> We cannot issue an IPv4 address to each machine without blowing out the cost of the subscription. We cannot use IPv6-only as that means some of the internet cannot reach the VM over the web. That means we have to share IPv4 addresses between VMs.

Give a user a option for use IPv6 only, and if the user need legacy IP add it as a additional cost and move on.

Trying to keep v4 at the same cost level as v6 is not a thing we can solve. If it was we wouldn't need v6.

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asmor 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is great if you have IPv6 support from your ISP. Not so great if you don't.

Before someone mentions tunnels: Last time I tried to set up a tunnel Happy Eyeballs didn't work for me at all; almost everything went through the tunnel anyway and I had to deal with non-residential IP space issues and way too much traffic.

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jeroenhd 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

ISPs won't bother with IPv6 until they've either run out of IPv4 space or the internet starts to use IPv6's advantages.

Discussions about IPv6 quickly end with "we have enough v4 space and there are no services that require v6 anyway". As long as the extra cruft for v4 support remains free or even supported, large ISPs won't care. We're at the point where people need to deal with things like peer to peer connectivity with two sides behind CGNAT which require dedicated effort to even work.

I know it sucks if none of the ISPs in your area support IPv6 and you're left with suboptimal solutions like tunnels from HE, but I think it's only reasonable all this extra cost or effort becomes visible at some point. Half the world is on v6, legacy v4-only connections are becoming the minority now.

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rjsw 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I have has native IPv6 since 2010, from two different ISPs.

It is also available for one of my phone contracts but not tried enabling it yet.

	▲	mrjay42 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Well, you're very lucky (genuinely). In 2025, I tried to access my services using IPv6 with 4G phones and different subscriptions (different ISPs), fact is, many (most?) of them did not support IPv6 at all :( I had to revert to IPv4. And really I have nothing against IPv6, but yeah, as a simple user, self hosting a bunch of services for friends and family: it was simply just not possible to use only IPv6 :( (for context, the 4G providers are French, in metropolitan France)
	▲	ralferoo 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Conversely, I had IPv6 for about 5 years from an ISP and when I switched providers, the new ISP was IPv4 only. A few years later and they now support IPv6, but my firewall setup is now IPv4 only, so I've not bothered to update it.

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miyuru 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I complained as a yearly tradition for couple of years to get v6 enabled in my ISP. They had the core network enabled on World IPv6 Launch in 2012, but not deployed to end customers.

One simple way to check if your ISP have some kind of IPv6 netowork is to see if CDN domains given by YouTube and Facebook have AAAA records.

We shouldn't have to ask for ISPs to add IPv6 support but here we are.

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rwmj 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Are there really ISPs that don't support IPv6? I've had IPv6 from various ISPs since around 2010, and even my phone gets an IPv6 address from the cellular network.

	▲	TobTobXX 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes and it's ANNOYING. In Switzerland there is literally not one cellular network that issues IPv6 addresses. Also my workplace network (a school using some sort of Microslop solution) doesn't issue IPv6es. I have a IPv6-only VPN with some personal services. Theoretically, the data can be transported via IPv4, but Android doesn't even query AAAA records if it doesn't have a route for [::]/0. So when I'm not home, I can't reach my VPN servers, because there is supposedly no address. (I fix it by routing all IPv6 traffic through my VPN. Just routing connectivitycheck may suffice though).

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johannes1234321 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They could have done that in addition (and maybe they do), but for some of their customers it then may not work, for reasons hard to understand as a customer. Especially when changing locations frequently it may sometimes work and sometimes not ... not good for keeping customers

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jcgl 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You could also provide a dual stack jump host. Then v4-only clients just set the ProxyJump option to get to all the v6-only hosts via the jump host.

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YesThatTom2 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is the way.

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TZubiri 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Op solved a problem and your comment is "I wouldn't have solved the problem".

>legacy IP

lol

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9dev 7 hours ago | parent [-]

It's a nice solution for sure, but a problem by choice. You could just have an AAAA record for the domain in addition to the A record, and as GP pointed out, resolve SSH sessions via the IPv6. If the user wants SSH to work with IPv4 for whatever reason—I see the point that there may be some web visitors without IPv6 still, but devs?—they could pay a small extra for a dedicated IPv4 address.

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michaelt 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Products targeted at developers like to get a foothold in large corporations "by stealth" - let the developers experience what a great product it is first, before they have to do the approval paperwork.

With this IPv4 trick, if your employer or university only provides IPv4 you can use the product anyway.

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lifthrasiir 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They could buy a dedicated IPv4 address, but that address still has to be tunneled through [EDIT:] IPv6 networks if that dev has no access to [EDIT:] IPv4 networks. Thus DX still suffers. [ADDENDUM: I mistakenly swapped "IPv4" and "IPv6" there. See comments.]

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9dev 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure I understand your point; if exe.dev operates a dedicated IP solely so a specific mythical IPv6-less developer can connect to a specific server, then there's no tunnelling involved at all.

	▲	lifthrasiir 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Oops, I think I mixed up two sentences in the middle. A fixed comment is available. But I also probably misinterpreted what you were saying: > they could pay a small extra for a dedicated IPv4 address. Did you mean that the dedicated IPv4 address to connect via SSH? Then my objection doesn't apply.