November 24, 2025
MAC it till you make it
Hyperoptic: IPv6 and Out-of-Order Packets
Hyperoptic’s new internet sparks a brawl: broken routes, MAC hacks, and 'turn it off'
TLDR: Hyperoptic’s IPv6 is flaky: routers ignore key “hello” messages, leaving users stuck until a MAC-address change or manual gateway fix. Comments split between “turn IPv6 off” and “it works fine,” with jokes and mild shade—because nobody wants their internet waiting 30 minutes for directions.
Hyperoptic rolled out fancy new internet addresses (IPv6), and one brave tinkerer flipped the switch on a DIY router—cue chaos. The upstream router stopped answering the network’s “who’s the gateway?” hello messages (part of the Neighbour Discovery Protocol), only sending a response every 15–30 minutes. Devices got valid addresses but no directions, so pages stalled and fell back to old-school IPv4. The comments erupted: the pragmatists yelled keep it off, dropping the timeless “Working > New.” Meanwhile, others chimed in that it’s been smooth sailing—one said it’s worked just fine for me—with a side of “yeah, they once forgot to re-plug my line” shrug.
Then came the plot twist: the MAC-change hack. Change the device’s ID (the MAC address), and the router instantly sends the missing directions; or just manually set the gateway. Cue memes about “wearing a fake moustache to get past the bouncer” and “MAC it till you make it.” As if that wasn’t enough, out-of-order packets—data arriving in the wrong sequence—sparked a Reddit rabbit hole citing RFC4448. Folks joked the packets were showing up fashionably late. The vibe: half the crowd wants IPv6 now, half says don’t touch it. Everyone agrees Hyperoptic needs to fix the upstream weirdness—fast
Key Points
- •Hyperoptic’s upstream router intermittently failed to respond to IPv6 Router Solicitation, delaying Router Advertisements by 15–30 minutes.
- •DHCPv6 prefix delegation succeeded, but the lack of timely RA left the network with IPv6 addresses and no default route.
- •Changing the WAN interface MAC address triggered an immediate unsolicited RA once per MAC change, restoring IPv6 routing quickly.
- •Manual addition of the default IPv6 route (ip -6 route) and a dhcpcd RENEW6 hook provide alternative or automated workarounds.
- •Hyperoptic assigns only DHCPv6 prefix delegations (ia_pd), not non-temporary addresses (ia_na); removing ia_na from dhcpcd.conf avoids log spam. The article also notes frequent out-of-order packets, referencing RFC4448 for potential L2 causes.