[asterisk-users] Asterisk IPv6 update - we need an update

[Olle E. Johansson]

Friends,

Before the Christmas holidays, I did send this letter and did not get a lot of response, but some. Since then, I've been able to get interest from a few parties that are willing to fund parts of this work, including Digium, the main sponsor of Asterisk. I will also apply for additional funding from a foundation here in Sweden and hope to get some more responses so that we can fund this project together. If anyone out there has interest or feedback regarding IPv6, Asterisk and VoIP, I'll be happy to get in contact.

I've documented some of my thoughts on how to proceed, based on the work already done by Marc Blanchet (and of course work together with him) on my blog, http://www.voip-forum.com/asterisk/2010-01/voip-users-care-ipv6/

My hope is that we can get this done and integrated in Asterisk 1.8, but that requires some immediate attention from the community, as well as help with testing and feedback when we start rolling. Marcs code is already out there, so you can start testing NOW in your IPv6-enabled network. http://www.asteriskv6.org/

IPv6 is a boring topic, and if you do it right, no one will thank you for it. It just needs to be done. My work with IPv6 started the summer of 1995 and since then people have been shouting "We need to migrate now!". We've done that so long so that no one listens any more and now it's getting really critical. The IP numbering authorities, like ARIN and RIPE, have already outlined how they will have to change procedures for IPv4 assignments every six months from now, making it harder and harder to get addresses. For VoIP - sip trunks, calling each other across the Internet, it's critical to have public IP addresses unless you want to stay with your lovely Telco on the other end of the copper cables. 

Personally, I'm not sure how to design software for this migration properly. In order to educate myself and collegues that develop and build SIP solutions, I'm going to organize an event this spring which combines testing and training. I do hope that the Asterisk community will join me and support the developer team in our efforts to make Asterisk - the leading Open Source PBX -  running perfectly well on both IPv4 and IPv6 networks.  It needs to be done, we will get it done. And no one will thank us for it, since everyone just expects Asterisk to work as we have done for the last 10 years...

With IPv6 greetings!

/Olle


Vidarebefordrat brev:

> Från: "Olle E. Johansson" <oej at edvina.net>
> Datum: 17 december 2009 09.39.40 CET
> Till: Asterisk Non-Commercial Discussion Users Mailing List - <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
> Ämne: [asterisk-users] Asterisk IPv6 update - we need an update
> Svara till: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
> 
> Friends,
> 
> At the first Astricon I was very happy to see Marc Blanchet as one of the attendees. I knew he was one of the IPv6 gurus and I wanted someone to show some interest in Asterisk and IPv6. 
> 
> Well, he did not only get interested in it, but started coding on it. The results have been available for quite some time at http://www.asteriskv6.org/ and Marc has tested it at several SIPits for interoperability.
> 
> This patch is very large and affects large areas of Asterisk. In order to support IPv6, we need to update the way we interact with sockets, with DNS, with URI's. The SIP channel needs to handle multiple UDP as well as TCP sockets in both protocols. The ACL's we use for all VoIP protocols and manager needs support for IPv6. And much more. 
> 
> Marc hasn't been able to spend time to keep it up to date with the everchanging trunk. 
> 
> I feel we need to move this forward and try to divide the large patch into smaller pieces that can be reviewed separately by the developer team and  be merged gradually. First, Marcs branch needs a serious overhaul to get up to date with trunk. In order to work on this, Marc and I needs funding. 
> 
> I have a few interested parties, but need more interested parties that can commit to funding during the first half of 2010 for this project.  It's not a small task, the current estimate is at least one month's work for each of us for updating, cutting it up, merging, going through the review process, testing and finalizing with new tests at SIPit or a similar event.
> 
> If your organization is interested, please let me know off list and we'll discuss from there. My e-mail is as always oej at edvina.net. Please don't hesitate to mail me with any questions you might have about this project.
> 
> Thank you for your support.
> 
> Best regards,
> /Olle