-1

Recently a friend of mine moved his site to new hosting, and it was Linode (at Newark), which offered IPv6 as well as IPv4.

As we all know the latest fashion is to support IPv6, so he enabled it on server and added corresponding AAAA-records, and then we both got a discussion on whether IPv6 site should be "tied" to the same hostname (URL) as IPv4 one.

Simple to say, should the site be available under www.domain.tld both via IPv4 and IPv6, or there should better be different subdomain for IPv6 (like use www.domain.tld for IPv4 and something like ipv6.domain.tld for IPv6 version)?

If you ask me, I'd like to see both version under the same name, plus it weaves the risk of Google ban one version for "copy content from another site". But then, I also believe that IPv6 not always run as fast as IPv4 (so far), so establish different names may help.

What you say? What would you do if it was your site? And are there any best-practice guides of how to implement IPv6 on sites?

Thank you in advance! This is my first question I ask here so home I won't break the rules, but I can't find much info on subject.

Brian Tompsett - 汤莱恩
  • 5,753
  • 72
  • 57
  • 129
Alexander
  • 464
  • 1
  • 5
  • 17
  • There's no programming aspect to this question, so I think it is more appropriate for serverfault.com. I've voted to migrate it there, if enough others agree it will be moved automatically. – Flexo Jul 28 '11 at 09:37

1 Answers1

1

The end result should be to run the site on the same hostname for both IPv4 and IPv6. Offering IPv6 only under a separate name will make the site unreachable for future IPv6-only users. They will not explicitly type ipv6.example.com to reach the IPv6 version of the site, and all links to the site will point to www.example.com, not ipv6.example.com. The same goes for people that have bad (Carrier Grade NAT/NAT444) IPv4 connectivity and good IPv6 connectivity. They won't be able to benefit from IPv6.

Testing the IPv6 setup with a separate hostname is ok, but just for testing.

If the ISP that provides the connection to the web server offers IPv6 connectivity it should be as good and as fast as the IPv4 connectivity. If it is not they are not doing their job properly ;-)

And yes: I run all my websites with both IPv4 and IPv6 on one hostname :-)

Sander Steffann
  • 9,509
  • 35
  • 40
  • Glad to see someone to prove mu point of view. If it only be possible to warn user who uses broken IPv6 support to inspect his/her connectivity (so user won't blame his IPv6 problems on site) :) – Alexander Jul 27 '11 at 09:02
  • True... Recent data shows that problems related to IPv6 brokenness are becoming less frequent, and World IPv6 Day has shown that it's not a huge problem. But if you are worried about this you can add some tests to your website that load 1x1 transparent pixel images from ipv4-only hostnames, ipv6-only hostnames and dual-stack hostnames. Then look at your log files or use javascript to measure the results and possibly warn the user about it. – Sander Steffann Aug 06 '11 at 15:24