ARIN heads off IP address land grab Older types of internet protocol addresses are about to get harder to come by - at least in North America. Starting in mid May, the non-profit group that allocates IP numbers in the US, Canada, and surrounding areas will require customers to submit an "attestation of accuracy" when applying for older, version 4 forms of …
Oh please. Just as "unlimited broadband" doesn't actually mean that, neither does IPv6 offer "virtually unlimited" addresses. There is a limit. It's a clearly defined, very fixed, unarguable limit.
It may be a very large number, but that doesn't make it "virtually unlimited".
/pedant_off
Yeah it seems like you've won the IP lottery now, you'll be handing out IP addresses to your family and friends, work colleagues and neighbours, everything in the virtual garden will seem rosy.
Then you'll start getting the e-mails from needy causes, people with a plan to good things if only they had a few IP addresses, and you'll be generous, you're giving a bit back and helping to make the world a better place.
You'll feel so good that you'll barely notice the subtle change in tone of those e-mails, the people around you, even your closest friends: they're becoming greedy for what you've got that they don't have, they simply MUST HAVE more of your address space!
That's when you'll start to find it hard to sleep at night, you'll keep a copy of a hardened linux kernel on a memory stick by your pillow and no matter how many sacks of IP addresses you stash under your bed you still won't feel secure.
Before you know you'll be down to your last ten million trillion addresses and you'll be staring IP oblivion in face...
HTTP Error 404: Not found
IP6 is not as important now that NAT is in general use, we have many many hosts on our network but rely on a handful of public addresses so if top left hand corner of the map (you know the map I mean - http://xkcd.com/195/ ) handed a few of their addresses back then things would be very different.
Yes there are a huge number IPv6 addresses: 10^38
But if the block size they give out is too big then it might not go as far as you'd think.
Google got 2^96 adresses. If that's going to be the going rate then they can make 4 billion allocations.
Now that's a large number but it's not what I'd call astronomical.
Most organisations that have been allocated this type of address range could probably make do with a class B (if not C). BUT, if you've ever had to reassign large numbers of IP addresses and corresponding subnets, you'll know the cost of doing so is far from negligible. AND, as has been pointed out, any respite so gained wouldn't last all that long.
What about the class D space? Do we really need all of it for multicasts (which aren't in widespread use, except for some routing protocols)??
Comparing 128b to 32b isn't correct. IPv4 address bits were so miserly that they could only do the most essential thing -- addressing. Even the allocation for multicast was controversial. IPv6 is large enough to trade some addressing bits for other features -- most notably the 64b used for EUI-64 autoconfiguration (ie, like AppleTalk, IPX, etc have had since their creation).
My estimate is that there is enough routable IPv6 address space for one billion enterprise style allocations. One consequence of this is that the current practice of giving individuals large allocations isn't sustainable -- the average DSL customer will need to get a /64 rather than a /48. But a IPv6 subnet's worth of globally-visible addressing is a lot better than the single IPv4 address they get now (and that single IPv4 address won't be globally-visible in 2012 whereas the IPv6 addresses will be).
IPv6 is clearly big enough for the job. But comparing 128 to 32 ignores the use of addressing bits for non-addressing purposes and leads to conclusions which encourage an imprudent wastefulness. Without such wastefulness IPv6 could run for 100 years, with it IPv6 is good for only 10 years.
Glen [a senior network engineer at an ISP with an actual IPv6 deployment]
"For the most part, the sticking point is with end users who rely on a wide variety of applications that may be crippled by networks that use only IPv6."
Errr, no, the sticking point is with the ISPs who don't/can't/won't do IPv6. The vast majority of end users wouldn't know IPv6 if it came up to them and said hello (which it should, one day).
So nearly 1/3 of IPs are to a handful of US companies & Universities, about 1360M unused addresses . That would last a few years or so
While it's true that VOIP (particularly SIP) wasn't designed with NAT in mind there are working solutions.
VPN also solves it for companies as it can be forwarded via NAT
Skype works just fine. We have simple NAT /IPtables rules for Skype an other things,
Until every gadget and PC and site has IP6, everyone needs IP4. No migration plan :-(
So the Big Lads will have to give up some of their 1,300,000,000,000 unused addresses
The assignment of IP addresses in classes has been deprecated since 1993 when CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing) was adopted in RFC 1517. Stop using that term. It is ancient tech, even before the introduction of internet to the masses. I even believe that most of the Class assignments done in the past have been reverted.
Mesh networks would benefit from the inclusion of latitude and longitude in their IP addresses.
Routing would become a simple matter of determining which direction to forward the packets.
Of course this would make it easier for the BOFH to send a GPS sniper-chopper to the proper location.
In many cases NAT is the solution: All those unpatched windows xp systems hiding behind NAT routers and corporate firewalls... *shiver*
Oh and think of the poor firewall admins, "What did you say your IP address was again?"
re: @Nick
Yes you can do voip over NAT, but its a bit awkward. Multiple phones are more difficult as they all want port 5060 by default. Ditto if you have more than one host you want to ssh to - yes its possible to move ssh to a different port (or PAT it) but that breaks conventions which is generally a bad thing. Anything with dynamic port allocation (SIP, RTP, FTP, X, MSN/skype file transfer) falls foul of NAT and needs special attention. That isn't to say you wouldn't give it special attention at your firewall anyway of course. There are for example, problems with mobile phone internet access as they usually get a private address and are then NAT'ed. Some realplayer phone clients appear to have ports hardcoded and simply fail with PAT. You can't currently allocate an IP for every internet phone on a telco network with IPv4.
Without an incentive there's little need for migration until things get really difficult. Personally, I'd like to see ISPs offer voip or video on demand (BBC?) to IPv6 devices. I'm rather surprised that ISPs haven't gone for voip more. I know voip providers give voip addresses for free, but ISPs can do both v4 and v6 without problems and they already have billing systems in place which could be used for PSTN calls or proxying v6 to other v4 voip providers. Get some linux router/server/ip phone which can sync over bluetooth with your mobile phone cleanly to give you common addressbooks across your mobile and home phones and maybe PC too. Bundle options include a netbook, iphone 3G or touch for added cool. Some people have their companies pay for their internet connection so bundling might be a real selling point.
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