RVS4000 and IPv6

[tjkintz99]

I am having lots of problems with the Win7 Homegroup feature which requires IPv6. I have an access point attached to the 4000 with three laptops connected through that and a wired desktop connected directly to the 4000. Homegroup seems to be stable when only the laptops join the Homegroup. When the desktop joins things start to get flaky. The usual problem is that not all Homegroup members can see each other and the combinations of which can see which change. I have installed all the latest updates, firmware and drivers. I have searched the Internet extensively for clues and I found some suggesting router issues, although no mention of the RVS4000. Does anyone have any experience with IPv6 and the 4000? Does anyone have any experience with Win7 Homegroups and the 4000? Any suggestions to find the problem?

[Alejandro Gallego]

Don't have answers to most of your questions but if you feel that the problem may be with IPv6, then you are in luck, the RVS4000 is a Dual-Stack router. From the setup page (default first page when you log in) go to the bottom and enable IPv6. That should solve the issue.

With OS X (10.5 and later) Vista and W7, IPv6 is very much part of their networking structure, but not all devices understand v6. This is not always a problem so long the application making the request does so in both, v4 and 6. Firefox makes DNS queries in v6, which can allow it to respond faster. Unfortunately that does not always work out.

[tjkintz99]

Thanks. I probably should have mentioned that I had dual stack turned on otherwise Homegroup would not function at all. All devices are on computers less than a year old and have IPv6 protocol installed and functional.

Your DNS comment raises a question. The router only allows IP6 on the LAN, not the WAN. The configuration calls for a DNS server which is blank. The help text says that the DNS server needs to be specified but help text frequently has errors.  Win7 has a DNS client service but no DNS server service. Where is the IP6 DNS server located that you refer to?

[Alejandro Gallego]

What I was saying is just that by default Firefox and other browsers will perform DNS queries using IPv6 first. This is not to imply that we need to install or point the router to a dedicated v6 Name Server. Most sites already have a "AAAA" (quad A) host record, and making the request for this record instead of an "A" record (IPv4) can be faster; and in most cases it is. That happens at the ISP level, and "we" do not need to specify an IPv6 DNS server. In your case where all the needed information is local, your router IS the IPv6 DNS server, technically speaking.

The main thing is that you are able to communicate via IPv6 locally. Here is a link to "root-servers.org" for IPv6 addressing of name servers. One very important thing is that root servers are really not meant for us little people to make requests to, those queries are done at the ISP level.

I will take a look at this shortly and see if I am able to find more information. If you can make sure logging is turned on so we can take a look at the logs when this occurs, as they can very useful.

http://www.root-servers.org/

[alissitz · Accepted solution]

Some good comments on IPv6.

For IPv6 Internet access, you will likely need to use one of the free tunnel brokers and configure your local router to tunnel and route all traffic to the tunnel broker.

Not something Homegroups is meant to provide.

Homegroups is a local only sharing service between PCs.  Domain controllers can join and see / access the other resources, but other PCs will not see the domain controller or be able to access the shares via Homegroups.  At least this is how it is supposed to work.  We would not want Homegroups to break all of our security ...

Below are some links that might help.  The first is one shows the wireless modem is suspect, but Microsoft thinks it is really a firewall or IPv6 problem.

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7network/thread/481ff040-56ef-427d-a447-a01847c37d5f

This second link is for when IPv6 is not working properly.

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7network/thread/0a1a90e5-cba9-41af-a781-c4cf41244597

Homegroups does not need anything from our router since it is using only link local addressing.  It does not require or have any knowledge of IPv6 global addressing, no worries from the router and no real reason to enable IPv6.

If you have 'islands' of IPv6 at your separate offices, then you might want to enable dual stack and create a tunnel between sites.  This does not sound like what you are asking.

Do please check these links and let us know!  Kindest regards and I hope this helps,

Andrew Lee Lissitz

[tjkintz99]

Quite an IP6 learning experience today. Thanks for the information and pointers. You were right that Homegroup does not need dual stack to be turned on. I was grasping at straws when I started looking at the router anyway. Based on my experiences and the experiences of lots of others that I have found trying to solve Homegroup problems, I am just going to conclude that Homegroup is not ready for prime time and stop using it. I can get Homegroup to work partially but it is just not stable and its error states are not deterministic. Some of the Homegroup computers can see some of the other Homegroup computers some of the time but it seems it is never the case that all of the computers can see all of the computers all of the time.  I have always used a workgroup anyway so that is what I will go back to.

[alissitz]

Yes, I think Homegroups might need a little more work before being completely "as advertised".  I do like the idea of it though, and I think Microsoft is on to something by having this be enabled by default on some platforms; just needs a little more work.  Each home network or small business can easily create and have a local-only network.  

I would not completely give up on IPv6 though, as you can still manually configure IPv6 and also sharing.  Just a few more steps to go through ...

A couple of side notes:

1) Your IPv4 security does not have any affect on IPv6 traffic.  For example, if you have IPv4 port based or ACL based security, this will not have any affect on IPv6.  You will need IPv6 aware routers and switches to fully secure your IPv6 network with similar port based and ACL.  Of course I would suggest Cisco routers and switches, and firewalls for this as Cisco has been doing IPv6 for many years and years ...

2) Support for IPv6 across all the devices may be limited.  For example, if you have a server or network attached storage, do these at least support IPv6 host mode? Adding a protocol stack or reconfiguring network devices is not always suggested for a live network ... "buyer beware"

Always having a IPv4 workgroup sounds like a good option as well for your smaller networks, and of course there is plenty of support for any and everything.

Just some thoughts, have a great night,

Andrew

[kobilraz1]

Based on my experience there is nothing faulty in the HomeGroup software. I had it working for years on a very old and simple router, so there is no reason why it should not run on a newer router. I have just opened a discussion on my experience with HomeGroup and a similar router, and have evidence that it is the router's fault somehow. Your experience thoughts and support would be appreciated to help me sort out this HomeGroup (and probably Remote Desktop and other MS-Win features) once and for all. Here is a link to my discussion: