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What Happens When IPv4 Address Space Is Gone
darthcamaro writes 'We all know that IPv4 address space is almost all gone — but how will we know when the exact date is? And what will happen that day? In a new report, ARIN's CIO explains exactly what will happen on that last day of IPv4 address availability: '"We will run out of IPv4 address space and the real difficult part is that there is no flag date. It's a real moving date based on demand and the amount of address space we can reclaim from organizations," Jimmerson told InternetNews.com. "If things continue they way they have, ARIN will for the very first time, sometime between the middle and end of next year, receive a request for IPv4 address space that is justified and meets the policy. However, ARIN won't have the address space. So we'll have to say no for the very first time."'
Just put the internet behind a NAT. Simple.
Have you tried draining your ethernet cable?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The Internet was designed so that any computer could connect to any other computer. This is evident in the design of things like FTP, etc.
Every phone, watch, fridge, TiVo, computer, and printer should have a public IP address. Imagine if you didn't need to port forward for Bittorrent, if Skype could connect right to your friend's computer, or you could print to your home printer by just entering its address. That's how the internet was/is supposed to work.
NAT breaks this. Behind a NAT box, nobody can address a specific computer - only the NAT itself. This happens to lend some security, but is essentially accidental. With IPv6, your home router will instead be a firewall. Each computer will be addressable, but will still need to pass through.
Plus, there's enough address to give each subscriber many thousand. And they don't need to change. No more charging for a static IP...
Also, routing is more efficient since it can be done properly by hierarchy.
So there's a bunch of reasons. Pick some.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
They definitely say no. Not only that, if the utilization of your existing IP space drops below a certain threshold, ARIN will start taking it back. And they won't take back your emptier networks, they'll take back whatever they want (usually the largest ones, i.e. the ones you most want to keep). They also no longer issue anything bigger than... I think a /22? It might even be smaller.
Everybody except ARIN was always like this, of course. ARIN could afford to be more generous because the US has a disproportionately large number of IPs for its population (and even for its server count). But now they're in the same boat as APNIC and RIPE, so they've gotten much stricter than they used to be.
An important job had to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done
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Ok, let's say the IPv4 space ran out today and your ISP said you now have to run your server out of an IPv6 address.
You're now forced to move your server to another ISP that still has addresses available (probably ones that will start NATing all their non-server based clients so they can use their IPv4 allocations for server use).
If ISPs start moving non-server clients over to IPv6, then things will transition slowly, and at some point (ie. in 5 years) it will become feasible to run a server solely in the IPv6 address space as it will be accessible by the majority of users. Things progress this way until only a few dedicated IPv4 servers/clients are now safely behind translation routers.
However, instead of using IPv6, the sad thing is those ISPs will probably use IPv4 NAT to do the translation. The net effect is we push the crunch out a couple more years, but the following future is likely to develop as:
Fast forward a couple of years and now you find that all the ISPs charge a significant amount extra to run your server from an IPv4 address. You just pay more as it's just business as usual and you have no other choice. The ISPs with huge allocations are all laughing as they can leverage their allocated spaces at ever increasing dollar amounts. It's wonderful! The geeks aren't happy, because now it costs a lot more money to run their non-profit servers. Big business doesn't care, because it helps them by increasing the barrier to entry for smaller companies trying to compete with them on the internet front.
Fast forward five more years and things are now getting out of hand. Everyone is running behind NATed 10.x.x.x addresses (except large public servers), every second URL contains a port designator, port 80 web servers are now a luxury, ISPs are giving users the option of cheaper port redirects back to their own servers, and people are claiming that we've solved the problem for another 10 years.
Still the geeks are worried, but no one else cares. They now have less 'cruft' on the internet to worry about, and as long as they can still get to their Bittorrent/Porn/Facebook/YouTube they are happy as Larry.
Do you have an answer on how being cut off from large swaths of the internet is a good thing
depends, is Facebook on this part of the Internet you're referring to?
GE - 3.nnn.nnn.nnn
IBM - 9.nnn.nnn.nnn
AT&T Bell Labs 12.nnn.nnn.nnn
Xerox 13.nnn.nnn.nnn
HP 15.nnn.nnn.nnn
DEC 16.nnn.nnn.nnn
Apple 17.nnn.nnn.nnn
MIT 18.nnn.nnn.nnn
Ford 19.nnn.nnn.nnn
CSC 20.nnn.nnn.nnn
Halliburton 34.nnn.nnn.nnn
Eli Lilly Co 40.nnn.nnn.nnn
Bell Northern Research 47.nnn.nnn.nnn
Prudential 48.nnn.nnn.nnn
UK Work and Pensions 51.nnn.nnn.nnn
Dupont 52.nnn.nnn.nnn
Cap Debis 53.nnn.nnn.nnn
Merck 54.nnn.nnn.nnn
USPS 56.nnn.nnn.nnn
Defense doesn't need 7 - count them - 7 all to itself!
That's 26 - more than 10% - that can be mostly harvested.
Wow, way to go big guy! Instead of 2011 for IANA exhaustion, it'll now be 2013! Problem solved.
He's planning for the world to end in 2012.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"