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IPv4 Unallocated Addresses Exhausted by 2010

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the no-room-to-grow dept.

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?"

18 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. everything is going to be ok by WormholeFiend · · Score: 5, Funny

    I bet that people will be bored of the internet by then

  2. Reshuffle existing IPv4 space by McDutchie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They could delay the inevitable by reallocating existing IPv4 space more efficiently. Many old/historical allocations are inefficient. Apple Computer, for example, has all of the 17.x.x.x space, comprising 256^3 = more than 16 million addresses, which is just plain absurd in this day and age.

    1. Re:Reshuffle existing IPv4 space by Tatarize · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No reason? Ahem, those IP addresses are going to get *VERY* valuable in about 3 years apparently.

      --

      It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
    2. Re:Reshuffle existing IPv4 space by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They could delay the inevitable by reallocating existing IPv4 space more efficiently. Many old/historical allocations are inefficient. Apple Computer, for example, has all of the 17.x.x.x space, comprising 256^3 = more than 16 million addresses, which is just plain absurd in this day and age.


      Don't complain about Apple. HP has all of 15.x.x.x and all of 16.x.x.x, because they purchased DEC who also had a class-A.

      Interestingly, HP is the only company that effectively has a /7 because their block is contiguous.
    3. Re:Reshuffle existing IPv4 space by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Actually, you don't need an army of lawyers. Those Class A blocks are delegated solely at the whim of ARIN (at least those Class A blocks that fall under ARIN control). If ARIN has a vote, and the majority of stakeholders create a resolution requiring action to be taken to stave off address exhaustion, then anything is possible.

      Disclaimer: I've worked with ARIN to get/manage/return blocks of IPs for years.

    4. Re:Reshuffle existing IPv4 space by Kalriath · · Score: 5, Informative

      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!

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    5. Re:Reshuffle existing IPv4 space by Kadin2048 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It only seems ridiculous because of the way we distribute IP addresses today, using CIDR. Prior to 1993 (or whenever CIDR was implemented), if you wanted to run a network with subnets, then you needed at least a Class B allocation, so that your subnets could have Class C blocks (254 hosts each).

      This is why MIT, Apple, DEC, IBM, and lots of other big companies were given Class A's. It wasn't just a "thanks for playing" reward, it was because the original design for the IP system required Class A blocks if you wanted to run big networks: if you had a big organization, you needed a Class A, in order to do multiple levels of subnetting.

      When you look at the IP allocations and see GE or DEC's Class A blocks, it seems ridiculous. But you have to understand that when those allocations were made, what they were looking at was less the number of actual host IPs in the block (which is what we care about now) but the number of Class B and C subnet blocks that were inside. Put yourself in the shoes of someone at a big company like IBM or GE, with lots of regional offices. Each region/office needs to have a network, with its own subnets (for each department or whatever). That's how they were laying things out. "IBM" as an organization gets a Class A. Each regional office or some other division, Class B. Each network or further subdivision, Class C. Yeah, you end up with a lot of wasted capacity, but this whole scheme was designed back when a "host" was a PDP or VAX; there just weren't enough of them for it to seem like a major issue.

      The problem people sometimes refer to when they talk about "the last time we were running out of IPs" (back in the early 90s) wasn't really a shortage of IPs at all (well, at least not immediately, although people were definitely realizing it was going to be a problem), it was a shortage of Class B and C subnet blocks. (Particularly Class B's, since that's what medium-size businesses and .edu's really wanted, and there are only like 16k of them around for direct allocation.)

      So that's when CIDR was introduced, and it ended the whole 'Classed Network' concept (A, B, and C classes) and replaced it with the now-familiar bitwise/subnet-mask format. (E.g., IBM's Class A block is 9.0.0.0/8, Apple's is 17.0.0.0/8, etc.) This, along with prefix aggregation, allowed more efficient address allocation, and kept the routing tables from growing out of control. Now that you can subnet at the bit level, rather than at the Class level, those A Blocks seem huge. But keep in mind that before CIDR, each of those A Blocks was looked at, not as 16M hosts, but as 254 subnetworks.

      It's only in retrospect, with the help of a bunch of new technologies, that the allocations made back in the Internet's early years look ridiculous.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  3. VoIp Everything by chill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Telecom companies are switching everything, including cell phones, to VoIP. Soon, damn near every cell phone will have an IP address associated with it. CDMA phones that EVDO rev-A already do. I know one carrier that has a pool of 2 million available addresses, and 20+ million customers with cellphones.

    IPv4 addresses are going to be going away very quickly.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  4. Re:it's tghe next Y2k by KarmaMB84 · · Score: 5, Funny

    IPv4 will be exhausted at around the same time as the first commercial fusion power plant is started and the release of Duke Nukem Forever.

  5. Whew! by zymurgy_cat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man, am I glad I've got 192.168.0.100 through 192.168.0.105 setup on my network at home. Hmmm.....maybe I should lay claim to 106 through 110, just in case.....

    --
    -- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
    1. Re:Whew! by D4rk+Fx · · Score: 5, Funny

      Man, am I glad I've got 192.168.0.100

      That's the same IP address I've got on my luggage!
  6. Re:From TFA: free pr0n! by mengel · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

    --
    - "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
  7. They will move when they have to by DreadSpoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I doubt anyone will be making a concerted effort to switch until it actually becomes necessary. Once the IPv4 address space runs out, hacks will be done to extend it. Ranges will be "repo'd" from companies, or those companies will just start reselling those ranges. Not until there is no space left to squeeze out will people really start caring.

  8. ISPs won't care by Natales · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If we do run out of IPv4 addresses for real this time, I predict ISPs will switch to 100% private IP addressing space before even thinking on IPv6.
    Heck, it's already happening in other countries. In Chile for example (a reasonably high-tech country) VTR http://www.vtr.cl/, the only cable ISP, will give you ONLY RFC-1918 addresses, period.

    The masses won't care. They only care about their basic apps, and ISPs will use that as leverage to control more services, especially all P2P and VoIP-related ones.

  9. Re:it's tghe next Y2k by Kadin2048 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  10. Easy way to speed IPv6 Adoption by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just move slashdot to an IPv6 only address; voilla by monday every corporate will have a functioning IPv6 setup... ;-)

  11. Re: From TFA: free pr0n! by Dolda2000 · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

  12. Re:it's tghe next Y2k by QuoteMstr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Have you considered that Y2K problems were only averted because we recongized the problem beforehand and took steps to correct it? Y2K was a success, not a poster-boy for scare-mongering.