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One Step Closer to IPv6
gbjbaanb writes "IPv6 came a step closer yesterday as ICANN added IPv6 host records to the root DNS servers, reports the BBC. 'Paul Twomey, president of Icann which oversees the addressing system, told the BBC News website there was a need to start moving to IPv6. "There's pressure for people to make the conversion to IPv6," he said. "We're pushing this as a major issue." The reason for the urgency, he said, was because the unallocated addresses from the total of 4,294,967,296 possible with IPv4 was rapidly running out. "We're down to 14% of the unallocated addresses out of the whole pool for version 4," he said. Projections suggest that this unallocated pool will run out by 2011 at the latest.'"
Just like how when we run out of oil, solutions will come along, when we run out of IP addresses, solutions will come along. The only problem is people don't get very motivated until we're really on the edge. I don't have much hope for IPv6 for another few years yet. Still, progress is progress.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
130x10^6 addresses isn't that many. It'll push off the exhaustion of the address space by a year or two at the most, and then we're still going to need IPv6.
Also, without IPv6, there's only a maximum of 2^32 Linksys routers that will be needed. IPv4 is unfairly capping the maximum number of needed NAT routers, and thus unfairly capping the profits of Cisco. We must think of the cost of IPv4 in terms of corporate profits, or we are doomed. Our economy depends on exponential growth, and that applies to addresses on the Internets too.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
So just because people waste IPv4 addresses by not using NAT and not recycling unused addresses, we want to force everyone to go to a solution that won't work correctly on existing devices that don't support v6, has a completely silly address, makes people get out from behind the elegant and awesome solution of NATs, and is basically poorly conceived, designed and executed?
/. LOVES change for the sake of change and anything shiny and new MUST be awesome, therefore I'll be modded down as an idiot and a troll for telling the goddamn truth.
Forcing v6 will be a disaster. It's better to force people to better implement v4 and take that time to design a system that will expand the address space while not causing so many issues.
This will be anonymous coward because I know almost everyone on
We've been hearing this 'addresses will run out by year x' for 20 years, and the predicted date has been wrong every single time. It's very hard to get enthusiastic about something that seems to be run by chicken little... Sure they'll run out eventually, and there's a network there to deal with it when it happens.. until then... zzzzzzz
If google, microsoft, redhat, CNN and the BBC (insert favourite site here) all go ipv6 (and by that I mean google starts indexing it too), that will be the year of ipv6. No way in hell it's going to happen before that.. I know of exactly zero useful ipv6 websites - I'm connected here but it's never been used.
Without any websites to actually *visit* on ipv6 ordinary users aren't going to go through the hassle, so ISPs see no demand and won't implement it (even though it would be a nice revenue stream for them - $10/month for 256 ipv6 addresses for example (and I really can't see them giving any more, seriously.. It's more likely to be 8 or 16 to separate the 'home' ($10/mo) users from the 'business' ($50/mo) users who get 256)).
Of course without any home routers that support it it's all moot anyway (hacked linkysys routers don't count).
Exactly... Expect 'cheap' accounts to be allocated within a 10.x.x.x net long before an ISP thinks of implementing ipv6. They'll probably pitch it as a security feature ('let us control the firewall for you! Surf in safety! Only $10/month!').
If a user wants a public IP. That's more cost. If they want a *fixed* IP.. go talk to the business services manager over there.
If they do implement ipv6 it'll be done the same way. 1 ipv6 address per account (ipv6 NAT exists and has done for a while). If you want 8 of them that's more cost. If you want more than 256.. see that guy in a suit waving? Go hand him your chequebook.
And before anyone says 'but but we'll all get 16 million addresses!'.. yeah, over the rotting corpses of every major ISP in the world.
The sad part is, most of the IP addresses in question are... dark. Nothing there. Even though we're approaching 85% allocation, utilization is probably around 1-2%. No, I'm not kidding.
Try it yourself - hack up some script to randomly generate IPs and then ping sweep the network blocks. You'll probably be quite surprised at the result.
A while back, I wanted to have a way to detect if a host was "offline" so that it could modify its behavior. (EG: halt outgoing SOAP requests if the server's network connection was disrupted, preventing bogus error messages from entering the system)
My first thought was to randomly generate 10 IP addresses, then ping them to see if they were offline, guessing that at least 50% would respond. Basically, none did. So, then I tried randomizing addresses and keeping a list of only those that had, at one time, responded. Even that turned out to be unfruitful. So finally, I took a dictionary and randomly created domain names from 1-2 normal dictionary words, pinging those, and keeping a list. That yielded some 40% usable responses, allowing me to keep a list of fairly trustworthy ping hosts to determine the online status of the server in question.
Bottom line: The shortage in the global IP pool is an artifact brought on by grossly inefficient/incompetent management of the global IP pool. The idea that we're running out of addresses purely ignores the fact that the vast, vast majority of the addresses we now have are simply unused.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Wake me up when I can pull up the main page of Google using nothing but packets with IP6 headers.
That means that I can do a DNS query using nothing but IP6 packets - NOT IP4 packets.
That means that I can do an HTTP transfer from Google's servers using nothing but IP6 packets - NOT IP4 packets.
Hell, wake me up when there's a AAAA record for Slashdot.
This is a *baby* step towards IP6 being useful.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Do all of your machines need to be publicly accessible? Subnets for the win.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
I'm ready to begin to add IPv6 to my network. 99% of my machines can support IPV6. There is no RFC1918 private space needed with IPv6 since there is so much space. I went to allocate space, but found out that I can't;
http://www.arin.net/registration/guidelines/ipv6_initial_alloc.html
Is that going to be broken the British healthcare system, where I'll have to wait 2 years for an IP address? No thanks.
I called it a mighty Sperm Whale, she called it Finding Nemo.
Well, it's 64K * 4 billion. The 4 billion does help some.
So what is stopping you?
/32? /. as a substitute for having a life?
Have you not paid your 2008 ARIN fees?
Are you not an ISP?
You can't come up with the US$35 for a
How is ARIN blocking you in any way?
Are you just trolling
I don't understand your complaint. If you already have an IPv4 allocation from ARIN, getting an IPv6 allocation requires only filling out the form, sending it in, and getting your allocation. They stick the $35 onto your ARIN fee at the next billing cycle. It's even easier than getting an IPv4 allocation now.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on