PING www.google.com (2001:4860:4802:32::78): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 2001:4860:4802:32::78: seq=0 ttl=113 time=3.251 ms
64 bytes from 2001:4860:4802:32::78: seq=1 ttl=113 time=3.051 ms
64 bytes from 2001:4860:4802:32::78: seq=2 ttl=113 time=2.685 ms
64 bytes from 2001:4860:4802:32::78: seq=3 ttl=113 time=2.857 ms
64 bytes from 2001:4860:4802:32::78: seq=4 ttl=113 time=2.627 ms
64 bytes from 2001:4860:4802:32::78: seq=5 ttl=113 time=2.523 ms

--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 6 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 2.523/2.832/3.251 ms