Latin America Exhausts IPv4 Addresses 197
An anonymous reader writes "LACNIC, the regional Internet registry for Latin America and the Caribbean, considers its IPv4 address pool exhausted, because it is down to less than a quarter of an /8, roughly 4 million IPv4 addresses which are reserved for facilitating transitioning mechanisms. Half of those addresses will be assigned on a first come, first served basis, but no more than 1024 addresses per organization every 6 six months. Allocations from the last 2 million addresses will be a maximum of 1024 addresses total per organization. To maintain connectivity, it is now indispensable to make the switch to IPv6. LACNIC's CEO expressed his concern that many operators and companies still haven't taken the steps needed to duly address this circumstance. The RIRs for Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America have all imposed similar limitations on IPv4 assignments when they also crossed their local exhaustion thresholds. As of now, only AfriNIC is not in address exhaustion mode."
Joining North America, and Europe/the Middle East/Central Asia.
On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:5, Insightful)
We warned you years ago this would happen! But no-one ever listens.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:5, Insightful)
We warned you years ago this would happen! But no-one ever listens.
mañana
yep, 14 years ago I announced the switchover (Score:3)
For years, indeed. I think it was 14 years ago, in 2000, on April Fool's day I announced on a major forum that the internet would be down for about 20 minutes while the root nameservers were switched over to IPv6.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:5, Insightful)
Ya, you have been warning people that it was going to happen in 2 month for the last 6 years. And this article is still about "almost completely out".
Your predictions for the v4 "apocalypse" are nothing to brag about.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
And this article is still about "almost completely out".
Where "almost completely out" means, from the article, that:
2,097,150 of the remaining 4,194,302 addresses may be assigned during this phase, in blocks of limited sizes (assignments) comprising between 256 and 1,024 IP addresses. Likewise, an organization may only request additional resources six months after receiving a prior assignment.
Technically, the naysayers are right: they're not "out". They're just at the "you can buy two gallons of gas per month" stage. Realistically, no one can get it and certainly not enough at a time to do anything meaningful with it, but there's technically still supply left.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:5, Insightful)
If the bulk of human history isn't a lesson. Pretty much no one does anything until all hell is breaking loose. I don't know if it is in our genetics or what.
At any rate. A lot of "technical" folk will say, let's use NAT! And that will work for maybe a few years, maybe a decade or so, but then eventually that will break down. Finally, people will just shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, I guess it's finally time we switched over to IPv6." IPv6 is indeed the solution, but we've first got to do every other solution just because for some reason that's who we are.
So IPv4 isn't going away any time soon but for all the wrong reasons. So they will continue to not listen to any specialists till ALL other options are completely exhausted. Then after all of that we'll finally get to move on to the next big thing that was purposed twenty years ago.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:5, Insightful)
People with only an IPv6 address should theoretically be able to access the IPv4 internet via a sort of v6-to-v4 NAT. It's the people who want to run servers accessed by the rest of the world who really need a real IPv4 address until that distant future when IPv6 finally becomes dominant. (Which won't be for a long while because of all the old computers out there that have either no or insufficient IPv6 support.)
I think one of the big factors of address consumption has been cell phones. They do not need to be publicly accessible from random IPv4 address, so they are prime candidates for this kind of migration.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:3)
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Just how old are you estimating those old computers are? Windows XP has support for IPv6, as do the first 2.6 Linux kernel. I doubt there's a single smartphone without support for it.
The only reason we are not using IPv6 all along is because ISPs decided to save some 5% (probably less) of the cost on their last upgrades, or because they actively don't want to supply it.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Just how old are you estimating those old computers are? Windows XP has support for IPv6, as do the first 2.6 Linux kernel. I doubt there's a single smartphone without support for it.
The only reason we are not using IPv6 all along is because ISPs decided to save some 5% (probably less) of the cost on their last upgrades, or because they actively don't want to supply it.
Actually, all my systems have IPV6, even the antiques.
It's the routers that lack it.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Do they actually have an IP address? I didn't think they did. I though they were using a separate network model to pass data from cell towers to devices. I was under the impression that the device number (sim card) was used for communicating data to a specific device. which is also the reason why copying a sim card gets all the data that user is receiving if in the same zone.
Clarification required. :)
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
(Which won't be for a long while because of all the old computers out there that have either no or insufficient IPv6 support.)
Windows XP can support IPv6 [microsoft.com] - probably configured when their ISP adds its setup to the installer CD they mail to new customers. Every modern OS supports it natively and decently.
The migration will suck for dumb embedded devices that can't be upgraded, but most of those are probably reaching EOL anyway. I'd absolutely, 100%, not buy any new devices that don't support native IPv6 today.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
I'd love to see DSL routers handling IPv6, but (in very limited looking around) I haven't found one yet.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:5, Informative)
His point is, slashdot doesn't even have an IPv6 address, he's using 6to4 NAT and can still reach the site. The IPv4 address for slashdot is embedded in the IPv6 address.
The IPv6 address he was pinging was as follows: 2001:8b0:6464::666:616:d822:b52d
The d822:b52d in the IPv6 address, is actually the IPv4 address for slashdot:
d8 = 216
22 = 34
b5 = 181
2d = 45
$ host -t a slashdot.org
slashdot.org has address 216.34.181.45
Make sense? ;)
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Maybe adoption of ipv6 is slow because it is so damn complicated.
Why did they have to make the number more than atoms of the universe when they could have just turned the ipv4 from 8 to 16 bits.
Like abcd:1234:cdef:9876
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Just have more IPs that you could ever want in 100 years, and 100 years from now, you'll need a new protocol. That's IPv6.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
It's not so bad really. I was a hurdle at first, but generally you never need to memorize specific addresses. You get a DNS server that deals with IPv6 and you just have to know the machine name you want.
As for the larger size, the idea it that half of the address is the network prefix, and the other half is your local MAC address. A full 8 bytes of MAC address and that's the real win here for uniqueness. Whereas you can not even fit a normal 6 byte ethernet MAC address into IPv4. And with 8 bytes always for network prefix there's a lot of flexibility and no more class A,B,C stuff or figuring out where subnets start.
Re:Yeah, poop on that (Score:2)
IPv6 is an extension of IPv4. You can't extend IPv4 without giving it a new version number, the most you can do is add some protocols layered on top of it or tunnel through it.
Any ping program that can deal with an address longer than 32-bits is inherently incompatible with IPv4 ping protocol. Now it is true that you could write a single ping program that can deal with both IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
I suspect that the real problem is that NAT does work for most people, when all they really do with their computers is connect to the web or get software updates from Microsoft.
A big problem is that the people who absolutely should know better do nothing about it. As in two years ago I get a router from my ISP which can not support IPv6, and there's really no excuse for that.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Similar to agile development principles.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:5, Informative)
Case in point - everything will again have their own IP address and you don't have to use stuff like STUN or other things because end-to-end connectivity is guaranteed. False, since firewalls are still around, and just because both ends can see each other doesn't mean they can talk to each other.
So open the needed port in the firewall. No more STUN.
Then there's the "guilty PC" problem that the content creators oh-so-love. It's hard to identify people from PCs now because so many devices share a single IP address. But when that single IP means a single device, it's a heck of a lot easier.
So pick another address at random. You have 256 IPv4 internet's worth to choose from within your prefix.
Well, with IPv6 right now, if your ISP changes your prefix, have fun resetting the configuration of everything to use that new prefix. Hope the auto-discovery picks everything up and maybe things will work. If not, have fun debugging. And while NATv6 is defined, many places (e.g., Linux) refuse to accept it. I mean, is it so bad that my internal network ... works? And if my ISP gives me a new prefix I do diddly squat like right now? Or that I don't have to remember what the IP is of the PC next to me is after it's prefix changes?
Use the local prefix to talk to local machines. Use autoconfig to handle the ISP assigned prefix. It actually does work. There you go, zero work.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
We warned you years ago this would happen! But no-one ever listens.
I think it follows a pattern of an alcoholic: he knows that he should have stopped years ago, but doesn't quit the booze until the doctor says that you're gonna die if you don't give it up.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Everyone knew this would happen eventually. No one listened to the chicken littles that were screaming "the sky is falling!" every year for more than a decade.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
That's exactly the problem.
When we noticed that IPv4 addresses are nearing an end, we warned. Nobody listened. Why? Because the announced apocalypse didn't happen. Of course, behind the scenes a LOT of juggling has taken place, but management didn't notice anything about it.
That whole deal repeated time and again, every time v4 addresses neared the end. Every time someone found a way to somehow redistribute the remaining addresses so that nobody "outside the circle" had to notice.
Our "flaw" was that we only saw the technical side. Business dictates, though, that whenever something like that happens, someone will step in and solve it. For money, of course. Few notice it because the cost of this juggling is usually offset by other things getting cheaper. That we could have a LOT cheaper internet by now by cutting off the slack that these jugglers present is something few people know and even fewer want to talk about. Because everyone who knows actually somehow benefits from it.
But we get seen like we'd cry wolf a few too many times. So don't expect anyone to listen to us anymore. Everyone will just hope that someone will come in and start wiggling the wires so some IP addresses will magically appear somehow.
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
This was a known problem in 1999. 15 years later...
Re:On behalf of all network specialists, (Score:2)
Could be a problem with your routing protocol.
Re:That's what happens when you cry wolf (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is with people not understanding probability or what a prognosis is. It's like a pack-a-day smoker whose doctor says "you're probably going to get cancer within ten years if you keep this up". Five years pass, ten years, fifteen years... nothing; clearly the doctor is an idiot and I am an immortal cancer-immune demigod. Twenty years... boom, cancer.
"Realistic prognosis"? You can't accurately predict unexpected changes. So you err on the side of urgency, because if what you predict happens sooner than expected, that's much, much worse than if you respond sooner than you actually need to.
Instead, people first ignore the warning, then see that the bad thing didn't happen on schedule, then deciding that this invalidates the entire warning.
(See also: Climate change.)
Re:That's what happens when you cry wolf (Score:2)
The problem is worse than that. It's a matter of the media missrepresenting the problem, and people not looking into the details to notice the hype.
I've never seen a technical forecast being delayed, only anticipated. The first one I saw from the working group was working with widespread adoption (like what we have now) of IPv6 by 2020-2025 and IPv4 addresses running out by as late as 2030. The media can't stand having that much time to fix a problem.
Y2K (Score:2)
This sounds like Y2K all over again...
Re:Y2K (Score:3)
Re:Y2K (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like Y2K all over again...
What, that legitimate problem lots of people worked on successfully to avoid before it could have major consequences? Yeah, I agree.
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
This sounds like Y2K all over again...
What, that legitimate problem lots of people worked on successfully to avoid before it could have major consequences? Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, and after all that work to prepare, the rest of the world said "I don't know why you nerds made such a big deal out of this. Nothing happened!" It's enough to make you want to quit your job, cut the soles off your shoes, sit in a tree and learn to play the flute.
Re:Y2K (Score:5, Insightful)
So you really never had to deal with a computer program that calculated difference in years by going "take number of years in 'new date' and subtract number of years in 'old date'"?
Just to give you a hint, and NDAs be damned in this case, you have NO IDEA how many bookkeeping programs had a LOT of problems calculating annual write offs right. You just never noticed it because the programs are not real time dependent and you have a LOT of time to work with between noticing the problem (when you do your first version of your balance) and the time it becomes critical (when you have to hand in your balance to government/auditor/board).
There were other, not so "fortunate" situations where a lot of money had to be used to get it done in time. And the ever feared "what if the nukes notice they had no contact with control for a century?" doomsday was only the tip of the iceberg. You really can't even imagine half the big and small tidbits that ran on systems that had exactly the problem.
And yes, January 2038 certainly is going to be an interesting time again. It is rather unlikely, though, that it will be as big a problem since Jan 2038 is mostly an OS problem rather than an application program problem. I.e. we should see fewer and (mostly) easier to fix problems.
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
There were other, not so "fortunate" situations where a lot of money had to be used to get it done in time.
True story, a well-known vendor of banking applications could not handle year 2000 dates in its mortgage software, and as of 1987 still had not been able to get it fixed. That's right, 17 years was not enough for that (extremely poorly run) organization.
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
Even silly things like old elevator control software that thought it was 1900 instead of 2000, "calculated" the wrong day of the week because of that, and idled out a bunch of elevators because "Hey, its Sunday, right?" The invisible impact was potentially huge.
The Y2.038K problem should be a fun one. Lots and lots of userland programs out there use ints to hold time values instead of something that can just be recompiled. Lots of them.
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
Ah, well if an AC says it wasn't a problem, surely it wasn't...
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
The *real* legitimate problem with time will occur in 2038, and we've already made the solution to that.
What is the solution for 32-bit Linux? Switch to 64-bit Linux? 32-bit only processors still being churned out en masse today with no available solution and no sign of this changing anytime soon.
To assume number of 32-bit systems in 2038 running Linux will be zero is more foolish than waiting to exhaustion before deploying IPv6.
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
Hmmm ... 2038 is in 24 years.
24 years ago from now was 1990. That was just around the time the first 486 machines were released.
So, in the same way as nobody seriously gives a damn about ancient 486s, if you're still running 32-bit Linux in 24 years ... well, that will be your damned problem. :-P
If this is an issue for you, I suggest you start pondering getting a 64-bit machine ... you've got 24 years to do it.
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
Hmmm ... 2038 is in 24 years.
We've already had legitimate tickets opened for Y2038 effecting customers *TODAY*
So, in the same way as nobody seriously gives a damn about ancient 486s, if you're still running 32-bit Linux in 24 years ... well, that will be your damned problem. :-P
If the only thing a system uses time_t for is to report the current date and time I would tend to agree with you.
In the real world we don't have 24 years before shit starts hitting the fan .. not anywhere close to it. All the while 32-bit only chips continue to be stamped out en masse.
If this is an issue for you, I suggest you start pondering getting a 64-bit machine ... you've got 24 years to do it.
If Microsoft can fix their compiler to make it happen so can Linux. We've been here before with basic file I/O constrained to 2^31 bytes. This was fixed and without breaking backwards compatibility in the ABI.
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
Hmmm ... 2038 is in 24 years.
24 years ago from now was 1990. That was just around the time the first 486 machines were released.
So, in the same way as nobody seriously gives a damn about ancient 486s, if you're still running 32-bit Linux in 24 years ... well, that will be your damned problem. :-P
If this is an issue for you, I suggest you start pondering getting a 64-bit machine ... you've got 24 years to do it.
You're missing the point. This problem hasn't been fixed yet, despite being a known problem for a long time. It could be that come 2038, we find out that the problem wasn't fixed in new machines until 2035. Then it becomes a serious headache.
Re:Y2K (Score:3)
You do realize that a 32 bit computer will easily do 64 bit math?
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
Its a good thing that C never encouraged fixed-width record constructs...
Re:Y2K (Score:2)
So I now know one person who didn't have to fix an ancient program written by a guy who no longer lives with source code lost in an archaic language he needed last time during his university years in no more than 2 months or the sky be falling...
No need for action (Score:5, Funny)
Let us know when it gets down to zero available and then we'll spend the weekend fixing it.
Re:No need for action (Score:3)
I have a vacation scheduled for that weekend.
If we're not going to switch, charge per ip (Score:5, Interesting)
If we're too lazy to switch to ipv6 then they need to just start charging per ip.
$1 per ip per year should be sufficient to cause plenty of ip hoarders to return their stock.
If that's not enough then increase it to $1 per ip per month. Still small enough that
it shouldn't really affect anyone too much. My guess is any computer that can't
absorb a $1/month charge is not an actually computer and should have a private
10.0 number anyways.
Charge per ip might also be a good way to help encourage ipv6 switchover.
Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip (Score:2)
"just start charging per ip $1 per ip per year should be sufficient"
And who should benefit from the $4B/yr revenue? The American government because ICANN is in the US?
Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip (Score:2)
"just start charging per ip $1 per ip per year should be sufficient"
And who should benefit from the $4B/yr revenue? The American government because ICANN is in the US?
Give it all to ICANN and use the money to convert everyone to ipv6. Give it to the red cross.
Heck, burn it in a bonfire for that matter to help reduce inflation. It doesn't really matter.
The point is that there are ALOT of idle ips out there and if the people sitting on them had
to fork over cash each year/month for them then they would have an incentive to give them up.
Right now if you are lucky enough or powerful enough to have a bunch you have very little
incentive to give them up. You actually have several incentives NOT to give them up.
Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip (Score:2)
Here's the weird part.. I have several Xen/Linux virtual servers thru a vps hosting company.. They include 2 ipv4 addresses and 6 ipv6 addresses with each vps.. On one of my vps, since I host two different sites on it, the two ipv4 addresses are kinda handy.. However, on several others, I have zero need/use for more than one ipv4 address.. I asked their support to take the unneeded addresses back, since ipv4 addresses are in short supply.. Their response? Don't worry, we have plenty... Huh???
I wonder how often this scenario plays out with other vendors? One often wonders just how bad the shortage is when vendors can do this with their address-blocks...
Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip (Score:2)
If we're too lazy to switch to ipv6 then they need to just start charging per ip.
$1 per ip per year should be sufficient to cause plenty of ip hoarders to return their stock.
If that's not enough then increase it to $1 per ip per month. Still small enough that
it shouldn't really affect anyone too much. My guess is any computer that can't
absorb a $1/month charge is not an actually computer and should have a private
10.0 number anyways.
Meanwhile disaggregation is not free and carries global costs on routing infrastructure not everyone has the resources to bear. Taking back addresses is like air lifting new deck chairs onto the titanic with much heavier solid lead versions to help the boat sink faster.
http://blog.pierky.com/avoid-c... [pierky.com]
We are quickly approaching the point where it takes more effort to be "lazy" than it does to deploy ipv6.
Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip (Score:2)
Holy shit, that's like sixteen million per year (or month) for every organization on this list [wikipedia.org].
But to be honest, most of them could probably absorb the annual fee without batting an eye.
Comment removed (Score:2)
Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip (Score:2)
It woyuld not be good, It would be GREAT. That way the end user gives even more money to the providers without actualy having a need to invest.
And those are also the ones who need to invest in I{v6 and you wonder why they don't?
You're assuming the provider gets to keep this money but the providers is who has to pay the fee not the end-user.
In many cases the end user is already paying more than this for a static IP and the provider will likely pass this on to
the end-user but the end-user is not the hoarders. The hoarders are the thousands of businesses that have unused ips.
It's easy to pass on a $1 charge to a end-user if there is an end-user but if you have 1k ips sitting idle and now you
have to pay for them then you might decide it's worth the hassle to exchange them for a smaller block.
Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip (Score:2)
The bigger problem is: How do people give back IPs? Say 4 people give back their spare IPs to the ISP. The ISP now has 4 extras randomly distributed in a block that they could give out if needed, but that just means complicated routing if they want to return them to the general pool.
In the amount of time a system could be created to take them back, and convince all the corporations/organizations to return them, they'll be exhausted almost instantly and we're back to still needing IPv6 but we wasted all this time recovering IPs.
Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip (Score:2)
Comcast is way ahead of you, dude. They're already charging me $3/month per static routed IP address. I'm feeling plenty of "incentive" to move to IPv6, which of course they don't support at all. Well, they have a pilot program in some areas where each customer can get a /128. No shit, a whole /128 all to myself.
I've had IPv6 on Comcast for years with a /64 PD. Not 100% I believe anywhere you can get a /128 you can pull a /64 PD but need a DHCPv6 client to do it.
At very least they are trying to deploy to their entire network. Business customer support is lagging and some areas still lack access. They seem to be genuinely committed to full production quality deployment.
Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6 (Score:2)
Not saying it's not possible but all of the cable modem they've put out that is IP6 compatable has it's IP6 disabled, I've feeling there are going to be a lot of accounts on one address (Nat) style.
Not that disappointed, using a HOSTS file and working with IP4 address I've a bit of sense about them, IP6 I couldn't tell you if I've seen it before or not, age does play a bit into this/
Re:Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6 (Score:2)
I could swear I setup a router for somebody on a charter modem and a ping from a windows box to google.com returned an ipv6 address..
Also, I've been using HE ipv6 tunnel since the first ipv6 day(whenver that was) over a charter modem with good results. Traceroutes over ipv6 are often shorter than ipv4.
Re:Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6 (Score:2)
Not saying it's not possible but all of the cable modem they've put out that is IP6 compatable has it's IP6 disabled
If you're looking at the modem's status page (192.168.100.1) and it says IPv4-Only, that actually has nothing to do with whether you have IPv6.
The quick and easy way to find out is to just run "tcpdump -n ip6" and see if anything shows up. I didn't realize I had IPv6 until I did that, as the configuration changes I made to Linux to support a Hurricane Electric IPv6 tunnel rendered it unable to configure itself automatically with my native IPv6. Even after knowing it was there, it took me a couple of days to figure out how to get it working. Seems the OS support for IPv6 isn't completely sorted out, and so you run into a lot of odd things that work in strange ways that you then have to sort out. In particular, if you want to use a Linux box as a router, you have to set up a DHCPv4 client, a DHCPv6 client, a DHCPv4 server, a DHCPv6 server, radvd, and get the kernel parameters sorted out so that it will actually accept router advertisements and route packets at the same time. I eventually gave up and just run pfSense in VirtualBox, but even figuring out how to get that to work wasn't trivial. Thus, I wouldn't conclude that you don't have IPv6 until you see tcpdump fail to show any IPv6 packets after running for ten minutes.
Not that disappointed, using a HOSTS file and working with IP4 address I've a bit of sense about them, IP6 I couldn't tell you if I've seen it before or not,
Well, the good thing is, even if IPv4 disappears from the internet, it'll still exist on your LAN, and so you can continue to access computers on your LAN via IPv4. I ended up configuring the firewall on my computers to block all incoming connections via IPv6, and just use IPv4 when connecting between them via SSH. As such, I'm using IPv6 basically as an internet-only protocol, which seems to make a lot of sense: I have little IPv4 addresses for my little LAN, and big IPv6 addresses for the big internet.
Net effect of such a policy (Score:3)
1024 per 6 months per organization.
So what will organizations do? Right. Reserve 1024 IP addresses every 6 months, need them or not, because they MIGHT need a few 1000 down the road at some time. Chances are they don't, but "just in case".
Our government tried to limit water use by cutting off water supply whenever it got scarce. Can you imagine how much water got wasted? The reason is simple, people filled every kind of container (bathrub, sinks, buckets, even coffee cups) whenever water was available, only to drain it whenever water got available again to refill with fresh water...
Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
These kinds of stories have been popping up on Slashdot for a while, but I note Slashdot *STILL* doesn't have an IPv6 address even though it's a site supposedly run by and for technologists. Meanwhile, Facebook, a site made for teenagers to post selfies on, has had IPv6 support for three or four years.
ARIN is not in address exhaustion mode (Score:2)
> As of now, only AfriNIC is not in address exhaustion mode."
That is not true - ARIN (north America's RiR) is still handing out IPv4's and will continue to do so until down to their last /10.
https://www.arin.net/resources... [arin.net]
They're doing it wrong (Score:4, Funny)
and yet one more new domain... (Score:2)
.idiot
who cares, let's play footbol (Score:2)
It's world cup. big titted groupies and cheap beer. screw this internet shit.
Skip (Score:2)
IPV6 is like the iPhone *c and *s models that everyone skips while waiting for the next version -- not enough new features, the current one is good enough, and "polycarbonate" doesn't that just mean "plastic"?
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
They've basically already did this with ipv6 with all the ipv4 numbers accessible as a subset of ipv6.
I don't see the adoption of an area code system any more likely than the adoption of ipv6.
There might be some type of solution like that though. Basically what you're suggesting is allowing 2
computers to have the same ipv4 address so just like 2 computers not on the same network can
have the same mac address without conflicting it could be possible to design a system where a
computer in africa has the same ip as a server in china without conflict.
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure the letters are limited to A-F and map to hexadecimal notation. Not arguing that it's any easier to remember than you suggest but it's not the whole alphabet being used here. IPv6 addresses can be expressed in decimal (or octal for that matter) but the reasoning behind using hexadecimal notation is that it reduces the number of 'digits' you need to remember. It's easier to wrap your head around it if you've ever used hex for memory addressing or similar low level tasks.
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
Your explanation is good, but I agree with the sentiment expressed by the OP. I don't have a problem with hex, per-se, but I have a harder time memorizing MAC addresses (or IPv6 addresses) than IPv4 addresses.
The decision to switch from decimal to hexadecimal notation was arbitrary and jarring...not at all unlike switching phone numbers from decimal to alphanumeric notation would be.
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
The decision to switch from decimal to hexadecimal notation was arbitrary and jarring...not at all unlike switching phone numbers from decimal to alphanumeric notation would be.
I'm not so sure. Data entry is, IMO, much more difficult when dealing with hexadecimal, but memorizing the strings actually seems easier to me, or at least on par. Some example phone numbers:
18003368478 -> base36 = 89qqo0u
18003569377 -> base36 = 89quz1d
7185551212 -> base36 = 3au3ass
base36 is unrealistic, but so is the phone number comparison. IP's are dotted quads; phone numbers are normal base 10 numbers.
216.34.181.45 -> decimal = 3626153261 (which is, IMO, harder to remember... not that anyone memorizes more than a couple IPs)
216.34.181.45 -> hex = d8.22.b5.2d (which is, IMO, just as easy, if not easier, to remember)
base36 = 1nyx1rh
The reason you have a harder time memorizing mac addresses is probably because they contain more information than IPv4. Ex:
00:16:3E:02:90:52 -> IP like notation = 0.22.62.2.144.82 (seems just about as hard to remember IMO).
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:3)
Right...I get the pro-change argument, I just (still) think it was arbitrary and jarring.
It may seem trivial, but something as simple as keeping the decimal notation would probably have gone a long way in spurring adoption of IPv6.
I know that representing numbers in hex doesn't make them different, and takes up less screen real estate, but they *look* different. I think everyone talking about reasons for low adoption vastly underestimates the psychological impact of the way addresses are represented in v6.
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
So an address like C0A8:0166 is not to your liking? Would you like 192.168.1.102 better? Or are you the kind of decimal purist that would feel more comfortable with 3,232,235,878?
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
I can remember number.number.number.number.
I cannot remember ASDFDAVUDSFWSNASDCNACKEFADCKSA Which is also an IPV6 address
I can easily remember 10.0.0.0.1 as my new local 5-octet private subnet. But jeeze don't just add 500 alphabet characters expecting things to be the same.
You seem to not realise that IP6 has shorthand built in.
For example the IP6 address of Wikipedia is 2001:503:BA3E::2:30, not really that much harder than 91.198.174.192 is it?
Local subnets are even easier, fe80::1 is actually shorter than 10.0.0.0.1
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
It's still quadrupling the information (from 32 bits to 128 bits), though most IPv6 addresses can be shortened.
But to be honest, this is what DNS is for. If you find yourself regularly having to memorize or manually type dotted quad IPv4 as a user, you're doing something wrong; and if you're a sysadmin, you're routinely memorizing (or writing down) other things that are more complex than that.
Mnemonics could also help, like assigning words to bytes [wikipedia.org].
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334
which is a lot longer than an IPV4 Address such as:
123.123.123.123
And IPV6 address has 4 times as many digits as an IPV6 address, if you write it in the same base. That's way more than just adding and "area code"
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:3)
An actual example of an IPV6 address is as follows:
2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334
That is not an actual example of an IPv6 address. Lets try with some real examples instead:
google.com has IPv6 address 2a00:1450:4005:801::1007
gmail.com has IPv6 address 2a00:1450:400f:803::1016
facebook.com has IPv6 address 2a03:2880:2110:df07:face:b00c::1
arin.net has IPv6 address 2001:500:4:13::124
arin.net has IPv6 address 2001:500:4:13::125
ripe.net has IPv6 address 2001:67c:2e8:22::c100:68b
gigabit.dk has IPv6 address 2a00:7660:0:50::2
The last one is my own website. Your IPv6 address is as long as you want it to be. Many ISPs will assign you a /48 prefix, which is just 16 bits more than your IPv4. It is literally just an area code more (two bytes). What happens with the last 80 bits is up to you. You can make them all zero if you want to. And since all zero can be shortened to "::" that all just goes away.
As to those first 48 bits there is a system in it, which makes it easier to remember. Notice how all of the above has either 2001 or 2a0x as the first block? Also the second block is the ISP and most people only deal with a few of those. So you will quickly memorize that. The third block is basically your customer id within the ISP. And everything after that is yours to decide.
It is true that if you go with auto configuration addresses on your computer, you will get horrible long addresses. But if you are doing that, you are not the kind of person to deal with IP addresses. Personally I let my computer choose any long address it want, but for my servers I am picking something sane.
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
mmm... just end them in CAFE:BABE:xxxx and start at 0, easy to remember :)
Also, face:b00c... really? but I guess it makes it easy for them to remember.
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
So ... you say that we should adopt v6.
Because that's essentially what adopting v6 would be about.
Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it... (Score:2)
Kinda how IPv6 works; except there's only one two-octet area code (2002::, or 32.2. in dotted decimal) for the old IPv4 addresses, and all the other addresses work differently.
(Of course, if the recipient only understands IPv4, and the sender only has an IPv6 address, then the packets can only be sent one direction. I'm not sure if or how an IPv6 host and an IPv4 host can establish a TCP handshake, starting from either end.)
I too wonder about that too. (Score:2)
Like forcing IPv4 to stay in country only. If you want to go to a server in another country, you have to get there via IPv6.
Or give each country a IPv4 address range, but certain addresses are reserved for international servers. Multiple IPv4 networks that overlap on addresses that are outside the country.
Re:i would (Score:3)
Surprisingly, Comcast is now giving out /64 IPv6 addresses in my area (south-eastern Massachusetts). Spent a couple of evenings last week getting it all connected. Works fine.
Re:i would (Score:2)
Re:i would (Score:2)
Re:i would (Score:2)
Surprisingly, Comcast is now giving out /64 IPv6 addresses in my area (south-eastern Massachusetts). Spent a couple of evenings last week getting it all connected. Works fine.
Emphasis added. Until the freebie routers start handing out IPv6 blocks by default and routing IPv6 traffic cleanly, this will never work. Why on earth would you need to actually do any work by hand?
Re:i would (Score:2)
I recently upgraded my old DSL to Uverse (with one of the newer Motorola modems, not the 2wire modems that I hear were total crap in comparison), and they have 6rd [wikipedia.org] allocations set up for their IPv4 space, using a 24-bit 6rd block. So not only can I access the v6 internet, my 6rd address block is static based on my static IPv4 address block. (At least if and until they decide to more their customer addresses into a "real" IPv6 allocation.) As I understand it, the modem itself does the 6to4 encapsulation to ATT's outbound IPv6 proxy.
So IPv6 is finally reaching at least some regular ISP customers.
Re:i would (Score:2)
Do like I did, get a free 4to6 tunnel from tunnelbroker.com, a public service from Hurricane Electric (he.com). Since my edge router is able to run the Tomato firmware, it has the capability to act as the endpoint for one of these tunnels, plus it can update my dynamic address from Cox when it changes, to keep the tunnel working.. Very slick.. Its fun to watch my Debian machines doing an apt-get update, and seeing an ipv6 address listed.. The current version of Tomato also implementts ip6tables so you're protected from that end.. Even if you don't have an edge router that can do Tomato, its still pretty easy to configure an always-on Linux machine to handle the tunnel endpoint, just so long as your firewall can be configured to pass protocol 41 (6to4 protocol, as I recall).. They give you a /64 prefix, which is a multi-mega-bazillion number ipv6 addresses.. Big numbers like that give me a headache..
Re:i would (Score:2)
That problem is shared by people all over the globe.
And even if your ISP offers v6 support, they often "forget" to tell their support. If yours offers v6, if you have some spare time and want some entertainment on support's expense, call them and ask them for aid in setting up v6.
Re:So ask big companies to stop wasting public IPs (Score:3)
Does every cellphone, toilet, refrigerator, atm, medical device, desktop terminal, etc etc etc really need a public IP address?
How else do you expect the NSA to track them?
Re:So ask big companies to stop wasting public IPs (Score:2)
So why doesn't the NSA pump money behind IPv6 rollout?
If there's one organization that SHOULD have an interest in (virtually) unlimited unique IP addresses that allow tracking every single device using one, it's them.
Re:Why not an address market? (Score:4, Informative)
One of the problems with IPv4 address exhaustion is that routing tables become very complex. Having everyone try to glom a dozen random /24s together to make their local networks will not help.
Also, this is an exponential growth situation, so stopgap measures won't buy much time anyway.
Re:Why not an address market? (Score:2)
Re:I'm waiting for IPv7 (Score:2)
It's going to be implemented as soon as 2214, I hear.
Re:I'm waiting for IPv7 (Score:3)
Waiting for IPv7, I hear its going to be much better.
Whatever you do, don't settle for IPVista.
Re:"Every 6 six months" (Score:2)
Most organization only needs a few public IP addresses per continent, the remainder for use inside the organization can be from the private pools.
Any organization that runs addresses from the public pool behind the company firewalls should consider to start a transition.
Re:Any good hoster in Africa ? (Score:2)
I can't imagine connectivity to Europe, the US or Australia would be particularly good from anywhere other than Egypt.
Why do you need IPs? They aren't hard to get if you have a actual reason. (I'm a owner of a /24)
Re:Simple and elegant IPV4 vs cluttered unelegant (Score:2)
Why has people not generally adopted V6 years ago ?
Probably because the hardware in (almost) every routing device needs to be updated to support it. Even if you went with a simple expansion of IPv4 it wouldn't be simple because a router that's looking for a 4 byte address isn't going to know what to do with an 8 byte address. Might as well go with a 16 byte address while we're updating everything.