RIPE Region Runs Out of IPv4 Addresses 241
New submitter 8-Track writes "The RIPE NCC, the Regional Internet Registry for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, distributed the last blocks of IPv4 address space from the available pool. This means they are now distributing IPv4 address space to Local Internet Registries (LIRs) from the last /8. An ISP may receive one /22 allocation (1,024 IPv4 addresses), even if they can justify a larger allocation. This /22 allocation will only be made to LIRs if they have already received an IPv6 allocation from an upstream LIR or the RIPE NCC. Time to move to IPv6!"
Recyle Recyle Recyle.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Time to crackdown and revoke/reclaim IP's
Re:Not unexpected (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah agreed. I've been on native IPv6 (dual stack, obviously) for, hmm, approaching two years now (I'm in the APNIC area so they ran out of IPv4 a while ago) and honestly I'm only reminded of the fact when someone brings IPv6 up in an article or something. The changeover was easy from the user's perspective - it just works. Indeed I suspect many users of my ISP don't even know they are on IPv6.
The resistance and heel-dragging on the changeover in many places/companies is a bit mystifying to me. It's not really that hard.
Re:spammers (Score:5, Interesting)
Sigh. We've been over this countless times. Even if you managed to reclaim all IPv4 ranges that are not being completely used presently, you would buy yourself only a few more months (at current growth rates) until you ran out of addresses again.
I seriously have a hard time trying to understand why so many people on Slashdot seem to be militantly against IPv6. You'd expect more of an allegedly technologically literate audience.
Why aren't we on IPv6 yet? (Score:2, Interesting)
Serious question. Why aren't we all on v6?
This is something the ISPs, the upstreams, well the big guys in general have to do. As an end user I couldn't care less. I don't know my IP address (yes I can look it up if really needed). I don't care what it is. I don't care if I'm on v4 or v5 or v6 or whatever. I just want an Internet connection. That's all. Just make sure my web sites resolve - that shouldn't be too hard either, I know there are v4-to-v6 and v.v. tricks.
As a savvy end user, for my home network, I will want to continue to use NAT or something equivalent. I don't want my printer, my desktop, my laptop and my phone that connect to the WiFi to have an externally approachable address. My router is what takes all the incoming connections and then passes on the few that are allowed. Just get me that Internet connection. Preferably in the form of a simple network cable that I can plug into my router, I'll build the network from there.
I don't care much if that incoming cable is using IPv4 or v6. The router takes care of that. OK mine is old, and will need replacement, that's a one time investment and I'm good for the next decade or so.
It's in the same light of my brand new TV (this week finally switched from an old CRT to a spanking new LED) that can receive digital signals. I basically don't care much whether I get an analog or digital signal, I just want to watch TV. Digital image is better, nice. Pretty newsreader is still pretty but now I see all the imperfections on her face. Bummer. Not exactly an improvement there.
Anyway back to IPv6. Why don't ISPs just switch over? Offer the option? Give new subscribers an IPv6 modem/router instead of an IPv4 modem/router, and so slowly move the subscriber base over? They tend to replace those devices every now and then anyway, so why aren't they replacing them with the new IP? It's using the same type of copper wire, doesn't it?
Re:Why aren't we on IPv6 yet? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is something the ISPs, the upstreams, well the big guys in general have to do. As an end user I couldn't care less.
As an end user you shouldn't have to care, but when the upstream guys haven't done their work and you can't access newpopularsoscialsite.com, which is IPv6 only, then you start getting annoyed and start trawling the net to see why things are broken. The problem is many of up the stream guys, at least in North America, have dropped the ball and aren't even offering options for techs who do care and are interested in being early adopters of native IPv6. Just don't get me started on some of the incompetent replies I have got from some ISPs.
As a savvy end user, for my home network, I will want to continue to use NAT or something equivalent. I don't want my printer, my desktop, my laptop and my phone that connect to the WiFi to have an externally approachable address.
If you configure your devices to only use link-local IPv6 addresses, then there is no reason they will be seen by the outside world. Even then, with a routable IPv6 address you can configure you firewall rules to only expose certain devices to the internet. In the IPv6 world the firewall will be your friend and I believe as it becomes a more important component people will work out ways of making it simpler to configure.