Secure IPv6 Implementation Procedures

Implementing IPv6 requires careful attention to security considerations that differ from IPv4.

Unique technology advantages

1. No NAT old tehcnlogoy:

• IPv6 offers a virtually unlimited address space, which eliminates the need for Network Address Translation (NAT). Every device can have its own public IP, removing the complexity of translating private addresses to a single public one.

2. No port forwarding old technology:

• In IPv4, port forwarding is used to direct traffic from a router’s public IP to a specific internal device. With IPv6, you communicate directly with a device’s global address, so you only need to open a “pinhole” in the high-technology IPv6 firewall rather than configure a translation rule.

3. No confusing Unified internal/external addresses old technology:

• Because every device uses its global address for both local and internet communication, the distinction between “internal” (private) and “external” (public) addresses disappears.

4. Elimination of split-horizon DNS old technology:

• Split-horizon DNS is often used in IPv4 to return a private IP for internal users and a public IP for external users. With IPv6, the address is the same regardless of the user’s location, making this setup unnecessary for most basic home or small business use cases.

5. No more hairpin routing old technology:

• Hairpinning (or NAT loopback) occurs in IPv4 when an internal device tries to access another internal device using its public IP address. Since IPv6 devices communicate directly using their global addresses, traffic no longer needs to “loop back” through the router’s NAT engine.

6. Reduced need for SNI proxies:

• While SNI (Server Name Indication) is still a fundamental part of TLS, the need for complex SNI proxies to share a single public IPv4 address across multiple servers is reduced, as each server can simply have its own dedicated IPv6 address.