Free IPv4 Pool Now Down To Seven /8s
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Zocalo writes "For those of you keeping score, ICANN just allocated another four /8 IPv4 blocks; 23/8 and 100/8 to ARIN, 5/8 and 37/8 to RIPE, leaving just seven /8s unassigned. In effect however, this means that there are now just two /8s available before the entire pool will be assigned due to an arrangement whereby the five Regional Internet Registries would each automatically receive one of the final five /8s once that threshold was met. The IPv4 Address Report counter at Potaroo.net is pending an update and still saying 96 days, but it's now starting to look doubtful that we're going to even make it to January."
The most surprising turn of events (Score:4, Insightful)
... since the unexpected end of the century in '99.
(What is actually surprising is that the internet still hasn't widely adopted IP6, and ISPs are now turning to ludicrous measures - NAT - to keep avoiding what makes sense.)
where is ATT and comcast with IPV6? (Score:3, Insightful)
where is ATT and comcast with IPV6?
Re:where is ATT and comcast with IPV6? (Score:4, Insightful)
Busy counting their profit and laughing over all the money you think they want to spend on IPV6 upgrades.
Re:Meh. Allocate 240.0.0.0/4. (Score:4, Insightful)
And have to push new TCP/IP stacks for most operating systems to get them to understand that that is now viable space. This would be effort better spent on just going IPv6.
ipv6 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:NAT! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm frankly terrified that the "solution" to this is not to fix the underlying issue, but instead to layer work-arounds on it.
Not to mention, unless I'm much mistaken a NAT can support 65536 connections at maximum (number of valid ports for outgoing connections). A /8 network might be okay, but putting a larger network behind NAT isn't going to help, and you can't layer them (because you still need a port free for the connection). We're going to run out, NAT just delays the inevitable by layering a giant administrative headache on the top.
Re:all because MS won't put TLS on XP... (Score:5, Insightful)
what needs "public" IPs?
Anything that wants to participate in the peer-to-peer internet as a peer.
Re:Soo... (Score:3, Insightful)
Some already are, others' aren't. It's not cheap, hence it'll be delayed, as always.
Re:Meh. Allocate 240.0.0.0/4. (Score:3, Insightful)
And every router. In every office. And every home.
And who knows how many routers would have those addresses hardcoded in hardware.
It's probably just as easy to go IPv6, when you consider the hassles and testing.
Re:Soo... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Why not now"? Because slack-ass websites like the one you're currently browsing still haven't bothered to flip on the IPv6 switch. I have IPv6 at home (pretty much plug-and-play; just enable it on the Apple Airport base station and all of the LAN machines pick up an address) and the only site I've found to go to is "ipv6.google.com". OK, there's also a dancing turtle GIF on kame.net, but that doesn't really count.
Interestingly there is an "ipv6.slashdot.org" DNS entry. However it has no IPv6 "AAAA" record, only an IPv4 "A". Seriously guys, WTF? If a techie "News for Nerds" site can't be bothered to make itself available to IPv6 users then there's little hope for the rest of the web.
Re:Soo... (Score:3, Insightful)
It ain't cheap if you're a major provider, but for the rest of us it is somewhere between dirt cheap to absolutely free.
It WOULD have been cheap or free for the major providers as well had they not spent the last 10 years with their heads buried in the sand. They could have gotten v6 capable routers as part of their normal upgrade cycle.
Re:Last IP! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets say your ISP assigns you 10.0.32.128. Now, kindly tell me how you plan to connect to your home PC from work.
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:3, Insightful)
IPv4 will last us about one and half year. IPv4 will run out next year, the regional registries (RIR's) will run out a number of months later and if you are lucky your provider still has some new IPv4 addresses left for his new customers.
Then your provider can only get new addresses for money from other providers/organisations which want to sell them for money.
The following will happen, first for new customers and eventually for all existing customers.
When we get to a point where your access-provider does not have enough IPv4-addresses you will just get a private IPv4-address through DHCP instead of your public IPv4-address. Probably in the 10.0.0.0/8 range.
You will be stuck behind an IPv4 NAT which sits in the provider network, not at your home. That NAT will be congested, it will be slow.
This means probably no online games and no P2P on IPv4 for you (and other things will break too).
You will however get a complimentary IPv6-block of a size which is atleast a /64, which is has more addresses then the whole IPv4-range.
At the time when this happends, your OS will have IPv6-support and IPv6 will probably be enabled on most of the websites, mailservers and what not. You might need to replace your modem or router though. Maybe you will get a new one from your provider, maybe not, depends on your arraignment.
(kind of useful version of IPv6 in Windows since XP, useful in Windows Vista/7, Mac OS X had the last update recently to fix the last issue, Linux has no problems, even things like Network Manager supports it)
A real IPv4-address will be a privilege (read: you pay extra).
Or when you do what to play games, you might need to get a VPN to somewhere else and pay extra for that service/IP-address.
So when you are stuck behind a IPv4 NAT, websites which don't add IPv6 will also be slow.
When we really run out, I think you all just want to use IPv6 like it was intended.
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:NAT! (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole thing is a lesson in waste and inefficiency.
Every business that I have ever known, or been involved with its network, was delivered anywhere from 4-32 IP addresses on their T1 lines. Just recently I setup a new business cablemodem connection and they just gave me ,without me asking, 8 IP addresses.
What the heck do I need 8 IP addresses for at a branch office? I don't really know of any businesses that really need a static IP address, much less multiple ones to host multiple publicly addressable servers. Everyone is either using the "cloud" or hosted services at a colo.
Demand is going to change things quite quickly. I expect that the first T1 line that is held up because there is no IP address for it is going to start things rolling. NAT is not a perfect solution and I sincerely doubt a company paying $500+ a month for a T1 is going to settle for being treated that way. Certainly not the IT staff.
Most guys I know are quite reasonable. If any ISP came to me and asked to reduce me down to 1 or 2 IP addresses per branch office or connection I would readily agree.
Now in the colo... that is another matter entirely. Some places I work with actually use a couple hundred different IP addresses for legitimate reasons.
It's all waste. IP address reclamation will get us back at least 40% of the address space.
Re:Maybe I'm being naive... (Score:3, Insightful)
IPv6 solves problems beyond just the raw number of bits for addressing.
In your example, 48 bits isn't enough space--in a few years we would be doing another next-gen IP, after implementing IPng as the CTOs start panicking. I don't want to deploy a new Internet every two decades, I'd rather get past the flaws in IPv4 once for my lifetime and start thinking about Y2038.
Convention is meant to be broken. But perhaps you ignore that we're speaking about bits, not decimal data. The subnet mask FFFFFF00 I see in ifconfig has the same meaning as /24 or 1111-1111 1111-1111 1111-1111 0000-0000 and we all know that because we're smart enough to read slashdot.
Decimal address can used all you like in IPv6. If you like 208.80.11.254, address your host as 2620:0:c0:1:208:80:11:254 and be happy; meanwhile I'd rather use stateless autoconfiguration or a simple address like n:n:n:1::53 for my nameserver.
Adoption could be less painless if you weren't citing address space that was deprecated and removed from the Internet five years ago. How is the 6bone keeping its memory alive for so long? Use 2001:db8:: for examples, or at least start an address with operational space like 2610. RIP 3ffe, 6/6/6.
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of the rest of us get along pretty well with putting our servers behind a router/NAT that lets us define which ports get forwarded to which systems behind the router, thus adding "firewall" as a feature.
Thing is, that's only when you have control over the NAT device. If ISPs move to multiple levels of NAT, as some people suggest, then you no longer have access to a thing on which you can forward ports. You're stuck being a content consumer.
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:4, Insightful)
ISPs will just charge extra for a "real" IP address. (Basically the same thing they do now if you want more than however many come with your base service.)
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:3, Insightful)
That only works because your home router does the Nat using a public IP address your ISP assigns.
That was not the question. I said your ISP assigns you a NATed IP (so you are now doing double NAT at least). You can configure the port forwarding on YOUR NAT device, but I'll bet your ISP won't let you configure THEIR device.
I am familiar with using ssh to tunnel as well. Not a problem for some (including me), but not everyone has an ssh account on a server with a public IP at work.
Given all that, it's MUCH easier to just go with v6 and call it good. Fortunately, Comcast has both 6to4 and 6rd servers for their customers. Before that, I was routing v6 through the Netherlands.
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, the NAT won't cut it, yes.
Re:all because MS won't put TLS on XP... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like something ISPs actually wouldn't mind obstructing.
Re:Maybe I'm being naive... (Score:5, Insightful)
A curious key thing I fail to understand about this issue is why the ip4/ip6 issue encourages people to act so rudely towards other professionals who demonstrate at least some grasp of the underlying issue.
I think you ask a reasonable question, the question in my mind similar to yours: the transition from ip4/ip6 appears to be hard and this is a factor in it's slow adoption so what prevented the design a more gentler protocol that provided a smoother/simpler transition; particularly given our heavy reliance on this network in so many facets of our civilization?
As a programmer that does alot of network type stuff close to the metal, frequently designing my own OSI 7 protocols, I understand ip4 and higher layers very well, better than most IT professionals; but certainly not as well as a carrier network engineer. I know little about IP6 other than than regular reports about it's high barrier to entry and the inherent complexity associated with the change over. Maybe I need to make time and learn more about it now; but life is busy and other things compete for my time.
But to such questions can always be counted on being treated rudely by ip6 zealots. Just like the ruby programming language, I am keen to learn more when I get the spare time, and I dabble when I can, but in some ways disinclined given how rude and obnoxious the community advocating it can be.
Re:Whatever (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:3, Insightful)
It has been true, but necessarily cannot remain true. That's the whole point, in a few short months we'll be all out. No more real addresses to assign.
Some people for some reason think NAT can fix that all by itself such that IPv6 need never happen.
A better answer is for ISPs to deploy 6rd along with NAT. I don't mind so much if they give me an address in 10/8 if they also offer a solid 6rd tunnel.
Next step is to offer v6 only and a translator/proxy for ::ffff:0000:0000/96 so customers can reach the holdouts stuck in v4.
Then finally (eventually) IPv4 can drop away as far as publicly routed packets go.
Re:The most surprising turn of events (Score:3, Insightful)
Under the assumption that most ISP's provide real addresses to their clients (which is, AFAIK, true), I believe I'm correct in saying that NAT has been a decent bridge.
This whole story is about running out of IPv4 addresses, and thus contrary to your assumption. Providing "real IPv6 addresses" to clients doesn't help them if they need to talk to the very many IPv4 only machines out there.
When they run out of IPv4 addresses, ISPs will stop providing "real" IPv4 addresses to clients. The "real" IPv4 addresses will be shared via NAT.
They WILL use IPv4 to IPv4 NAT so that users can talk to IPv4 only servers. Most won't use IPv6 to IPv4 NAT/proxying for that because it isn't as well tested, and doesn't really add much (if you're going to NAT for that reason you might as well use IPv4 to IPv4 NATing).
Big Media will see this as a feature, since P2P becomes harder.
Re:Crazy.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It would probably on buy a few more years to reclaim these addresses and chop them up, but surely the problem is just poor usage as opposed to exhaustion.
*SLAP*
Seriously, we've already done this. Repeatedly. At no point has the actual transition started happening, even with all the 'extra time' given it.
Attempting to figure out a way to get more time will not actually solve the problem at all.
At the very least, we need IPv4 to blow up first, so the transition actually starts. After that point, if need be, we can start looking for more IPs to use during the transition.
But first, we actually have to start.
I got new ISP service in August. I got a router with it. This router does not do IPv6. In August. 2010.
The problem isn't 'lack of time', the problem is LACK OF STARTING.