IPv4 Unallocated Addresses Exhausted by 2010

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica is reporting on how the unallocated IPv4 address pool could run out as soon as 2010. The IPv4 Address Report gives details on just how fast the available pool of IPv4 addresses is diminishing. Will ISPs be moving towards IPv6 any time soon? Or will IPv4 exhaustion become the next Y2K?"

Comments

Re:From TFA: free pr0n!

[mengel]

The problem is, that claim makes no senses whatsoever. The IPv4 addresses are a subset of the IPv6 space -- you can get to all of the IPv4 systems from an IPv6 network.

There are two issues:

1. Switching protocols
2. Getting IPv6 addresses

You can use the IPv4 subset of the IPv6 address space, and everyone can still talk to everyone while you convert. It's only the folks that have IPV6 addresses before the IPv4 users have migrated that become unreachable by anyone.

So the online businesses are going to want to be the last ones to switch, so that their customers don't become unable to reach them.

But anyway, IPV6 gives you access to all the same content.

Re:it's tghe next Y2k

[Kadin2048]

i've been hearing about how ip4 will run out in the next 5 years for the last TEN years.

Well, it would have run out a lot faster, had it not been for CIDR, which allowed addresses to be allocated more efficiently. However that -- like proposals to re-allocate unused space in some of the old corporate A-blocks -- slowed the bleeding but doesn't really do anything about the real problem.

Re: From TFA: free pr0n!

[Dolda2000]

If what you say is true, then you definitely know something that I don't, and then I still think that I know more about IPv6 than at least most people do. I would think that you confuse either the ::/96 or the ::ffff:0:0/96 prefix for the IPv4 address space as a "subspace" of the IPv6 space. If you do, neither is true.

::/96 is a method for routing IPv6 traffic over IPv4. In other words, if you send a UDP packet to ::1.2.3.4, what is being transmitted onto the wire is an IPv4 packet (src: the address of your system's IPv4 stack, dst: 1.2.3.4), encapsulating an IPv6 header (src: the address of your system's IPv4 stack in the last 32 bits left-padded with zeroes, dst: ::1.2.3.4), in turn encapsulating a UDP header. It's a simple way of setting up a SIT tunnel, nothing more. You won't be sending any raw IPv4 packets that way, and neither is any router on the way going to convert it to IPv4 for you.

::ffff:0:0/96 is merely a way of talking to the IPv4 stack in your system, even if the program in question only uses IPv6. It does not work on a system without a working and properly configured IPv4 stack. In fact, I hear that the IETF is starting to work against the ::ffff:0:0/96 prefix due to some security issues that I have yet to understand.

In fact, if IPv4 truly were a subspace of IPv6, then what sources address would an IPv4-only host be seeing when it receives such a packet from an IPv6-only host?

It is perfectly possible to use both an IPv4 and an IPv6 stack simultaneously, and there are some NAT-like technologies that run on a router to give IPv4 connectivity to IPv6-only hosts, but you'll still need an IPv4 stack somewhere on your network to access IPv4 content.

Re:Reshuffle existing IPv4 space

[Kalriath]

Oh really?

Department of Defense Network Information Center 21.0.0.0 - 22.255.255.255

That's a... /7? And check THIS out:

Department of Defense Network Information Center 6.0.0.0 - 7.255.255.255
Department of Defense Network Information Center 11.0.0.0 - 11.255.255.255
Department of Defense Network Information Center 21.0.0.0 - 22.255.255.255
Department of Defense Network Information Center 26.0.0.0 - 26.255.255.255
Department of Defense Network Information Center 28.0.0.0 - 30.255.255.255
Department of Defense Network Information Center 33.0.0.0 - 33.255.255.255
Department of Defense Network Information Center 55.0.0.0 - 55.255.255.255

So that's... about 330 MILLION IP addresses for the US DoD alone? And people bitch about MIT hoarding!