Talk:IPv6/Archives/2019

prefix delegation

As I understand it, Comcast delegates /60 for home users (that would be WP:OR as my home network works this way), and /56 for business users. (This is easier to find in Comcast documentation.) If someone can find an actual WP:RS (I looked but couldn't find one), it would be nice to add. Also, for other ISPs. Gah4 (talk) 09:18, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

64 KiB

An edit on 26 February 2018 changed the start of IPv6#Jumbograms from

IPv4 limits packets to 65,535 (2¹⁶−1) octets of payload. An IPv6 node can optionally handle packets over this limit, referred to as jumbograms, which can be as large as 4,294,967,295 (2³²−1) octets.

to

IPv4 limits packets to 65,535 (2¹⁶−1) octets (64 KiB - 1 byte) of payload. An IPv6 node can optionally handle packets over this limit, referred to as jumbograms, which can be as large as 4,294,967,295 (2³²−1) octets (4 GiB - 1 byte).

I was asked about my revert on my talk. The edit introduces too many parentheticals. Also, anyone familiar with what KiB/GiB mean would not need the extra information. Johnuniq (talk) 00:10, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

As already mentioned on the user's talk page standardised prefixes for units were invented for a reason. Sure, one can do the mental math 2³² = 2³⁰⁺² = 2²x2³² = 4x2³⁰ but that's why gibi was defined as 2³⁰ so one doesn't need to do these calculations every time they come across a large number. One can write 4GiB and while reading not get lost in powers or unneccessary zeros/digits/decimals denoting powers/orders.

I agree the extra parenthesis in the edit are ugly. If anything we need to find a good/better way to express "less 1 byte/octet".

2001:569:79AE:3200:64B2:F010:5811:AFCB (talk) 20:46, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I hope others join in but my feeling is that KiB/GiB is gibberish to all but a handful of techo types. However, if it were wanted, the way to say it might be in an additional sentence along the lines of "The payload for an IP packet therefore increases from almost 64 KiB using IPv4 to almost 4 GiB using IPv6." Hmm, "packet" is not right. That should be datagram. Johnuniq (talk) 22:29, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of binary kilo/giga either but we can't write 64KB or 4GB because it's technically incorrect eventhough all computer people would know what is meant by that. My point was that these bulk transfers will be used to transmit chunks of data (streamed video/audio, boot images, ...) and file sizes are normally given with prefix notation ("My JPG picture is 255KB big" - not "My JPG picture is almost 2¹⁸ octets big").

I don't have a problem with the suggested additional sentence mentioning KiB/GiB. Another proposed wording: "The payload for an IP packet therefore increases from 64 KiB (less 1 byte) using IPv4 to 4 GiB (less 1 byte) using IPv6."

2001:569:79AE:3200:35C4:2CDF:990A:B0CA (talk) 09:40, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to also point out this sentence in IPv6#Packet_format: "Without special options, a payload must be less than 64KB. With a Jumbo Payload option (in a Hop-By-Hop Options extension header), the payload must be less than 4 GB."

2001:569:79AE:3200:35C4:2CDF:990A:B0CA (talk) 06:21, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

• Support version without KiB and GiB. The two-to-the-n notation makes the 16-bit and 32-bit limits crystal clear; the KiB and GiB notations require conversion to make that clear despite the notation being precise. The Ki/GiB notation is also jarring. I dislike KiB notation in general. For current engineering purposes, the differences are small enough to be insignificant. Brickbats to the marketing guys at the disk drive manufacturers. Glrx (talk) 00:39, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

• Support version without KiB and GiB - I have seen previous consensus that these binary units, for the reasons Johnuniq mentions at the outset here, are rarely helpful in the context of Wikipedia articles. It's a shame since they are a more concise representation in cases like this but we can't assume enough reader familiarity for them to stand alone. ~Kvng (talk) 13:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Laudable removal of unsourced information

Well done: Special:Diff/903991159/906389147

~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:24, 15 July 2019 (UTC)