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The Internet EU Networking

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!"
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RIPE Region Runs Out of IPv4 Addresses

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  • by plover ( 150551 ) * on Friday September 14, 2012 @11:40AM (#41335363) Homepage Journal

    Don't we already have enough people on the internet? Why do we keep encouraging more? :-)

    Note: to all you humor-impaired people, the smiley face indicates this is a JOKE.

    • I see a huge business opportunity!

      1. Fuck IPv6. Let's keep the IP addresses a rare and highly desired commodity;
      2. Charge an exorbitant fee every time a DHCP request is serviced;
      3. Profit!

      • Too late, the ISPs already got that covered with their insane prices per fixed IP address.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by jonadab ( 583620 )
        > 1. Fuck IPv6. Let's keep the IP addresses a rare and highly desired commodity;
        > 2. Charge an exorbitant fee every time a DHCP request is serviced;
        > 3. Profit!

        The problem with this is, IPv4 addresses are not rare. They're not anything like rare. There are approximately ten thousand times as many of them as are actually needed.

        We only ran out because they were systematically over-allocated, handed out like free candy, based purely on requests, with no regard for actual need or common sense. My e
        • by joostje ( 126457 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @02:44PM (#41338103)

          The problem with this is, IPv4 addresses are not rare. They're not anything like rare. There are approximately ten thousand times as many of them as are actually needed.

          Well, with only 32 bits of address space, that's only 4,294,967,296 possible addresses, and there are already more people on the planet. We do need more.

        • by shutdown -p now ( 807394 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @04:28PM (#41339405) Journal

          Fuck NAT. Don't you dare preach that ugly hack as the Right Way to solve the problem.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          NAT

          Stopped reading right there. NATs break the internet at a fundamental level and make any peer-to-peer technologies unworkable without retardedly complicated security holes. No, no, no, this is a terrible idea and you should feel terrible for having it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Dahamma ( 304068 )

          IPv6 is not a solution to this problem. If we allocate IPv6 addresses the way we have allocated IPv4 addresses, we'll run out of them in just a few more years.

          You make some good points, but this one is just silly. I think 10^38 IP addresses will last more than a few years, even if given out excessively. That's about 2 IP addresses for each cell in the human body for the entire world population. It's a big number.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Wasn't Iran going to build their own Persian Intranet? Surely they have a few IPv4 addresses that can now be returned to the pool.

    • Don't we already have enough people on the internet? Why do we keep encouraging more? :-)

      Note: to all you humor-impaired people, the smiley face indicates this is a JOKE.

      But the internet is serious business! [techi.com]

  • by alphatel ( 1450715 ) * on Friday September 14, 2012 @11:41AM (#41335367)
    I will soon run out of underwear (I have been told this since 2009). I still have not done anything about it despite holes in them. Count on my continued responsiveness to this problem.
    • The trouble is there has been a chicken and egg problem.

      The internet is mostly a network of buisnesses (with the occasional academic network thrown in). Some of those buisnesses sell service to other buisnesses and consumers, some just use it to support their main buisness.

      There is basically no benefit and significant cost to an buisness in deploying dual stack while v6 only nodes are basically unheard of.
      You can't really deploy v6 only nodes while there are a significant number of v4 only nodes*

      So for each

  • IPv6? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    There is no such thing as IPv6. Once we run out of IPv4 addresses, the internet will implode and everything will be lost.

    The rapture is here!

    • 2112 - end of the world!

      oh wait

    • I guess I am way behind the curve here, but what's the easiest way to tell if my computer and home router can access an IPv6 host?

      And since I'm running a small webserver from home, which I presume will remain IP4 indefinitely, what's the easiest way to tell if somebody with an IP6 address can access it?

      • Re:IPv6? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by kasperd ( 592156 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @02:43PM (#41338093) Homepage Journal

        And since I'm running a small webserver from home, which I presume will remain IP4 indefinitely, what's the easiest way to tell if somebody with an IP6 address can access it?

        If you don't know the answer to that question, then the answer is no. You need to actually update your DNS records for the domain to include an AAAA record with your IPv6 address. Without that record an IPv6 only client will have no way of even trying to reach your domain. So, you need to get an IPv6 address, and then put that IPv6 record in DNS. If your Internet provider doesn't provide IPv6, then you have three options. Use a tunnel (tunnelbroker.net is the one I have the best experience with), switch to a better Internet provider, or wait for your current Internet provider to catch up.

        Users who have both IPv4 and IPv6 will be able to reach your website, even if your website only has IPv4. The users, which will experience problems, are those who have only IPv6. There is still a couple of ways ISPs can make those users reach your site, but they involve NAT, which will reduce the reliability. Those NAT solutions come in two flavours. There are the CGN solutions, which are just doing IPv4 and work similar to the typical NAT people have at home, just at a larger scale. The other option is NAT64, where the NAT translates between IPv6 and IPv4.

    • Re:IPv6? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Blue Stone ( 582566 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @12:46PM (#41336273) Homepage Journal

      >The rapture is here!

      It's the IPocalypse!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Time to crackdown and revoke/reclaim IP's

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 14, 2012 @11:47AM (#41335433)

      or, you know, just use ipv6.

      • And I would, if my ISP had ipv6 addresses available.

    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Time to crackdown and revoke/reclaim IP's

      So there's 7 billion people and 4 billion IP addresses, how'd that work even if you could reclaim every range and achieve perfect routing and perfect efficiency meaning you couldn't be online at home or at work and on the phone at the same time. You'd just run into the same problem a little bit down the road as another billion people go online. Pretty soon there won't be any other choice.

  • by SmilingBoy ( 686281 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @11:43AM (#41335397)
    I hope that this will serve as another incentive to move to IPv6. Allocations by RIPE NCC have already been very conservative over the last year (only allowing you to apply for new IPv4 space for three months of growth), so by the end of the year, there will be a real squeeze at the final customer level. I am lucky in that my ISP provides both IPv4 and native IPv6, so I will not be affected, but very few people are in such a position.
    • Or, as your IP sees it: "Crap, we're out of IP addresses. How much will it cost to retrain our network team, reconfigure our network, test every model of every device and deal with the tech support cost when it inevitably causes compatibility issues? Holy craptacular megabucks. Screw it, they're all going on NAT, only those nasty p2p users and people using VoIP to avoid paying our extortionate phone call bills will be affected."
      • Not sure. Carrier Grade NAT is quite expensive as well, and a big mess to administer. It is much worth than NAT at your home router as plug and play can be used by programmes to open ports dynamically. So once you go CGN, expect many support calls because of broken stuff.

        I expect most ISPs to hand out native IPv6, and - once out of IPv4 - offer CGN as a stopgap for users to reach IPv4-only servers. The biggest and most popular sites are IPv6 enabled already, and I would expect the others to follow suit

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Lennie ( 16154 )

          Here is a list of what works and does not work with CGN:

          What NAT444 Breaks

          We are left with a number of applications (and application types) that currently break when Large Scale NAT is introduced. To avoid the doom and gloom feeling that is sure to follow a list of just the broken stuff, let’s start with a list of what isn’t broken by NAT444/LSN:

          Web browsing
          Email
          FTP download

      • by jbolden ( 176878 )

        That's called carrier based NAT and ISP's do not want to go to it. The regulators have made it clear that carrier based NAT won't have legal shielding (i.e. they screw up as a result they are liable) and at the same time it is just as expensive as implementing v6. There will not be carrier based NAT.

    • Re:Not unexpected (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cimexus ( 1355033 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @11:57AM (#41335539)

      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.

      • by Kjella ( 173770 )

        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.

        Well as long as you are on dual stack you have an IPv4 address for everything that needs an IPv4 address, but it doesn't solve anything as no more people can run that than there are IPv4 addresses. How much would cease to work if you went IPv6 only? Because that's the only Internet connection they can offer soon. And if you don't see the problem you don't know the average company's pile of legacy/custom code that will all assume it's using IPv4 and nothing else that nobody knows or the vendor will charge a

        • Well you're right of course - when they truly run out of IPv4, those that get connected after that date will only be able to 'see' the IPv6 portions of the internet. Which is why it's important that we get at least ~most~ of the net running IPv6 before that happens. Currently let's face it, most stuff is still IPv4 only (although the major sites - Google, Facebook, anything served from Akamai etc. are all nicely dual stacked now, and I'm noticing it increasing rapidly ... my router reports approx 15% of my

          • by jbolden ( 176878 )

            No what will happen is that v4 addresses will be in a dynamically allocated pool and for communicated within your ISP's network you'll use v6. Everyone understands the v4 pool will exist. But things like: geolocation, session maintenance... will get much much worse.

            And so far it has been phones then moving home / small business over.

        • How much would cease to work if you went IPv6 only?

          Less than what ceases to work by going in a NAT.

          That's because nobody will go IPv6 only, they'll go IPv6 and get behind a IPv4 NAT. Well, at least the lucky ones will, others will have only the NAT.

        • Because that's the only Internet connection they can offer soon.

          Bullshit, they can offer you:

          v4 only with a private IP and ISP level NAT
          v6+v4 dual stack with a public v6 IP a private v4 IP and ISP level v4 NAT
          v6 with a public v6 IP and ds-lite
          v6 with a public v6 IP with NAT64 and DNS64

          They will also be able to offer public v4 as a premium service once they push their bottom tier of users onto one of the above.

          Remember your ISP's existing v4 IPs won't dissapear, they will just have to reduce the average number used per customer (or buy IP addresses on the market) if the

        • by jbolden ( 176878 )

          That's fine. IPv6 equipment can support dual stack and mappings. Users can share dynamically allocated address from a pool, as it is needed less and less. The v4 internet as a low feature, legacy support system is not a problem.'

          What's a problem is making it the primary system.

  • Personally? (Score:5, Funny)

    by kiriath ( 2670145 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @11:44AM (#41335405)

    I'm going to wait it out and skip straight from IPv4 to IPv8... IPv6 could be the Windows Vista of the IP world.

  • There are companies out there with IP allocations from the dawn of time they are not (or should not) be using since most clients don't need fully routed addresses. Time to set a market price on IPv4 addresses. At the right price we might throw one of our two class Cs in the pot - not much, but there's a lot more out there.

    • by jbolden ( 176878 )

      The internet is still growing exponentially better efficiency for the used addresses doesn't buy you much time. Not worth the hassle.

  • by Mikaelk ( 32020 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @12:23PM (#41335925) Homepage Journal

    Like youtube, google, facebook and slashdot.
    ok, all except slashdot.

  • by Compaqt ( 1758360 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @12:23PM (#41335931) Homepage

    Party-line IP addresses [wikipedia.org]

    Yeah, sure, sometimes you might be trying to access /., and end up at teletubbies.com, but, hey, recycling.

  • 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,

    • by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Friday September 14, 2012 @12:45PM (#41336249) Homepage Journal

      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.

    • My ISP's done all the above (been using native IPv6 for >2 years), and you're right ... done properly it's transparent to the end user and everything just works as it always has. It was done as an opt-in trial for the first year or so (you just changed your PPP login details from user@isp.net to user@ipv6.isp.net). Then after ironing out any issues, they just turned it on for all new customers by default. The sky hasn't fallen in.

      In fact I forget all about IPv6 most of the time, only to be occasionally r

    • How many consumer devices a few years ago would have worked properly with a full switch to IPV6?

      Even now, surely some stuff consumers still have and use will break - and that's why movement has been slow, because ISP's do not want a ton of support calls.

      • by jbolden ( 176878 )

        Most consumer devices still don't support v6. But that's not a problem. Inside the house you run dual stack. Your v4 devices happily live on 192.168.1.x just like they always have. And when they call out they go out a dynamically allocated v4 address which is fine since they use DHCP (at the house level) today.

    • by jbolden ( 176878 )

      They are switching over. It takes the ISP years to do a full end to end switch and support it. The first step was phones and that's working. The next is home / small business and almost all the major ISPs have pilot projects running.

    • Serious question. Why aren't we all on v6?

      Serious answer. Are you paying for it? Equipment costs, installation costs, staff costs for design and configuration, and all of it with the boss standing behind you asking, "Why are we spending all this money, again?"

      This is something the ISPs, the upstreams, well the big guys in general have to do

      It's not something they've had to do so far. If they have to do it in the future, well, they'll do it then.

  • No Canadian ISP is live or in public trial of IPv6. Contacting most of them reveals that there is no knowledge of even field tests. At least in the USA Comcast has started providing IPv6. Here in Canada we are likely to be banging rocks when it comes to ISP innovation, when everyone has made their sites IPv6 accessible only.

  • If you have money, come talk to me, we'll make a deal. If you are a non-profit-org, you may attempt to show how worthwhile your cause is and why it needs a /24 or larger.

  • Having 4.8×10^28 IP addresses for each person is just plain superfluous. We have about 7 billion, and IPv4 gives us some 4.3 billion IP addresses. So, the solution is obvious. We just need to double the IPs of IPv4, and we'll have everyone covered. We can do that by simply creating a second internet.

    Problem solved.
    • by jbolden ( 176878 )

      And what about phones and other mobile devices? It is not just homes.

      And how do these internets talk to one another?

  • "This IP goes to 11 - you know - when you just need those few extra bits." -- Nigel Tufnel

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