Friday 20 November 2009

New Google IPv6 addresses for Europe

Previously Google advertised addresses from 2001:4860:a005::/48. Since today they have switched to 2a00:1450:8001::/48 (IE-GOOGLE-20091005 aka Google Ireland Limited)

www.google.com. www.l.google.com. 2a00:1450:8001::67 2a00:1450:8001::68 2a00:1450:8001::69 2a00:1450:8001::6a 2a00:1450:8001::93 2a00:1450:8001::63

mail.google.com. googlemail.l.google.com. 2a00:1450:8001::13 2a00:1450:8001::53 2a00:1450:8001::11 2a00:1450:8001::12

code.google.com. code.l.google.com. 2a00:1450:8001::64 2a00:1450:8001::65 2a00:1450:8001::66 2a00:1450:8001::71 2a00:1450:8001::8a 2a00:1450:8001::8b

images.l.google.com. 2a00:1450:8001::93 2a00:1450:8001::63 2a00:1450:8001::67 2a00:1450:8001::68 2a00:1450:8001::69 2a00:1450:8001::6a

docs.google.com. writely.l.google.com. 2a00:1450:8001::8a 2a00:1450:8001::8b 2a00:1450:8001::64 2a00:1450:8001::65 2a00:1450:8001::66 2a00:1450:8001::71

news.google.com. news.l.google.com. 2a00:1450:8001::63 2a00:1450:8001::67 2a00:1450:8001::68 2a00:1450:8001::69 2a00:1450:8001::6a 2a00:1450:8001::93

blogsearch.google.com. www2.l.google.com. 2a00:1450:8001::69 2a00:1450:8001::6a 2a00:1450:8001::93 2a00:1450:8001::63 2a00:1450:8001::67 2a00:1450:8001::68

wave.google.com. www4.l.google.com. 2a00:1450:8001::85 2a00:1450:8001::76

For the full list, I maintain a spreadsheet.

Tuesday 3 November 2009

Google over IPv6

Google has several websites that are available over IPv6. Unfortunately, unless your ISP's DNS server is on the Google whitelist you are restricted to IPv4 (except for ipv6.google.com), even if you have IPv6 connectivity from a tunnel provider such as SixXS or Hurricane Electric.

There are two ways around this:-

1. Change your DNS server to one that is white-listed by Google. Both SixXS [1] and Hurricane Electric [2] provide servers for their users.

2. Manually add the addresses to your hosts file (/etc/hosts or %WINDIR%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts). I maintain a list of the addresses at [3].

[1] http://ipv6gate.sixxs.net/tools/dnscache/
[2] 2001:470:20::2
[3] http://go.chaz6.com/8Aj or https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/chaz6.com/ccc?key=0AlcGce6kDLZIcHh4cl9hNU81dTA0dXFQSXdNWEFRRUE&hl=en

Friday 25 September 2009

DVB-T in Denmark with Linux

Recently I acquired a cheap USB DVB-T receiver for the purpose of mucking about with the TV stream here in Denmark. I had little success with it on my laptop running XP, but that is probably because the supplied software is pretty rubbish, and it didn't help that the laptop only supports USB 1.1. My target system is an Athlon 1800XP running OpenSUSE 11.1.

The device (EC168) does not have a native driver available, either in the default kernel or the kernel from the Kernel_HEAD repository, so I had to obtain it from http://linuxtv.org/hg/~anttip/ec168/ and compile it by hand, which was a simple task. I installed the driver and added the prerequisites to /etc/sysconfig/kernel. Upon restarting I was greeted with success:-

[ 11.488833] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-usb-ec168.fw'
[ 11.565348] dvb-usb: found a 'E3C EC168 DVB-T USB2.0 reference design' in warm state.
[ 11.580194] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
[ 11.736297] DVB: registering new adapter (E3C EC168 DVB-T USB2.0 reference design)
[ 11.923407] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (E3C EC100 DVB-T)...
[ 11.980465] ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[001106664566a90d]
[ 12.202109] MXL5005S: Attached at address 0xc6
[ 12.217079] dvb-usb: E3C EC168 DVB-T USB2.0 reference design successfully initialized and connected.
[ 12.232312] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_ec168

The next step is to scan for channels. The opensuse package "dvb" contains large number of frequency files, organized by country.

scan /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/dk-All > ~/.dvbrc

This is not necessary, but useful to work with some applications and is an easy way to check that things are working. If no channels are found you may need to use a better ariel.
Luckily I live in a place with a very strong signal so the supplied indoor antenna works perfectly. It is worth noting that the frequency file may be out of date. For example, where I live in Aalborg there is a multiplex on 810MHz run by Boxer, and this frequency is not in the file. I suggest consulting the organization responsible for managing allocation of frequencies in your country.

My intention is to stream the multiplex onto IP, and the best software for this is getstream from http://silicon-verl.de/home/flo/projects/streaming/. I also applied this patch to enable streams to be viewed over IPv6. A copy of my configuration can be obtained here. I split each programme into a separate stream, and apply the EPG data (PIDs 0x10, 0x11, 0x12 and 0x14). You can also stream the entire multiplex at once using the special PID 8192.

There is another project for streaming DVB to IP called DVBlast. Unfortunately it does not seem capable of supplying streams over HTTP as well as UDP/RTP.

Another useful tool for checking your streams is TSReader. There is a free "lite" version available, as well as paid options.

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3
Screenshot 4

DK Multiplex 1 Stream Information (Before November 2009)
DK Multiplex 2 Stream Information (Before November 2009)

DK Multiplex 1 Stream Information
DK Multiplex 2 Stream Information
DK Multiplex 3 Stream Information
DK Multiplex 4 Stream Information
DK Multiplex 5 Stream Information

Wednesday 10 June 2009

IPv6 Reverse DNS on chaz6.com

I have 2 IPv6 (AYIYA) tunnels from SixXS to my network, both of which are provided by the Nordic ISP Phonera. The tunnels terminate at 2 different PoPs - Copenhagen, Denmark and Oslo, Sweden. This provides some redundancy and has been useful in the past when one of the PoPs has had a problem.

In order to provide reverse DNS resolution for the tunnel subnets, I need to provide the address of my DNS servers. Given that I have 2 DNS servers, 2 tunnels and 2 DNS suffixes (in two different TLDs for resiliency) that gives a total possibility of 8 domains:-

ns-v6-1.dk-aal.dk-cph-01.chaz6.com.
ns-v6-1.dk-aal.dk-cph-01.chaz6.v6ns.org.
ns-v6-1.dk-aal.no-osl-01.chaz6.com.
ns-v6-1.dk-aal.no-osl-01.chaz6.v6ns.org.
ns-v6-2.dk-aal.dk-cph-01.chaz6.com.
ns-v6-2.dk-aal.dk-cph-01.chaz6.v6ns.org.
ns-v6-2.dk-aal.no-osl-01.chaz6.com.
ns-v6-2.dk-aal.no-osl-01.chaz6.v6ns.org.

I make use of v6ns.org because the domain is reachable with an IPv6-only resolver, unlike my own domain which is hosted with Gandi as they do not yet support IPv6 glue - even with an out-of-bailiwick server.

However, the zones are currently not reachable by an IPv6-only resolver, because Phonera's DNS servers are only reachable over IPv4 (which serve 8.d.6.1.1.0.0.2.ip6.arpa.). In addition to my IPv6-only name servers, I make use of the free DNS services provided by GratisDNS.dk. Unfortunately, they do not currently support secondary zones with IPv6 masters, so I have to maintain two copies of the zone files - one on my local servers, and one on GratisDNS.

Update: I no longer use v6ns.org because the domain appears to have expired and I have not been able to get in touch with the operator.

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