Important note about SSL VPN compatibility for 20.0 MR1 with EoL SFOS versions and UTM9 OS. Learn more in the release notes.

Are there plans for a Clientless-User-like capability with IPv6?

Specifically, I think a lot of us in smaller installations use Clientless Users for most or all devices, so they have names. And this works well with various Sophos displays which allow you to sort/aggregate by User.

But this takes advantage of the IPv4 world where every machine has one MAC address, which gets one IP address (via DHCP4), which corresponds to one Clientless User name. In the IPv6 world, I see 4-5 IPv6 addresses per device so this mechanism for using Clientless User name won't work without some kind of enhancement.

I'm guessing that larger installations will have more powerful Authentication mechanisms/infrastructurers that might tie many IPv6 to a single user. And for smaller installations I'm thinking that perhaps Clientless User could switch to being based on MAC addresses or DUID instead of IP -- though maybe that breaks for upstream routers.

Is this making sense? Are there any plans for something to handle this? This is one reason I'm really not eager to get IPv6 -- which my current ISP doesn't yet provide anyhow -- because it feels like I'll never quite have a handle on a "user" (machine) anymore. In reality, all IoT devices (printers, AppleTVs, phones, tablets, etc) are logically a single user, and even devices that can directly support multiple users (laptops and desktops being the main examples) are usually a single user almost all of the time, and that's the way I think I want to monitor things logically.

More subnets -- which IPv6 supports -- can help, but in my use case everything is wireless, so a subnet/VLAN most straightforwardly corresponds to an SSID, and SSIDs are extremely limited. Thoughts?

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  • Hi Wayne,

    I have overcome the problem of multiple addresses by using static assignments with the devices still using dhcp to pickup network settings.

    In the utm you could assign a device multiple addresses but in the XG you can only assign a device one address.

    the ipv6 address management in XG is still way behind the ip4 functions, though it is slowly getting better.

    xg does not recognise ipv6 external fqdns, you still need to create your own fqdn entry for sites using ipv6.

    there are other limitations with ipv6 in firewall rules and policies.

    ian

    With clienteles you can have the same name, but a different username. You can't assign a name in a firewall rule.

    XG115W - v20.0.3 MR-3 - on holiday

    XGS118 - v21 GA

    If a post solves your question please use the 'Verify Answer' button.

Reply
  • Hi Wayne,

    I have overcome the problem of multiple addresses by using static assignments with the devices still using dhcp to pickup network settings.

    In the utm you could assign a device multiple addresses but in the XG you can only assign a device one address.

    the ipv6 address management in XG is still way behind the ip4 functions, though it is slowly getting better.

    xg does not recognise ipv6 external fqdns, you still need to create your own fqdn entry for sites using ipv6.

    there are other limitations with ipv6 in firewall rules and policies.

    ian

    With clienteles you can have the same name, but a different username. You can't assign a name in a firewall rule.

    XG115W - v20.0.3 MR-3 - on holiday

    XGS118 - v21 GA

    If a post solves your question please use the 'Verify Answer' button.

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