On 23 Apr 2011, at 23:29, Tom Hill wrote:

On Sat, 2011-04-23 at 13:09 -0500, Kevin Day wrote:

...

For those that don't know, World of Warcraft is currently the largest online role playing game, with somewhere over 12 million subscribers.

Version 4.1 of the game is expected to be released this Tuesday, which will be automatically pushed to all clients. The current Beta version of 4.1 has full IPv6 support. In the beta, it's automatically enabled if you have native IPv6 (non-6to4, non-Teredo). While Blizzard has been pretty silent about this, barring a last minute revert or delay of this patch, there are suddenly going to be a bunch more users that can potentially use IPv6. And these users are the type who are going to be especially sensitive to latency, jitter and packet loss, since this is a real-time game platform.

For those of you with Help Desks who have to support users like this, the associated setting in the game's Options menu is apparently called "Enable IPv6 when available". It's apparently grayed out if you do not have IPv6 at all, unchecked by default if you are on 6to4 or Teredo, and checked by default if you are on native v6. The tooltip says: "Enables the use of IPv6, the technology behind the next-generation Internet. Requires IPv6 connectivity to the internet. Checking this box without IPv6 connectivity may prevent you from playing WoW."

Anyone from Activision/Blizzard who would like to chime in with more details? :)

I can't say that I'm from Blizzard, but I'm *seriously* impressed by them for making this happen. Kudos to Blizzard!

Confirmed in patch notes: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/patch-notes/ptr-patch-notes Tim

On Apr 27, 2011, at 4:11 AM, Tim Chown wrote:

On 27 Apr 2011, at 00:21, Bernhard Schmidt wrote:

...

Kevin Day <toasty@dragondata.com> wrote: ... To get ahead of the issue, we've put an IPv6 option into the World of Warcraft interface with patch 4.1. So as IPv6 starts to become more widely available the game will already be prepared to handle the switch over. For most players, the IPv6 checkbox will remain grayed out until IPv6 becomes available in your area. Once available, enabling this feature will require WoW.exe to detect a valid IPv6 connection to the internet on the computer you are playing from.

At some point in the future, WoW realm servers will be able to use IPv6 in addition to the current IPv4. If IPv6 is enabled, the game will attempt to establish an IPv6 connection first. If unable to find an IPv6 connection, or if the IPv6 option is disabled/grayed out, the game will make an IPv4 connection instead. This should not cause any connection or performance issues. ---

"At some point in the future" does not sound like we will see much IPv6 traffic immediately, but who knows. Is anyone seeing some traffic that might point to IPv6 adoption on the servers?

I arranged a test this morning. With a laptop running 4.1 on a dual-stack network the IPv6 option is greyed out under Network Options.

I'm assuming your suggestion that the Blizzard servers are not yet enabled is probably correct, but that the clients now have capability.

Would be interesting to know what they consider a 'valid IPv6 connection'.

Tim

Well, with full native IPv6 on ethernet using ARIN direct assigned addresses, it's still grayed out. I'm going to send in a support request and ask why it doesn't work. Owen

Just grabbed the Trial and tested it. Verified that IPv6 is used for World of Warcraft on the Antonidas server. It works pretty well actually. I see they replicated their practice of dropping all ICMP traffic for IPv6. Not sure that's the best idea. Anyone know if they plan to leave it working now and possibly expand it too all their servers? Ray On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 6:33 AM, Frank Bulk <frnkblk@iname.com> wrote:

More here: http://ipv6.blizzard.com/

       To test IPv6 in World of Warcraft, you'll need to edit your        config.wtf file and add the following line:

               SET unlockIPv6 "1"

       This will activate the IPv6 features. If your computer has        a valid IPv6 address, you'll be able to check the "Enable        IPv6" checkbox from the Network options in the World of        Warcraft client. Once in the game, you'll be able to see        which type of connection the client has made to the realms        next to the latency information.

Frank

-----Original Message----- From: Kevin Day [mailto:toasty@dragondata.com] Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2011 1:10 PM To: NANOG list Subject: World of Warcraft may begin using IPv6 on Tuesday

For those that don't know, World of Warcraft is currently the largest online role playing game, with somewhere over 12 million subscribers.

Version 4.1 of the game is expected to be released this Tuesday, which will be automatically pushed to all clients. The current Beta version of 4.1 has full IPv6 support. In the beta, it's automatically enabled if you have native IPv6 (non-6to4, non-Teredo). While Blizzard has been pretty silent about this, barring a last minute revert or delay of this patch, there are suddenly going to be a bunch more users that can potentially use IPv6. And these users are the type who are going to be especially sensitive to latency, jitter and packet loss, since this is a real-time game platform.

For those of you with Help Desks who have to support users like this, the associated setting in the game's Options menu is apparently called "Enable IPv6 when available". It's apparently grayed out if you do not have IPv6 at all, unchecked by default if you are on 6to4 or Teredo, and checked by default if you are on native v6. The tooltip says: "Enables the use of IPv6, the technology behind the next-generation Internet. Requires IPv6 connectivity to the internet. Checking this box without IPv6 connectivity may prevent you from playing WoW."

Anyone from Activision/Blizzard who would like to chime in with more details? :)

-- Kevin

-- Ray Soucy Epic Communications Specialist Phone: +1 (207) 561-3526 Networkmaine, a Unit of the University of Maine System http://www.networkmaine.net/

On Jun 8, 2011, at 9:20 PM, Mark Andrews wrote:

It's *never* been a good idea let alone a best idea however it was the only solution to a problem in the last millinium and really should only be deploy to protect those 20 year old boxes that still have that problem.

Way to much of security so called "best practice" isn't and actually has deterimental effects that outweigh any benifits.

I'm not sure the best way to fix this as there's all these common misconceptions about technology out there. MYTHS: TCP/53 is only for zone transfers ICMP is a security risk/ddos avenue Internal networks must be secured with NAT A firewall is the only way to secure the perimiter In fact for IPv6, ICMP is more important vs less. Firewalls frequently harm and don't block data going out. TCP/53 is needed for EDNS. IPv6 doesn't have the concept of NAT, or at least not in the same way as people use 1918 space at home and in IT networks... I'm not sure the best way to deal with this. There's a lot of netadmins (perhaps myself included) that operate in a universe where they treat these items as fact, real and even on an audit-checklist. When it comes to enabling IPv6 on your NOC or corporate network, how will they respond? "Wait, they will have a globally routed IP address? How do I NAT that?" It does alter the environment of enforcing a security policy. Then again with all this "cloud" stuff (should that read return to mainframe processing days?), it may not matter as much since what you're securing will be "in the cloud", a remote location that has a pre-existing security policy that meets whatever your standards are (FIPS, FISMA, the auditors, etc..) - Jared