ROD TCP/IP Stack 7.04 released

You don’t have a routable IPv6 address, so it’s not going to work. As to why, I don’t know. The IPv6 address shown only has local significance.

In the Network Configuration, Interfaces, IPv6, do you have “Auto address” ticked? I have, but I don’t know whether the address really is being auto-assigned by the router, or whether it’s picking up the IPv6 address from the Hosts file – I don’t use DHCP for IPv4, and I have no idea if there is any interaction between IPv4 and IPv6 settings.

Might be interesting to try the same USB ethernet interface on the Pi that works. Is the Pi a 3 or earlier (USB-based) or Pi 4 (EtherGE)?

Also, I note the interface reported half-duplex which seemed a wee bit odd (although I haven’t checked mine to compare – am on a break over christmas). Does that change depending on USB port or USB ethernet adapter (if you have several)?

Also, what version of EtherUSB is reported please?

Do you have “Auto address” ticked?

Yes, that is ticked.

Might be interesting to try the same USB ethernet interface on the Pi that works. Is the Pi a 3 or earlier (USB-based) or Pi 4 (EtherGe)?

I have a Pi4 and and a Pi400, I’ll try the USB adapter on these and report back.

Also, I note the interface reported half-duplex which seemed a wee bit odd (although I haven’t checked mine to compare – am on a break over christmas). Does that change depending on USB port or USB ethernet adapter (if you have several)?

No, this doesn’t change on different ports, I have also tried another adapter and this reports the same. (Albeit the second adapter is the same make/model)
I have noticed in Network Configuration, Internet, Interfaces, Status – Full duplex is being reported here, but ifconfig is reporting half duplex? (Not sure if this is reporting correctly?)

Also, what version of EtherUSB is reported please?

This is version 7.04, (18 Dec 2023)

I’ve done some more testing with a Raspberry Pi4 and the USB ethernet adapter from the Pinebook Pro.
The USB adapter does exactly the same thing on the Pi4, where IPv6 doesn’t work and IPv4 does.

If I switch back to the onboard ethernet on the Pi4, both IPv4 and IPv6 work correctly.
So this looks like a possible issue with the USB adapter I have.

I also double checked the output from ifconfig using the onboard ethernet adapter on the Pi4, this also reports half-duplex, where as Network Configuration, Internet, Interfaces, Status – Reports full duplex!

What are the USB VID and PID?

Vendor ID: ASIX Elec Corp. 0b95
Product ID: AX88772A 7720

Rob: Find your IPv6 prefix from a working IPv6 machine on your network, then try issuing this from a taskwindow:

*ifconfig ej0 inet6 1111:2222:3333:4444:1:2:3:4 prefixlen 64

where 111:2222:3333:4444 is your prefix. Then you can do

*ifconfig ej0

and the IPv6 address you’ve just given should appear there. If it does, you can try to ping6 something. If it doesn’t appear, I think you need to report a bug.

You can of course put pretty much whatever you like in the second half of the address, except something that clashes with another device on your LAN.

I still have a lot of basic stuff to learn about IPv6, so I don’t know if assigning an IPv6 address like that makes it routable to and from the outside world. Perhaps Mr. Pampling can help?

Rob: you should also look at your router, or whatever assigns IP addresses on your network. Make sure it’s set to assign addresses, and you can try stateless, stateful or both.

Mine was set to Stateless; the help for that states “In Stateless mode, addresses are self assigned by the device using IPv6 Autoconfiguration.” My Ubuntu box is set to “IPv6 Method” “Automatic”, and it gets a new IPv6 address every tie it boots up. My RasPi has an IPv6 address entry in its Hosts file, and it gets that same IPv6 address every time it boots up. I’ve just set the router’s IPv6 address assignments to “Both” and I’ll see how it goes for me.

Has anyone tried the ROD stack, in general, with the EtherWILC Elesar WiFi HAT?

I saw it mentioned in the readme last version, but just haven’t gotten around to it myself.

I still have a lot of basic stuff to learn about IPv6, so I don’t know if assigning an IPv6 address like that makes it routable to and from the outside world.

fe80: is the start of a local prefix, never routed.
2001: is the start of a global prefix, globally routed (BT would show you a 2a00: – in fact the WAN interface is a good example)

To go from one to the other you would need Network Prefix Translation (NPT is IPv6 equivalent of the IPv4 NAT sort of…)

Nice sequence of articles: https://www.networkacademy.io/ccna/ipv6/what-is-ipv6

You’re currently focussed on stuff in the Stateless or Stateful

My RasPi has an IPv6 address entry in its Hosts file

likely to be ::1 for the localhost loopback address

Mine was set to Stateless; the help for that states “In Stateless mode, addresses are self assigned by the device using IPv6 Autoconfiguration.”

If that’s a default BT Homehub I believe the text you see is (in full):

When Stateful mode is selected, addresses are assigned via DHCP.
In Stateless mode, addresses are self-assigned by the device using IPv6 Autoconfiguration.

Emphasizing the DHCP.
Since the DHCP on the router ties in to the DNS on the router, I think you would find that if you allow A.N.Other device to pick up a DHCP address and then from a PC¹ an NSLOOKUP of the FQDN of that device will resolve the local IP²
If you have IPv6 enabled internally then you should get both an IPv4, and an IPv6 in the resolve, which will make experimenting with stuff that needs a name resolve a lot easier.

¹ Sorry, folks, but the diagnostics on RO are a bit limited.

There was the question about, if the new Internet Stack works with the Ether-Wilc WiFi Hat?

Here on my PiTop (RPi-2B) it works perfect. Ethernet is faster, connects faster and more reliable as before.

Ether- Wilc WiFi Hat, on the Pi2.

I am using it at the end of the range of my router, 20cm more, and there is no wifi receivable animore (all devices, mobile-phones, notebooks…)

Neat. An older version wasn’t compatible so it’s good to hear that it works now.

Here on my PiTop (RPi-2B) it works perfect. Ethernet is faster, connects faster and more reliable as before.

Oh good to hear, will give it a go, I’m using a Pi 3A, so the HAT is the only networking on it.

My RasPi has an IPv6 address entry in its Hosts file

likely to be ::1 for the localhost loopback address

No, it’s the one that raspi-davidhigton.dynv6.net resolves to.

It was probably assigned by SLAAC in the early days of my testing experimental versions of the stack. I assume that it has remained constant because of the entry in the Hosts file.

While we’re talking about assignment of IPv6 addresses: RISC OS only recognises SLAAC, but Ubuntu doesn’t include SLAAC among its options in the IPv6 tab of network setup. It does include Automatic, but are they the same thing? (Multiple names for the same thing, but no standard choice, is one of my pet peeves.) My router only gives options of Stateless and Stateful.

SLAAC is StateLess Address Auto-Configuration, so I guess thats automatic and/or stateless, depending on what you are looking at.

Looks like ROD have removed the 7.04 download for the time being.

SLAAC is StateLess Address Auto-Configuration, so I guess thats automatic and/or stateless, depending on what you are looking at.

The trouble is that, although there is a specification for SLAAC, the title Automatic is (to my mind, anyway) too generic. One could automatically assign an address by thinking of a random number and checking that it doesn’t conflict with anything else on the LAN. But equally, maybe Ubuntu’s Automatic == SLAAC.

Stateless is a much less common word, so I’m more inclined to think that the router’s Stateless == SLAAC.

Looks like ROD have removed the 7.04 download for the time being.

Oh dear. I wonder why?

Anyway, I’ve got it and I’m running it as standard, so I think myself lucky; and I’m trying to develop stuff based on it.

My understanding of IPv6 is that stateless means “client makes it up on its own”, where as stateful is something like DHCP. Both of which could be Automatic. So yea, it’s not exactly helpful wording.

One could automatically assign an address by thinking of a random number and checking that it doesn’t conflict with anything else on the LAN

That’s part of what SLAAC does, just less efficiently than DHCP and without any DNS server involvement, so more limited. I tend to think of SLAAC as a sort of equivalent to the IPv4 APIPA in some respects

Q. Do all your devices using IPv6 pick up addresses with first 48 bits as: 2a00:23c7:220f:5801 if you enable the IPv6 DHCP in the router? Just curious.

For clarity, we disabled the download of 7.04 due to the issue with C library versions – it is important to us that everyone can use the new stack without issue, not just people with the latest beta OS downloads etc. To avoid people having difficulties during the holiday period (when we are unavailable to provide support etc), we felt it was best to remove it until we return to work.

In reality, there is a replacement download waiting in the wings, but we decided to learn lessons from the first 7.04 release and double check it before re-release. We intend to send it to testers this week, although early results from affected users are promising.

Happy New Year from us all, and we look forward to resuming normal service next week.

Another interesting snippet of news:

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/01/17/116235/brace-yourself-ipv6-is-coming

The first comment sums up my feelings perfectly…

If all of the advertising folks and other BS moves on to IPV6 with the rest, I’ll be happy to stay on the OldNet and forgotten.

Trouble is that, when they move there, it will be in addition to anywhere on IPv4 that there’s life. So there’s no escape from advertising or “other BS”.

More’s the pity.

In my student days, I made a film that pointed out that advertising was everywhere and inescapable. Sort of a lowest-possible-key protest against it. But I still hate advertising to this day – all of it.

Edit: Oops – Aldershot…

Anyway, it’s just more evidence that IPv6 is important, and will be increasingly so, so we’d better embrace it.