I’ve used 6to4 in the past, which impressed me because of the simplicity of its configuration. It uses the specially assigned anycast IP address 192.88.99.1 to magically find the nearest 6to4 router.
Well, most of the time (like when we were signed up with iiNet), if you do a traceroute to 192.88.99.1, you’ll find that the nearest 6to4 router is somewhere in Antarctica, or some lunar base on the Moon — and latency is terrible.
If you’re an Internode customer, you’ll know that they already provide IPv6 access to their customers, but the only documented way for non-Ethernet customers to get on IPv6 is via a Gateway6 tunnel broker that they provide, which is a bit painful to configure.
Well, just out of curiosity, I thought I’d do a traceroute 192.88.99.1, and lookie what I found:
traceroute to 192.88.99.1 (192.88.99.1), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 1.026 ms 3.103 ms 3.774 ms 2 lns10.syd7.internode.on.net (150.101.197.27) 30.188 ms 34.723 ms 39.424 ms 3 vl114.cor2.syd7.internode.on.net (150.101.120.166) 44.651 ms 49.756 ms 54.390 ms 4 gi6-0-0-102.bdr1.syd7.internode.on.net (150.101.120.169) 82.688 ms 87.482 ms 92.403 ms 5 pos2-3.bdr1.adl6.internode.on.net (203.16.212.22) 98.641 ms 111.468 ms 111.975 ms 6 gi1-22.cor1.adl6.internode.on.net (150.101.225.94) 120.101 ms 50.369 ms 52.897 ms 7 fa0-0.sixtofour.adl6.internode.on.net (150.101.1.165) 53.626 ms * *
Looks like Internode provide their own 6to4 router, of which the ping time is around 50msec. Awesome!
Wow, didn’t know they did that. time to edit the dd-wrt settings
I’m getting around 30ms which is cool (don’t know if it has anything to do with me being connected to syd6)
Where do you live in Sydney? You only get 10ms to the CBD — I get 30ms.
I live in Leichhardt (Inner west)
On my Comcast connnection, I get ~100ms ping to 192.88.99.1 and using tracepath, I see 12 hops. The tracepath ends at swip.net – I don’t even know who they are. So I guess Comcast doesn’t run their own 6to4. Knowing Comcast, I can’t say I’m surprised.
I’m trying to learn about networking and I’m trying to figure out why I have an instant connection to 192.88.99.1 if it’s in Australia since I live in (yes, this is for real) Sidney, Mt, USA.
If you in Australia are having latency, why don’t I? I’d really appreciate some help! Anyone know?
Thanx
Hi Shanna,
That’s because 192.88.99.1 is a special “anycast” address. Anycast means that when you try to access that anycast address, it’ll access the closest machine with that IP address. The reality is that there are many machines around the world that are 6to4 routers and have the IP address of 192.88.99.1. Whenever you try to access it, the routers upstream from you simply send you to the nearest one.