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.'"

Comments

Sad

[suso]

Its sad to look at the list of class a allocations and know that we're almost out. All this was done before NATs became popular. I think ICANN/IANA should work on wrestling some of those class As back from companies like Ford, Apple, HP, etc. None of those companies are going to ever have 16,000,000 hosts on public IPs. I know some of those companies have already made sub allocations. We could probably buy 5-10 years if they could reclaim just the 3, 9, 13, 17, 19, 20, 34 and 40 class As and get over 130,000,000 IPs back.

I mean, if those companies complain, who cares. They wouldn't get such large and prestigious allocations in an IPv6 network anyways. So what's the difference.

I know, I know, we should move to IPv6 anyways. Just a suggestion. Poor initial planning warrants changes down the road.

I don't expect much to change

[Waffle Iron]

ISPs see the limited IPv4 address space as a revenue stream. Many of them charge almost double for the privilege of getting a fixed public IP address. They don't have to spend money on a lot of scarce IP addresses themselves since they can always stick their customers in NAT ghettos.

They're not going to be very eager to give up their position as a gatekeeper of a limited resource just so their customers can frolick in a vast address space for free. Since most of them operate in a monopoly or duopoly situation, the proverbial "free market" won't force them to move off IPv4 either.

Consumer router support

[nsayer]

I've been waiting a while for Netgear, Linksys and that crowd to add 6to4 support to their home NAT routers as a way to help jump start IPv6 adoption. There would be no security issue if incoming connections were blocked by default and people could turn it off if they didn't want it. But 6to4 can be set up automatically by any machine with a publicly routable IPv4 address.

Well, I'm happy to say that my wait is finally over. They didn't make a big deal about it, so I don't know exactly when they did it, but Apple added that support to their Airport Extreme. So now when I go anywhere that has one of those, I can directly SSH into those inside machines that I've opened ports for without undue muss or fuss.

Apple has been a stalwart supporter of IPv6, from my observation. It's been possible to use AFP file sharing over IPv6 since at least Tiger and the built-in VNC stuff works over IPv6 too (though there is a naming lookup bug that requires you to connect using the IPv6 address literal if you use the command-K "Connect to" dialog).

So, Netgear and Linksys, what's holding you guys up?

Re:Just Like Oil

[WhiteWolf666]

Offtopic, but---

It simply doesn't follow that Co2 levels haven't ever been this high. That Co2 that we are generating; you know, from fossil fuels?

Where do you think it was before it became fossilized?

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif

For most of the current Cenozoic era, Co2 levels have been *higher* than they currently are. The *only* possible issue with "global warming" right now is whether or not the rapid rate of change in Co2 levels will be damaging, not the absolute level of Co2 in the atmosphere.

For example, during the Jurassic period, Co2 levels were at 1800 ppm. During the Cambrian period, Co2 levels were 5000 ppm. Currently, Co2 levels are at 378 ppm, and even if we burn ALL known sources of Fossil Fuels it is unlikely we will drive that above 900 ppm or so.