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Can Large Scale NAT Save IPv4?

Posted by timothy on from the who-will-have-the-last-ipv4-addy dept.

Julie188 writes "The sales pitch was that IPv6, with its zillions of new IP addresses, would eliminate the need for network address translation altogether. But Jeff Doyle, one of the guys who literally wrote the book on IPv6, suggests that not only will NAT be needed, but it will be needed to save IPv4 at the tipping point of IPv6 adoption. 'I've written previously that as we make the slow — and long overdue — transition from IPv4 to IPv6, we will soon be stuck with an awkward interim period in which the only new globally routable addresses we can get are IPv6, but most public content we want to reach is still IPv4. Large Scale NAT (LSN, also known as Carrier Grade NAT or CGN) is an essential tool for stretching a service provider's public IPv4 address space during this transitional period.'"

4 of 583 comments (clear)

  1. You mean like ipv6porn ? by lullabud · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://www.ipv6porn.co.nz/ is giving away free porn to anybody who can access it with an ipv6 address

  2. Pirates rejoice by lullabud · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This would be great for pirates, who the hell would the MPAA and RIAA sue if everybody in one region shared a single IP#?

  3. Port scanning posters; TOS server ban by tepples · · Score: 5, Interesting

    slashdot.org has no need to access you.

    As far as I know, Slashdot does a short port scan on your IPv4 address when you preview or post a comment in order to make sure that your machine isn't an open proxy that might be abused for vandalism. That's why your first preview of the day from a given machine is so slow: it has to wait for the connections to time out.

    You use IPv6 in all the cases where you wanted that nice static IPv4 address before: When running peer to peer software. Setting up your small hobby server.

    In other words, things that cable and phone companies don't really want customers on the residential plan doing in the first place, as explained in the terms of service.

    If all your gaming friends got IPv6, playing on your private IPv6 only game server

    By the time that happens in several years, you may have grown out of online gaming. Which of the current video game consoles supports IPv6?

  4. Re:NOOOOOOO by Pentium100 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Me too. I look forward to having no NAT and changing the IPs in my internal network every time I use a different ISP.

    "Hmm, my internet connection failed, better connect the backup one. OK, now this ISP gives me xxx:yyy:zzz:xxyz::0 IP, so I now have to go and change the addresses of all my PCs, since they won't be able to access the internet. If only there could be some way to keep the internal IPs constant..."

    Currently, the internal IPs of my computers do not depend on which ISP I am connected to.