alt Hacker NewsActually yesterday I was at a client doing a demonstration. I am a software developer, but not an IT/network guy, so I just knew to connect to their network, look at ipconfig and tell them the IP of my computer so they could connect to my machine to test the software. I just look at it and said "i'm at zero point fifty four" (it was 192.168.0.54). How would this look in IPv6? (It's a genuine question, because from what I see it would be something like "i'm at f e seven four colon colon colon zero one a", it honestly adds friction.
Replies
If you have a Mac or Windows laptop, since they configure mDNS by default, you could say <my-machine>.local. The client will do a mDNS query and get your IPv4 or IPv6 address and connect.
That was the whole point of mDNS.
This will work even on a pure ipv6 network (with no hosts having ipv4 addresses).
Just as LAN addresses (link local) are usually 192.168.$x.$y and you are just passing $x.$y, with IPv6 they are usually `fe80::$z` and in theory you could just pass $z and the person on the other end can assume `fe80::`. Because of how double colon works $z could be just 54 in a similar situation (especially if link local addresses are statically assigned like most workplaces try to statically assign IPv4 addresses).
Same with ULA addresses like 10.$x.$y.$z for private networks. Most of those you can assume `fd$x::$z` and just need to pass whatever is on the other side of the double colons. (Where $x is optional and likely network-wide.)
mDNS autodiscovery by name would be my preferred solution, which should work by default on major OSes as long as the network operator or device administrator hasn't gone out of their way to break it. <yourhostname>.local
Like I said in my previous post, for the most part if you need to actually communicate the raw IP that probably means something has gone wrong and you're now troubleshooting with someone who should have access to a higher level view of the network where "the one ending in 3 charlie echo 5" should be more than sufficient just like it would be if you were communicating a MAC address while troubleshooting DHCPv4 issues.
In the 12 years I've had a dual-stack network I've never had to communicate a full IPv6 address verbally, but if I did I'd pretty much do it the same way I would an IPv4 address. One group at a time, with a pause implying the separator. If there was one or more zero subnets involved that could be shortened with double-colon I'd say that.
For example the record I just got back for Google of 2607:f8b0:4023:141b::71 I'd read off as:
two six zero seven (or maybe twenty-six oh seven)
foxtrot eight bravo zero
four zero two three (or maybe forty twenty-three)
one four one bravo
double colon
seven one
edit: HN makes it way harder than it should be to have multiple lines.