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I want to move the whole home network to IPv6. It is possible, but is it practical to disable IPv4 on your machine in favor of IPv6 implementation as of writing? The first effect that I observed was that most websites stopped working. Maybe because their domain names didn't have AAAA record?

I also have some private services in my home, which currently rely on DNAT (port forwarding) from the router to work. IPv6 explicitly forbids NAT, because the network prefix is always 64-bit, leaving another plenty 64-bit for host addresses. For some reason, my ISP assigns dynamic IPv6 address for my router - it changes after each reboot and even the first 48-bit routing prefix changes. They don't even bother to tell me how many of the 16-bit subnet is available to use.

With the current situation, is that practical if I move my PCs and servers to IPv6 only? And if it is, what consequences should I expect?

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IPv6 explicitly forbids NAT

It doesn't so much forbid NAT as just makes NAT unnecessary. (Most of the time.) NAT is nevertheless implementable in the same way, and indeed already implemented in Linux netfilter (iptables/nft). 1:1 NAT is even a commonly suggested approach to multihoming.

Several v4-v6 interoperability mechanisms are also based on NAT, specifically NAT64 (which is a different beast than the typical "masquerading", but NAT nevertheless).

It's true that due to large addresses there are very few use cases for 1:many NAT and "port forwarding" in IPv6, but unfortunately sometimes it's actually the lesser evil when dealing with not-very-competent providers.

because the network prefix is always 64-bit

No, that is only required by SLAAC address auto-assignment, and then not by all implementations anymore (RFC 7721 removed the main reason for it to be mandatory in SLAAC). Networks with static or DHCPv6 address assignment – or L3-only VPNs – can use any prefix length.

For some reason, my ISP assigns dynamic IPv6 address for my router - it changes after each reboot and even the first 48-bit routing prefix changes

Some ISPs do that – for "privacy" or because they want to charge extra for static prefixes on a business plan.

However, make sure it's not the router's fault – it has to remember its own DHCP DUID ("client ID") across reboots.

They don't even bother to tell me how many of the 16-bit subnet is available to use.

It's generally simply all or nothing:

If you used DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation to get a /48, then you can use the whole /48 (except perhaps for a single subnet that is used on the router's WAN side – this is ISP-dependent). And the number of /64s in a /48 is always exactly 2^(64-48).

If you got a smaller prefix via DHCPv6-PD (like a /56 or /60), then you can only use that prefix – the rest of the /48 is not yours at all. For that matter, there might not even be a distinct /48 – the ISP can route at any boundary it wants.

If the ISP assigned you a prefix statically, then you also have the entire prefix to use.

If you didn't use DHCPv6-PD or some other explicit arrangement, then you have no LAN prefix at all.

With the current situation, is that practical if I move my PCs and servers to IPv6 only? And if it is, what consequences should I expect?

At first you will become unable to access a significant part of the Internet due to many sites being IPv4-only to this day, and you will eventually resort to using NAT64 or a similar transition mechanism.

NAT64 means that your PC and the rest of your actual LAN can remain purely IPv6, but you'll still need that one gateway machine that can do IPv4.

Maybe because their domain names don't have AAAA record?

Yes, and in many cases their hosting providers don't provide IPv6 connectivity in the first place. (Some sites work around this by using Cloudflare as the frontend, though.)

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The IPv4 to IPv6 transition has been designed to NOT require switching off IPv4. Most people are expected to have both available for the foreseeable future. IPv6 use is expected to grow, and IPv4 use is expected to shrink, and eventually, IPv4 will "die on the vine", where it never gets used anymore so no one notices that they haven't sent or received IPv4 traffic in a long time even though they'd never "turned it off".

There are still lots of IPv4-only sites and services today. The Internet is not usable without access to IPv4-only sites.

If you really wanted to eliminate IPv4 from your LAN for giggles, you would need a NAT64 gateway somewhere between your LAN and the IPv4 Internet. NAT64 is a transition mechanism allowing IPv6-only devices on your LAN to be able to reach IPv4-only hosts on the Internet by way of a NAT64 gateway box that does the translation for them.

T-Mobile in the US gives out only IPv6 addresses to your smartphone, but they have a NAT64 gateway in place so that you should never notice that your smartphone is going "IPv6 only", since it will still reach IPv4-only hosts via the NAT64 gateway.

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    +1 for NAT64. NAT64+DNS64 appears to be the best transitional mechanism, giving the illusion that all websites are IPv6-ready. Because native IPv4 is disabled with NAT64, it helps to identify "bad" devices which do not understand IPv6, or "bad" apps which have hardcoded IPv4 literals. They will not work, in which case you complain and ask for firmware / software updates from the vendor, or replace them with something else. This makes NAT64 excellent for making sure everything you own is 100% IPv6-ready through and through. Commented Apr 8, 2020 at 5:44
  • It's amazing how IPv6, a protocol designed in the last century (!) — 1998, according to Wikipedia — intended to replace IPv4 'progressively'... is still not fully replaced, a quarter of a century after having been first introduced. But aye, yay for NAT64 and similar technologies... designed to be 'temporary kludges' during a 'transition phase', which, however... became 'permanent fixtures' instead! Commented Mar 20, 2023 at 0:29
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    @GwynethLlewelyn Apparently the last significant consumer product that doesn’t support IPv6 is Roku devices (shame on them). Other than that, all residential ISPs and other access networks could go IPv6-only just like T-Mobile has been for years. I’m not sure what it will take to push small websites to support IPv6. IPv4 is still easier to work with because of address memorability, if nothing else.
    – Spiff
    Commented Mar 20, 2023 at 7:43
  • Shame on Roku indeed :) While I do agree that IPv4 addresses are way easier to 'remember', configuring IPv4 automatically on a network is still much harder than IPv6, so one would imagine that manufacturers would prefer to support a no-frills IPv6 configuration management (as opposed to worrying about ARP, DHCP & friends...). But very likely there are gazillions of cheap implementations for IPv4 configuration (after so many decades...) and manufacturers couldn't care less... oh well. Perhaps we'll learn the lesson for IPv8 :) Commented May 5, 2023 at 15:19

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