Latin America Exhausts IPv4 Addresses

An anonymous reader writes "LACNIC, the regional Internet registry for Latin America and the Caribbean, considers its IPv4 address pool exhausted, because it is down to less than a quarter of an /8, roughly 4 million IPv4 addresses which are reserved for facilitating transitioning mechanisms. Half of those addresses will be assigned on a first come, first served basis, but no more than 1024 addresses per organization every 6 six months. Allocations from the last 2 million addresses will be a maximum of 1024 addresses total per organization. To maintain connectivity, it is now indispensable to make the switch to IPv6. LACNIC's CEO expressed his concern that many operators and companies still haven't taken the steps needed to duly address this circumstance. The RIRs for Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America have all imposed similar limitations on IPv4 assignments when they also crossed their local exhaustion thresholds. As of now, only AfriNIC is not in address exhaustion mode." Joining North America, and Europe/the Middle East/Central Asia.

Comments

"Every 6 six months"

[timrod]

So they're only allowing organizations to have 1024 addresses per three years?

Re:"Every 6 six months"

[Z00L00K]

Most organization only needs a few public IP addresses per continent, the remainder for use inside the organization can be from the private pools.

Any organization that runs addresses from the public pool behind the company firewalls should consider to start a transition.

Re: "Every 6 six months"

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM has 9.x.x.x all to themselves, and runs almost all of it behind a firewall afaik. I always thought that was such a waste. Apple has 17.x.x.x, and I don't know how they use theirs but I assume it's also largely wasted. Several other companies are doing the same thing.

On behalf of all network specialists,

[SuricouRaven]

We warned you years ago this would happen! But no-one ever listens.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Chrisq]

We warned you years ago this would happen! But no-one ever listens.

mañana

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[wisnoskij]

Ya, you have been warning people that it was going to happen in 2 month for the last 6 years. And this article is still about "almost completely out".

Your predictions for the v4 "apocalypse" are nothing to brag about.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[slack_justyb]

If the bulk of human history isn't a lesson. Pretty much no one does anything until all hell is breaking loose. I don't know if it is in our genetics or what.

At any rate. A lot of "technical" folk will say, let's use NAT! And that will work for maybe a few years, maybe a decade or so, but then eventually that will break down. Finally, people will just shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, I guess it's finally time we switched over to IPv6." IPv6 is indeed the solution, but we've first got to do every other solution just because for some reason that's who we are.

So IPv4 isn't going away any time soon but for all the wrong reasons. So they will continue to not listen to any specialists till ALL other options are completely exhausted. Then after all of that we'll finally get to move on to the next big thing that was purposed twenty years ago.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Zorpheus]

Isn't the problem that only people without an IPv4 address will have problems? If they can not access large parts of the internet, and they are a small minority, it will be up to them to find a solution.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[jones_supa]

We warned you years ago this would happen! But no-one ever listens.

I think it follows a pattern of an alcoholic: he knows that he should have stopped years ago, but doesn't quit the booze until the doctor says that you're gonna die if you don't give it up.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Megane]

People with only an IPv6 address should theoretically be able to access the IPv4 internet via a sort of v6-to-v4 NAT. It's the people who want to run servers accessed by the rest of the world who really need a real IPv4 address until that distant future when IPv6 finally becomes dominant. (Which won't be for a long while because of all the old computers out there that have either no or insufficient IPv6 support.)

I think one of the big factors of address consumption has been cell phones. They do not need to be publicly accessible from random IPv4 address, so they are prime candidates for this kind of migration.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Lunix Nutcase]

Everyone knew this would happen eventually. No one listened to the chicken littles that were screaming "the sky is falling!" every year for more than a decade.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Anonymous Coward]

If the bulk of human history isn't a lesson. Pretty much no one does anything until all hell is breaking loose. I don't know if it is in our genetics or what.

I think the main reason is survival. There are a lot of people warning about different stuff all the time. If you try to protect yourself from everything you wont have time to do important things like eat and sleep.
Most of the time things aren't as important as people claim so it is perfectly fine to wait until shit happens until you solve it. It is also a lot more efficient since you don't have to solve all problems that weren't.

IP-adresses sounds like the typical kind of problem that can wait. You don't actually have to implement IPv6 before you run out of IPv4 and if you wait you will get a much better idea of how much time and resources you can spend on the switch.
Now that I think about it I don't really see much benefit to switching until you actually need to. The only thing it does is that it helps resolving a hen/egg-situation for someone else.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[digitalPhant0m]

Then after all of that we'll finally get to move on to the next big thing that was purposed twenty years ago.

Look at the bright side.... We've delayed the IPv6 apocalypse by twenty years.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Anonymous Coward]

Organisations are waiting until the final countdown so they can hire the Big Three consulting firms to solve their problems for megabucks. Don't you remember Y2K?

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[redalien]

momcorpflagship:~ matthewwilkes$ ifconfig
lo0: flags=8049 mtu 16384
options=3
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
nd6 options=1
en0: flags=8863 mtu 1500
ether XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
inet6 fe80::XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
inet6 2001:8b0:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX prefixlen 64 autoconf
inet6 2001:8b0:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX prefixlen 64 autoconf temporary
nd6 options=1
media: autoselect
status: active
momcorpflagship:~ matthewwilkes$ ping6 slashdot.org
PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2001:8b0:ca12:3193:7dc2:1078:67fb:31f4 --> 2001:8b0:6464::666:616:d822:b52d
16 bytes from 2001:8b0:6464::666:616:d822:b52d, icmp_seq=0 hlim=241 time=165.418 ms
16 bytes from 2001:8b0:6464::666:616:d822:b52d, icmp_seq=1 hlim=241 time=121.267 ms
^C
--- slashdot.org ping6 statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/std-dev = 121.267/143.343/165.418/22.075 ms

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Opportunist]

That's exactly the problem.

When we noticed that IPv4 addresses are nearing an end, we warned. Nobody listened. Why? Because the announced apocalypse didn't happen. Of course, behind the scenes a LOT of juggling has taken place, but management didn't notice anything about it.

That whole deal repeated time and again, every time v4 addresses neared the end. Every time someone found a way to somehow redistribute the remaining addresses so that nobody "outside the circle" had to notice.

Our "flaw" was that we only saw the technical side. Business dictates, though, that whenever something like that happens, someone will step in and solve it. For money, of course. Few notice it because the cost of this juggling is usually offset by other things getting cheaper. That we could have a LOT cheaper internet by now by cutting off the slack that these jugglers present is something few people know and even fewer want to talk about. Because everyone who knows actually somehow benefits from it.

But we get seen like we'd cry wolf a few too many times. So don't expect anyone to listen to us anymore. Everyone will just hope that someone will come in and start wiggling the wires so some IP addresses will magically appear somehow.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[redalien]

I'm crap at redaction. And formatting.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[wasteoid]

The humans will do the right thing - after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[aevan]

'Asymptotes never cross zero'. Doesn't mean they don't get damned close, and doesn't mean it's a happy existence. If they dole out 1 address per year we can avoid having to change from IPv4 for millennia!!

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[houghi]

Lets look at it from the point of view from those who actualy buy (rent) the IP adresses. That will be in general the internet providers. The end-user will only get one assigned through a provider. (Yes, I am aware that not all IP 'owners' are providers. There are some larger companies involed as well)

Going to IPv6 would mean investment into the technology. Be it training people or buying new hardware, there will be a cost.
By not doing that, there was no investment, so no cost. On the other plus side, they could ask money for fixed IP adresses (even though everybody already needed one) and make extra money.
The third plus side for them will be that when the IP adresses actualy run out, they can have another item they can charge.
You can have a 10.x.x.x adress, you can have an flex IP for a price or a fixed for an even higher price.

Bot only do they want to keep cake and eat it, they also want to sell it.
So why would your provider be interested in going towards IPv6? Do not think technical, think financial.

The NAT adresses give ANOTHER plus and that is a better control over what you can and can not see, because they will argue that you are not realy connected to the Internet. So they can go around the net-neutrality.

OK, that last part is speculation. In current reality : there is NO incentive for the majority of IPv4 owners to change. Instead for them it is better NOT to change, because they will be owners of a scarce product that becomes scarcer by the minute. Why give that up? Especuially if giving it up costs you money AND removes income.

Re: On behalf of all network specialists,

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you use products like Microsoft Communicator on your phone for business communication - that doesn't work over IPv6.

Yes, software should be transport agnostic. Yes, business software released in 2013 should have been tested for that before release.

But it still doesn't work. (And don't give me crap about it being a MSFT product, there are lots of examples out there. That's just one. )

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[DigiShaman]

That's why cell phones should be the first to make the switch to IPv6. Those devices are far more numerous and are replaced more often to that of PCs/Servers.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[N. Criss]

IPv6 was not designed to allow for a graceful transition from v4. The feet-dragging is completely rational. http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/ipv6mes...

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[uncqual]

Similar to agile development principles.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Just Some Guy]

And this article is still about "almost completely out".

Where "almost completely out" means, from the article, that:

2,097,150 of the remaining 4,194,302 addresses may be assigned during this phase, in blocks of limited sizes (assignments) comprising between 256 and 1,024 IP addresses. Likewise, an organization may only request additional resources six months after receiving a prior assignment.

Technically, the naysayers are right: they're not "out". They're just at the "you can buy two gallons of gas per month" stage. Realistically, no one can get it and certainly not enough at a time to do anything meaningful with it, but there's technically still supply left.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[kilodelta]

Back in the mid 2000's I managed to snag a C Class block of IP's for a government agency. They still hold it now. The reality though even though we had the full 8 bits at the end to play with, we only used about 15 addresses.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Megane]

And at explaining your point.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[marcosdumay]

Which won't be for a long while because of all the old computers out there that have either no or insufficient IPv6 support.

Just how old are you estimating those old computers are? Windows XP has support for IPv6, as do the first 2.6 Linux kernel. I doubt there's a single smartphone without support for it.

The only reason we are not using IPv6 all along is because ISPs decided to save some 5% (probably less) of the cost on their last upgrades, or because they actively don't want to supply it.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Ravaldy]

This was a known problem in 1999. 15 years later...

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Ravaldy]

Do they actually have an IP address? I didn't think they did. I though they were using a separate network model to pass data from cell towers to devices. I was under the impression that the device number (sim card) was used for communicating data to a specific device. which is also the reason why copying a sim card gets all the data that user is receiving if in the same zone.

Clarification required. :)

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Just Some Guy]

(Which won't be for a long while because of all the old computers out there that have either no or insufficient IPv6 support.)

Windows XP can support IPv6 - probably configured when their ISP adds its setup to the installer CD they mail to new customers. Every modern OS supports it natively and decently.

The migration will suck for dumb embedded devices that can't be upgraded, but most of those are probably reaching EOL anyway. I'd absolutely, 100%, not buy any new devices that don't support native IPv6 today.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[sjames]

Case in point - everything will again have their own IP address and you don't have to use stuff like STUN or other things because end-to-end connectivity is guaranteed. False, since firewalls are still around, and just because both ends can see each other doesn't mean they can talk to each other.

So open the needed port in the firewall. No more STUN.

Then there's the "guilty PC" problem that the content creators oh-so-love. It's hard to identify people from PCs now because so many devices share a single IP address. But when that single IP means a single device, it's a heck of a lot easier.

So pick another address at random. You have 256 IPv4 internet's worth to choose from within your prefix.

Well, with IPv6 right now, if your ISP changes your prefix, have fun resetting the configuration of everything to use that new prefix. Hope the auto-discovery picks everything up and maybe things will work. If not, have fun debugging. And while NATv6 is defined, many places (e.g., Linux) refuse to accept it. I mean, is it so bad that my internal network ... works? And if my ISP gives me a new prefix I do diddly squat like right now? Or that I don't have to remember what the IP is of the PC next to me is after it's prefix changes?

Use the local prefix to talk to local machines. Use autoconfig to handle the ISP assigned prefix. It actually does work. There you go, zero work.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[AndroSyn]

His point is, slashdot doesn't even have an IPv6 address, he's using 6to4 NAT and can still reach the site. The IPv4 address for slashdot is embedded in the IPv6 address.

$ ping6 slashdot.org
PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2001:8b0:ca12:3193:7dc2:1078:67fb:31f4 --> 2001:8b0:6464::666:616:d822:b52d
16 bytes from 2001:8b0:6464::666:616:d822:b52d, icmp_seq=0 hlim=241 time=165.418 ms
16 bytes from 2001:8b0:6464::666:616:d822:b52d, icmp_seq=1 hlim=241 time=121.267 ms

The IPv6 address he was pinging was as follows: 2001:8b0:6464::666:616:d822:b52d

The d822:b52d in the IPv6 address, is actually the IPv4 address for slashdot:

d8 = 216
22 = 34
b5 = 181
2d = 45

$ host -t a slashdot.org
slashdot.org has address 216.34.181.45

Make sense? ;)

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[RabidReindeer]

Which won't be for a long while because of all the old computers out there that have either no or insufficient IPv6 support.

Just how old are you estimating those old computers are? Windows XP has support for IPv6, as do the first 2.6 Linux kernel. I doubt there's a single smartphone without support for it.

The only reason we are not using IPv6 all along is because ISPs decided to save some 5% (probably less) of the cost on their last upgrades, or because they actively don't want to supply it.

Actually, all my systems have IPV6, even the antiques.

It's the routers that lack it.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[labnet]

Maybe adoption of ipv6 is slow because it is so damn complicated.
Why did they have to make the number more than atoms of the universe when they could have just turned the ipv4 from 8 to 16 bits.
Like abcd:1234:cdef:9876

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[david_thornley]

I'd love to see DSL routers handling IPv6, but (in very limited looking around) I haven't found one yet.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[dkman]

I do believe that it's adoption has been slow because of the switch to hex rather than decimal.
4 numbers less than 300 are fairly easy to remember. 8 sets of 1 to A taken 4 at a time certainly is much harder to remember.

Of course we don't need to remember an IP in our head very often, but perception is everything and we as a culture often avoid anything even perceived as hard. It's amazing that we revere those things that were hard and did get done then avoid hardship ourselves. We are wonderful hypocrites.

There are plenty of conveniences for when an IP does matter. Copy/Paste, email, text, hosts files, take a picture, but when you do need to type it that would suck.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Just Some Guy]

My last DSL modem was a bridge and so didn't really care about higher level stuff like IP. Googling for "dsl modem ipv6" turned up quite a few hits, though.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm on T-Mobile, and my Nexus 5 works just fine with IPv6.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[aphelion_rock]

There are plenty of addresses, almost 1/4 are unnecessarily owned by large American companies. http://cse1.net/recaps/img/6-m...

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Bengie]

You can't change "change" IPv4, it would require an entirely new protocol, even if everything else was treated the same. Large address spaces allow for wasteful use to reduce fragmentation. Fragmentation is the bane of core routers.

Just have more IPs that you could ever want in 100 years, and 100 years from now, you'll need a new protocol. That's IPv6.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Darinbob]

Could be a problem with your routing protocol.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Darinbob]

I suspect that the real problem is that NAT does work for most people, when all they really do with their computers is connect to the web or get software updates from Microsoft.

A big problem is that the people who absolutely should know better do nothing about it. As in two years ago I get a router from my ISP which can not support IPv6, and there's really no excuse for that.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Darinbob]

It's not so bad really. I was a hurdle at first, but generally you never need to memorize specific addresses. You get a DNS server that deals with IPv6 and you just have to know the machine name you want.

As for the larger size, the idea it that half of the address is the network prefix, and the other half is your local MAC address. A full 8 bytes of MAC address and that's the real win here for uniqueness. Whereas you can not even fit a normal 6 byte ethernet MAC address into IPv4. And with 8 bytes always for network prefix there's a lot of flexibility and no more class A,B,C stuff or figuring out where subnets start.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[JoeSchmoe007]

Yes, they do. I used to have Verizon 3G phone and it had public IPv4 address. At the same time later Verizon phones (LTE) would only have IPv6 (maybe also NAT-ted IPv4 , I am not sure).

I am now on AT&T and my LTE phone only has NAT-ed IPv4 address.

On both of these carriers you can have static IPv4 IP for one-time fee of about $500 if I remember correctly.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Darinbob]

And cell phones are newer and connected to a newer networking infrastructure (at least when on a cellular network rather than via wifi). So it makes sense to make them IPv6. A phone provider could even update their system to use IPv6 and the end users wouldn't even have to know about it.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Darinbob]

The older devices can still do whatever it is they do today, IPv4 won't be entirely dead. If it's within a company then set up the server to have a local IPv4 address and the embedded device can talk to that.

I think many devices that can not support IPv6 will also not support NAT. Usually though this is all done via configuration, IPv6 is left off because it's yet more code to fit into a tiny ROM and you can always work around the problems with external routers.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Darinbob]

You can use a fake MAC address though with IPv6, maybe even randomize it each time you create a connection. So that guilty PC issue is not likely to be a bit problem.

You can still do NAT type stuff, use link local addresses, use your own home prefixes, and ISPs can hand out blocks how they see fit. Most devices will likely have multiple actual IPv6 addresses even if they all use the same host suffix.

And IPv4 won't be dead once IPv6 picks up steam, it'll still be alive and kicking only there will more more address freed up for it as devices migrate to v6. If you have a special purpose need to stick with v4 then you will almost certainly be able to keep it.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Anonymous Coward]

So pick another address at random. You have 256 IPv4 internet's worth to choose from within your prefix.

Sounds like a privacy nightmare to me.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Bengie]

In the USA, new rules are going into affect now that we on the last block. One of those is transferring a block has a fixed cost of $10/ip. Can get pricey for a large blocks. You soon must also show they you actually need all the IPs you have, otherwise they can forcefully take them back. And the proof of "needing" will get progressively harder.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[sjames]

Actually, the early warnings were perfectly valid due to the large number of things that had to happen. For example, OSes needed to support it, then bind and friends needed to support AAAA RRs and support v6 themselves. We needed routers and those routers needed testing in a more real world environment. Firewallls needed to be developed, cable modems, APs and home routers needed to support it, and on and on.

All of that has to not only happen, but preferably happen early enough that the natural upgrade/replacement cycle will have them in place before absolutely needed.

If you read past the headlines, the last big out of IPs notice was talking about the last of the free pool being allocated to the regional. Now the regionals are one by one implementing rationing as their pools empty.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Bengie]

Most people use DNS instead of IP directly. I can ping by name every device on my network, and it worked like that out of the box. That includes my wireless printer and wife's android cell phone. My 7 year old Netgear router even shows the name of each device next to their MAC addresses when looking in the config. My PFSense box that I later setup automatically detected every device's name and added it to the Unbound DNS server.

HPD110.localdomain. 3600 IN A 192.168.1.9

C:\Windows\system32>ping HPD110

Pinging HPD110.localdomain [192.168.1.9] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.9: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=255

This DNS entry automatically got created. But I can ping "HPD110" even without a DNS entry, because of whatever common protocol is used.

Here's what my wireless router shows for "HPD110".

# IP Address MAC Address Device Name
1 192.168.1.9 68:B5:99:3E:03:4B HP68B5993E034B

C:\Windows\system32>ping HP68B5993E034B

Pinging HP68B5993E034B [192.168.1.9] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.9: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255

I did not set up any of these names, they all automatically configured themselves.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Bengie]

Use site local IPv6 addresses or use DNS. You shouldn't rely on your public IPs.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[david_thornley]

Thanks. Unfortunately, we just got a new one in, so it'll be a while before I go shopping.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[marka63]

IPv6 was designed to co-exist with IPv4. You give new hardware a IPv6 address as well as a IPv4 address and after 10 or so years all your machines have both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and there are basically no IPv4 only machines left. This would have worked if CPE vendors shipped IPv6 capable routers and ISP
enabled IPv6 on the customer links.

Today almost all the cell phones and general purpose computers support both IPv4 and IPv6. Linux, Windows, MacOS, iOS, *BSD, Solaris, Android all support IPv6. What hasn't happened is turning on IPv6 on the ISP links and that is mainly but not solely due to lack of IPv6 in home routers.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they actually have an IP address?

I understand that you thought your phone was some sort of magical device that could exchange information with other systems on the Internet without an IP address, but what I don't understand is why you took the time to write that when you could have spent five seconds discovering that for yourself.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[dave420]

Then run IPv4 on your home network and have your router provide 4-to-6 and 6-to-4. Problem solved. I've had IPv6 from my ISP for well over a year and I've not found problems yet.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Ravaldy]

Thank you for the clarification.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[enip1]

There's a research protocol called Enhanced IP that wouldn't require everyone to switch to IPv6. Details are here: http://www.enhancedip.org/ Right now the idea is to get the word out so people discuss whether or not this is something the Internet might want to do.

Re:On behalf of all network specialists,

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your cellphone even have a publicly routable address? All the providers I've used assign the phones a private address behind a NAT.

Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we don't see much adoption for IPv6, how about we add another four octets to IPv4 as an "area code". It definitely isn't as easy as this sounds, but the trick is getting something in place that works like WPA was put in for devices that didn't have the power for WPA2.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Wycliffe]

They've basically already did this with ipv6 with all the ipv4 numbers accessible as a subset of ipv6.
I don't see the adoption of an area code system any more likely than the adoption of ipv6.
There might be some type of solution like that though. Basically what you're suggesting is allowing 2
computers to have the same ipv4 address so just like 2 computers not on the same network can
have the same mac address without conflicting it could be possible to design a system where a
computer in africa has the same ip as a server in china without conflict.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can remember number.number.number.number.

I cannot remember ASDFDAVUDSFWSNASDCNACKEFADCKSA Which is also an IPV6 address

It's like instead of adding an area code to the phone system, we add letters of the alphabet such that my phone number is now 123-456-7890-ABCDEF-GHIJKLMN and then people no longer can remember phone numbers and refuse to use it.

All IPV4 needed was another octect or two TOPS.

I can easily remember 10.0.0.0.1 as my new local 5-octet private subnet. But jeeze don't just add 500 alphabet characters expecting things to be the same.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the difference between adding an octet and just adopting IPv6? Both would require every router in the stream be upgraded to handle the new format....

The ISPs just need to get their equipment upgraded and start handing out IPv6...but nobody wants to be the first.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can remember number.number.number.number.

I cannot remember ASDFDAVUDSFWSNASDCNACKEFADCKSA Which is also an IPV6 address

It's like instead of adding an area code to the phone system, we add letters of the alphabet such that my phone number is now 123-456-7890-ABCDEF-GHIJKLMN and then people no longer can remember phone numbers and refuse to use it.

All IPV4 needed was another octect or two TOPS.

I can easily remember 10.0.0.0.1 as my new local 5-octet private subnet. But jeeze don't just add 500 alphabet characters expecting things to be the same.

You know that's just hex code right? IPv6 addresses can also be written in decimal if you want. IPv6 really is just like adding an area code to the IPv4 addresses.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, you really know nothing about IPV6 do you?

your ignorance shows...

yes there's letters... but really the numbers in your v4 address really only represent an 8 bit octet translated to binary. in ipv6 they're translated to Hexadecimal.

the 2 character IPV6 address (your "IPV6 address" has A: way to many characters, B: invalid characters, and C: no colons all of which are necessary...

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[just_another_sean]

I'm pretty sure the letters are limited to A-F and map to hexadecimal notation. Not arguing that it's any easier to remember than you suggest but it's not the whole alphabet being used here. IPv6 addresses can be expressed in decimal (or octal for that matter) but the reasoning behind using hexadecimal notation is that it reduces the number of 'digits' you need to remember. It's easier to wrap your head around it if you've ever used hex for memory addressing or similar low level tasks.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with your point on remembering IPv4 addresses, and with phone numbers, but where you are incorrect is that the legal IPv6 letters are only ABCDEF - these are the characters used to represent 10 - 15 in Hexidecimal (base 16). And I'll probably never be able to remember IPv6 addresses as I do now in the private networks that I am responsible for. As far as NAT, I don't keep my machines on public space as a best security practice and only forward public address space to specific servers in my DMZs; therefore, I'm surprised at how much IPv4 space non-ISP companies think they need.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Opportunist]

So ... you say that we should adopt v6.

Because that's essentially what adopting v6 would be about.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Opportunist]

So an address like C0A8:0166 is not to your liking? Would you like 192.168.1.102 better? Or are you the kind of decimal purist that would feel more comfortable with 3,232,235,878?

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Arancaytar]

four octets to IPv4 as an "area code"

Kinda how IPv6 works; except there's only one two-octet area code (2002::, or 32.2. in dotted decimal) for the old IPv4 addresses, and all the other addresses work differently.

(Of course, if the recipient only understands IPv4, and the sender only has an IPv6 address, then the packets can only be sent one direction. I'm not sure if or how an IPv6 host and an IPv4 host can establish a TCP handshake, starting from either end.)

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[drakaan]

Your explanation is good, but I agree with the sentiment expressed by the OP. I don't have a problem with hex, per-se, but I have a harder time memorizing MAC addresses (or IPv6 addresses) than IPv4 addresses.

The decision to switch from decimal to hexadecimal notation was arbitrary and jarring...not at all unlike switching phone numbers from decimal to alphanumeric notation would be.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Arancaytar]

It's still quadrupling the information (from 32 bits to 128 bits), though most IPv6 addresses can be shortened.

But to be honest, this is what DNS is for. If you find yourself regularly having to memorize or manually type dotted quad IPv4 as a user, you're doing something wrong; and if you're a sysadmin, you're routinely memorizing (or writing down) other things that are more complex than that.

Mnemonics could also help, like assigning words to bytes.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[CastrTroy]

Not really. An area code, in the US and Canada at least, is 3 digits. Going from IPV4 to IPV6 adds a lot more than 3 digits. An actual example of an IPV6 address is as follows:

2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334

which is a lot longer than an IPV4 Address such as:

123.123.123.123

And IPV6 address has 4 times as many digits as an IPV6 address, if you write it in the same base. That's way more than just adding and "area code"

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[AC-x]

I can remember number.number.number.number.

I cannot remember ASDFDAVUDSFWSNASDCNACKEFADCKSA Which is also an IPV6 address

I can easily remember 10.0.0.0.1 as my new local 5-octet private subnet. But jeeze don't just add 500 alphabet characters expecting things to be the same.

You seem to not realise that IP6 has shorthand built in.

For example the IP6 address of Wikipedia is 2001:503:BA3E::2:30, not really that much harder than 91.198.174.192 is it?

Local subnets are even easier, fe80::1 is actually shorter than 10.0.0.0.1

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still quadrupling the information (from 32 bits to 128 bits)

IPv6 quadruples the number of bits, from 32 to 128 as you pointed out. However, this results in way more than 4 times the IP addresses. Specifically, IPv6 allows 79228162514264337593543950336 times more address than IPv4.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[unrtst]

The decision to switch from decimal to hexadecimal notation was arbitrary and jarring...not at all unlike switching phone numbers from decimal to alphanumeric notation would be.

I'm not so sure. Data entry is, IMO, much more difficult when dealing with hexadecimal, but memorizing the strings actually seems easier to me, or at least on par. Some example phone numbers:

18003368478 -> base36 = 89qqo0u
18003569377 -> base36 = 89quz1d
7185551212 -> base36 = 3au3ass

base36 is unrealistic, but so is the phone number comparison. IP's are dotted quads; phone numbers are normal base 10 numbers.

216.34.181.45 -> decimal = 3626153261 (which is, IMO, harder to remember... not that anyone memorizes more than a couple IPs)
216.34.181.45 -> hex = d8.22.b5.2d (which is, IMO, just as easy, if not easier, to remember)
base36 = 1nyx1rh

The reason you have a harder time memorizing mac addresses is probably because they contain more information than IPv4. Ex:
00:16:3E:02:90:52 -> IP like notation = 0.22.62.2.144.82 (seems just about as hard to remember IMO).

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[bbn]

An actual example of an IPV6 address is as follows:

2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334

That is not an actual example of an IPv6 address. Lets try with some real examples instead:

google.com has IPv6 address 2a00:1450:4005:801::1007
gmail.com has IPv6 address 2a00:1450:400f:803::1016
facebook.com has IPv6 address 2a03:2880:2110:df07:face:b00c::1
arin.net has IPv6 address 2001:500:4:13::124
arin.net has IPv6 address 2001:500:4:13::125
ripe.net has IPv6 address 2001:67c:2e8:22::c100:68b
gigabit.dk has IPv6 address 2a00:7660:0:50::2

The last one is my own website. Your IPv6 address is as long as you want it to be. Many ISPs will assign you a /48 prefix, which is just 16 bits more than your IPv4. It is literally just an area code more (two bytes). What happens with the last 80 bits is up to you. You can make them all zero if you want to. And since all zero can be shortened to "::" that all just goes away.

As to those first 48 bits there is a system in it, which makes it easier to remember. Notice how all of the above has either 2001 or 2a0x as the first block? Also the second block is the ISP and most people only deal with a few of those. So you will quickly memorize that. The third block is basically your customer id within the ISP. And everything after that is yours to decide.

It is true that if you go with auto configuration addresses on your computer, you will get horrible long addresses. But if you are doing that, you are not the kind of person to deal with IP addresses. Personally I let my computer choose any long address it want, but for my servers I am picking something sane.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[drakaan]

Right...I get the pro-change argument, I just (still) think it was arbitrary and jarring.

It may seem trivial, but something as simple as keeping the decimal notation would probably have gone a long way in spurring adoption of IPv6.

I know that representing numbers in hex doesn't make them different, and takes up less screen real estate, but they *look* different. I think everyone talking about reasons for low adoption vastly underestimates the psychological impact of the way addresses are represented in v6.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Splab]

mmm... just end them in CAFE:BABE:xxxx and start at 0, easy to remember :)

Also, face:b00c... really? but I guess it makes it easy for them to remember.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[dkman]

+1, score this post up

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

It may seem trivial, but something as simple as keeping the decimal notation would probably have gone a long way in spurring adoption of IPv6.

I really doubt that. The fact is that regardless of the scheme, there would be a need to represent a lot more bits than the 32 bits of an IPv4 address. (I'll have to say that an PGP-wordlist representation like "banjo tambourine music millionaire" would be pretty entertaining.)

The bigger problem with the IPv6 address representation is is use of colons. URL's are notable for representing port numbers by appending them to the host name or address with a colon as a separator. If the IPv6 address uses any kind of zero-word folding in the middle and the port number is less than 10000, there is no way to resolve what is host and what is port. To use Google's address as an example, does

2a00:1450:4005:801::1007:443

mean

2a00:1450:4005:801:0:0:0:1007, port 443

or does it mean

2a00:1450:4005:801:0:0:1007:443 with no port specified?

Alas, what you have to add is more syntax.

They should have stuck with dots. The regex for an IPv4 address would be /^\d{1,3}(\.\d{1,3}){3}$/
whereas the IPv6 address, while not having such a straightforward regex, could never be a four-octet job like the IPv4 address. There would not have been an ambiguity nor the need for bracket characters (which introduce their own fun).

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[Darinbob]

But do you need to remember it? Your computer needs to remember it but there's not much practical need to memorize it yourself.

Re:Sometimes I wonder about half-assing it...

[drakaan]

...The bigger problem with the IPv6 address representation is is use of colons...

That would be part of the jarring change I'm referring to, yes.

i would

[Anonymous Coward]

switch in a heartbeat, but my isp (fios) needs to get their shit together. I have all the equipment/software to do ipv6, now it's time for isps to do it.

Re:i would

[rjmx]

Surprisingly, Comcast is now giving out /64 IPv6 addresses in my area (south-eastern Massachusetts). Spent a couple of evenings last week getting it all connected. Works fine.

Re:i would

[Megane]

I recently upgraded my old DSL to Uverse (with one of the newer Motorola modems, not the 2wire modems that I hear were total crap in comparison), and they have 6rd allocations set up for their IPv4 space, using a 24-bit 6rd block. So not only can I access the v6 internet, my 6rd address block is static based on my static IPv4 address block. (At least if and until they decide to more their customer addresses into a "real" IPv6 allocation.) As I understand it, the modem itself does the 6to4 encapsulation to ATT's outbound IPv6 proxy.

So IPv6 is finally reaching at least some regular ISP customers.

Re:i would

[LVSlushdat]

Do like I did, get a free 4to6 tunnel from tunnelbroker.com, a public service from Hurricane Electric (he.com). Since my edge router is able to run the Tomato firmware, it has the capability to act as the endpoint for one of these tunnels, plus it can update my dynamic address from Cox when it changes, to keep the tunnel working.. Very slick.. Its fun to watch my Debian machines doing an apt-get update, and seeing an ipv6 address listed.. The current version of Tomato also implementts ip6tables so you're protected from that end.. Even if you don't have an edge router that can do Tomato, its still pretty easy to configure an always-on Linux machine to handle the tunnel endpoint, just so long as your firewall can be configured to pass protocol 41 (6to4 protocol, as I recall).. They give you a /64 prefix, which is a multi-mega-bazillion number ipv6 addresses.. Big numbers like that give me a headache..

Re:i would

[Opportunist]

That problem is shared by people all over the globe.

And even if your ISP offers v6 support, they often "forget" to tell their support. If yours offers v6, if you have some spare time and want some entertainment on support's expense, call them and ask them for aid in setting up v6.

Re:i would

[Dragonslicer]

I keep checking their site to see if they've started supporting my part of town. Still no love.

Re:i would

[Ksevio]

I recently switched from FiOS to Comcast and was pleasantly surprised to see my router giving out IPv6 addresses to all the computers on the network. Somewhat surprising that Verizon doesn't support it even though they have the newer networking technology.

Re:i would

[rjstanford]

Surprisingly, Comcast is now giving out /64 IPv6 addresses in my area (south-eastern Massachusetts). Spent a couple of evenings last week getting it all connected. Works fine.

Emphasis added. Until the freebie routers start handing out IPv6 blocks by default and routing IPv6 traffic cleanly, this will never work. Why on earth would you need to actually do any work by hand?

Re:i would

[Darinbob]

Hmm, my uverse won't do ipv6 and the problem seems to be the router.

Re:i would

[DMUTPeregrine]

I just moved, got comcast, hooked up my modem & router (brought my own, but reset to factory defaults before install) and got ipv6 out of the box. No mucking about needed.

Re:i would

[rjmx]

Well, actually, my system is a bit special. There's a Linux box acting as a firewall/router at the front-end, for a start, and that's why I had to spend extra time setting it up. As other people seem to be reporting here, normal setups seem to work without additional screwing around.

yep, 14 years ago I announced the switchover

[raymorris]

For years, indeed. I think it was 14 years ago, in 2000, on April Fool's day I announced on a major forum that the internet would be down for about 20 minutes while the root nameservers were switched over to IPv6.

Y2K

[StripedCow]

This sounds like Y2K all over again...

Re:Y2K

[JcMorin]

Yeah soon you won't be able to go on the internet!

Re:Y2K

[jareth-0205]

This sounds like Y2K all over again...

What, that legitimate problem lots of people worked on successfully to avoid before it could have major consequences? Yeah, I agree.

Re:Y2K

[Scutter]

This sounds like Y2K all over again...

What, that legitimate problem lots of people worked on successfully to avoid before it could have major consequences? Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, and after all that work to prepare, the rest of the world said "I don't know why you nerds made such a big deal out of this. Nothing happened!" It's enough to make you want to quit your job, cut the soles off your shoes, sit in a tree and learn to play the flute.

Re:Y2K

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like Y2K all over again...

What, that legitimate problem lots of people worked on successfully to avoid before it could have major consequences? Yeah, I agree.

Let's not make it sound like it was that difficult of a problem to solve.

Re:Y2K

[Opportunist]

So you really never had to deal with a computer program that calculated difference in years by going "take number of years in 'new date' and subtract number of years in 'old date'"?

Just to give you a hint, and NDAs be damned in this case, you have NO IDEA how many bookkeeping programs had a LOT of problems calculating annual write offs right. You just never noticed it because the programs are not real time dependent and you have a LOT of time to work with between noticing the problem (when you do your first version of your balance) and the time it becomes critical (when you have to hand in your balance to government/auditor/board).

There were other, not so "fortunate" situations where a lot of money had to be used to get it done in time. And the ever feared "what if the nukes notice they had no contact with control for a century?" doomsday was only the tip of the iceberg. You really can't even imagine half the big and small tidbits that ran on systems that had exactly the problem.

And yes, January 2038 certainly is going to be an interesting time again. It is rather unlikely, though, that it will be as big a problem since Jan 2038 is mostly an OS problem rather than an application program problem. I.e. we should see fewer and (mostly) easier to fix problems.

Re:Y2K

[Opportunist]

So I now know one person who didn't have to fix an ancient program written by a guy who no longer lives with source code lost in an archaic language he needed last time during his university years in no more than 2 months or the sky be falling...

Re:Y2K

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell if you're a moron, a troll, or both.

Re:Y2K

[sribe]

There were other, not so "fortunate" situations where a lot of money had to be used to get it done in time.

True story, a well-known vendor of banking applications could not handle year 2000 dates in its mortgage software, and as of 1987 still had not been able to get it fixed. That's right, 17 years was not enough for that (extremely poorly run) organization.

Re:Y2K

[jareth-0205]

Ah, well if an AC says it wasn't a problem, surely it wasn't...

Re:Y2K

[WaffleMonster]

The *real* legitimate problem with time will occur in 2038, and we've already made the solution to that.

What is the solution for 32-bit Linux? Switch to 64-bit Linux? 32-bit only processors still being churned out en masse today with no available solution and no sign of this changing anytime soon.

To assume number of 32-bit systems in 2038 running Linux will be zero is more foolish than waiting to exhaustion before deploying IPv6.

Re:Y2K

[gstoddart]

To assume number of 32-bit systems in 2038 running Linux will be zero is more foolish than waiting to exhaustion before deploying IPv6.

Hmmm ... 2038 is in 24 years.

24 years ago from now was 1990. That was just around the time the first 486 machines were released.

So, in the same way as nobody seriously gives a damn about ancient 486s, if you're still running 32-bit Linux in 24 years ... well, that will be your damned problem. :-P

If this is an issue for you, I suggest you start pondering getting a 64-bit machine ... you've got 24 years to do it.

Re:Y2K

[WaffleMonster]

Hmmm ... 2038 is in 24 years.

We've already had legitimate tickets opened for Y2038 effecting customers *TODAY*

So, in the same way as nobody seriously gives a damn about ancient 486s, if you're still running 32-bit Linux in 24 years ... well, that will be your damned problem. :-P

If the only thing a system uses time_t for is to report the current date and time I would tend to agree with you.

In the real world we don't have 24 years before shit starts hitting the fan .. not anywhere close to it. All the while 32-bit only chips continue to be stamped out en masse.

If this is an issue for you, I suggest you start pondering getting a 64-bit machine ... you've got 24 years to do it.

If Microsoft can fix their compiler to make it happen so can Linux. We've been here before with basic file I/O constrained to 2^31 bytes. This was fixed and without breaking backwards compatibility in the ABI.

Re:Y2K

[dj245]

To assume number of 32-bit systems in 2038 running Linux will be zero is more foolish than waiting to exhaustion before deploying IPv6.

Hmmm ... 2038 is in 24 years.

24 years ago from now was 1990. That was just around the time the first 486 machines were released.

So, in the same way as nobody seriously gives a damn about ancient 486s, if you're still running 32-bit Linux in 24 years ... well, that will be your damned problem. :-P

If this is an issue for you, I suggest you start pondering getting a 64-bit machine ... you've got 24 years to do it.

You're missing the point. This problem hasn't been fixed yet, despite being a known problem for a long time. It could be that come 2038, we find out that the problem wasn't fixed in new machines until 2035. Then it becomes a serious headache.

Re:Y2K

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is for the OS to define time_t as 64bit.

That doesn't solve all program errors, but it does mean that the problem is avoided if time_t is used, and if the programmer has been foolish enough to use int instead then you'll see easily correctable errors at compile-time. This means that a Y38K issue still exists, but is hopefully simpler to correct.

Now some 32bit systems can use the int64_t data type, so it doesn't necessarily require a 64bit system.

Re:Y2K

[bbn]

You do realize that a 32 bit computer will easily do 64 bit math?

Re:Y2K

[rjstanford]

Even silly things like old elevator control software that thought it was 1900 instead of 2000, "calculated" the wrong day of the week because of that, and idled out a bunch of elevators because "Hey, its Sunday, right?" The invisible impact was potentially huge.

The Y2.038K problem should be a fun one. Lots and lots of userland programs out there use ints to hold time values instead of something that can just be recompiled. Lots of them.

Re:Y2K

[rjstanford]

Its a good thing that C never encouraged fixed-width record constructs...

Re:Y2K

[Darinbob]

Y2K absolutely WAS a legitimate problem. Problems did occur due to it, and some minor problems actually occured as early as 1996. We absolutely do NOT know out of context that "99" means 1999 or 1899, as that could be the date of someone's birth in a medical system. There were also many systems that would use "99" as a flag date, under the assumption that the data base would no longer be in existence when 1999 rolled around, other systems used "98", "97", "00", "01". When you start using strings for dates all sorts of nastiness creeps in.

Well technically if you programmed the system and knew all the context then you could figure out what "99" means. Except that these programs which used these bogus dates as shortcuts were also likely to not know how to deal with the problems that cropped up because the programmers made no provisions for it.

The reason the world didn't end is because programmers spent a massive amount of work to clean things up in only a few short years. Just because you didn't see that work does not mean it didn't happen. It was most definitely not bullshit except to ignorant people.

Re:Y2K

[Darinbob]

If we're lucky, many of those programs will erroneously use unsigned ints.

It is somewhat silly that a time format intended for date of file creation/modification ended up being used as a general purpose time. It was patently obvious to all that it was unsuitable to specify times in the distant past or future. However because many systems came with a lot of nice built in functions to deal with POSIX time, it got adopted for a more general date/time encoding in areas where it is inappropriate.

So, using signed 32-bit number of seconds since 1/1/1970 is suitable for files created in the last 40 years or so, it's not even adequate to record someone's age in seconds but I have seen that attempted. It also can't be used as the date of my grandparent's birth, or even store the date that the battery on some new embedded systems should be replaced.

Re:Y2K

[petermgreen]

Y2K was never a legitimate problem. Computers have no problem going from Dec 31st, 1999 to Jan 1st 2000. The only problems are constructs of human representation of time, like seeing "1/1/00". Is that 1900 or 2000!? We have no clue!

The problem is that the humans who built many systems didn't just use their "human representation of time" as a display format. They used it as an entry format, a storage format, a calculation format, a transfer format.

But we do, actually, just like we knew '99' meant "1999" and not "1899".

Humans are good at making educated guesses, computers not so much so you have to go through ALL your code checking it is making the assumptions you want it to make. Further if you bake in an assumption like =nn means 20xx you are just postponing the problem.

The *real* legitimate problem with time will occur in 2038, and we've already made the solution to that.

Yes and no, we have certainly built systems that can handle dates beyond 2038

but afaict while the linux developers have noted that it is a problem for 32-bit linux they have not yet done the work to fix it and to be done sanely this work really needs to start from the bottom of the stack. There isn't much app developers can meaningfully and sanely do when their OS is broken.

Computers that are old enough to suffer that problem will hopefully not be maintaining some necessary piece of infrastructure.

Given that the problem hasn't been solved for many new systems being deployed now I can't share your optimism that systems with the problem will be phased out by 2038 and I would expect a lot of emergency patching.

Re:Y2K

[dave420]

You never had to sift through some ages-old written-by-that-guy-who-left-5-years-ago assembler code in '99 I take it. Good for you. Not everyone was that lucky, so you might want to can the sass :)

Re:Y2K

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither did you 420 druggie loser. You've never written anything I've ever seen online. It is totally a joke doing webpage based junk. It's not even programming. Use many pointers in it loser? No. From what I see you saying in your posts here that is all you are capable of. Bragging on that is a total joke, just like you 420 weed smoking loser that you are obviously.

No need for action

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us know when it gets down to zero available and then we'll spend the weekend fixing it.

Re:No need for action

[Darinbob]

I have a vacation scheduled for that weekend.

If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Wycliffe]

If we're too lazy to switch to ipv6 then they need to just start charging per ip.
$1 per ip per year should be sufficient to cause plenty of ip hoarders to return their stock.
If that's not enough then increase it to $1 per ip per month. Still small enough that
it shouldn't really affect anyone too much. My guess is any computer that can't
absorb a $1/month charge is not an actually computer and should have a private
10.0 number anyways.

Charge per ip might also be a good way to help encourage ipv6 switchover.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[hankwang]

"just start charging per ip $1 per ip per year should be sufficient"

And who should benefit from the $4B/yr revenue? The American government because ICANN is in the US?

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[LVSlushdat]

Here's the weird part.. I have several Xen/Linux virtual servers thru a vps hosting company.. They include 2 ipv4 addresses and 6 ipv6 addresses with each vps.. On one of my vps, since I host two different sites on it, the two ipv4 addresses are kinda handy.. However, on several others, I have zero need/use for more than one ipv4 address.. I asked their support to take the unneeded addresses back, since ipv4 addresses are in short supply.. Their response? Don't worry, we have plenty... Huh???
I wonder how often this scenario plays out with other vendors? One often wonders just how bad the shortage is when vendors can do this with their address-blocks...

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast is way ahead of you, dude. They're already charging me $3/month per static routed IP address. I'm feeling plenty of "incentive" to move to IPv6, which of course they don't support at all. Well, they have a pilot program in some areas where each customer can get a /128. No shit, a whole /128 all to myself.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[WaffleMonster]

If we're too lazy to switch to ipv6 then they need to just start charging per ip.
$1 per ip per year should be sufficient to cause plenty of ip hoarders to return their stock.
If that's not enough then increase it to $1 per ip per month. Still small enough that
it shouldn't really affect anyone too much. My guess is any computer that can't
absorb a $1/month charge is not an actually computer and should have a private
10.0 number anyways.

Meanwhile disaggregation is not free and carries global costs on routing infrastructure not everyone has the resources to bear. Taking back addresses is like air lifting new deck chairs onto the titanic with much heavier solid lead versions to help the boat sink faster.

http://blog.pierky.com/avoid-c...

We are quickly approaching the point where it takes more effort to be "lazy" than it does to deploy ipv6.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Arancaytar]

Holy shit, that's like sixteen million per year (or month) for every organization on this list.

But to be honest, most of them could probably absorb the annual fee without batting an eye.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[WaffleMonster]

Comcast is way ahead of you, dude. They're already charging me $3/month per static routed IP address. I'm feeling plenty of "incentive" to move to IPv6, which of course they don't support at all. Well, they have a pilot program in some areas where each customer can get a /128. No shit, a whole /128 all to myself.

I've had IPv6 on Comcast for years with a /64 PD. Not 100% I believe anywhere you can get a /128 you can pull a /64 PD but need a DHCPv6 client to do it.

At very least they are trying to deploy to their entire network. Business customer support is lagging and some areas still lack access. They seem to be genuinely committed to full production quality deployment.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Anonymous Coward]

We should just give it to the richest man alive as it will trickle down.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[houghi]

It woyuld not be good, It would be GREAT. That way the end user gives even more money to the providers without actualy having a need to invest.

And those are also the ones who need to invest in I{v6 and you wonder why they don't?

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Wycliffe]

It woyuld not be good, It would be GREAT. That way the end user gives even more money to the providers without actualy having a need to invest.

And those are also the ones who need to invest in I{v6 and you wonder why they don't?

You're assuming the provider gets to keep this money but the providers is who has to pay the fee not the end-user.
In many cases the end user is already paying more than this for a static IP and the provider will likely pass this on to
the end-user but the end-user is not the hoarders. The hoarders are the thousands of businesses that have unused ips.
It's easy to pass on a $1 charge to a end-user if there is an end-user but if you have 1k ips sitting idle and now you
have to pay for them then you might decide it's worth the hassle to exchange them for a smaller block.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Wycliffe]

"just start charging per ip $1 per ip per year should be sufficient"

And who should benefit from the $4B/yr revenue? The American government because ICANN is in the US?

Give it all to ICANN and use the money to convert everyone to ipv6. Give it to the red cross.
Heck, burn it in a bonfire for that matter to help reduce inflation. It doesn't really matter.
The point is that there are ALOT of idle ips out there and if the people sitting on them had
to fork over cash each year/month for them then they would have an incentive to give them up.
Right now if you are lucky enough or powerful enough to have a bunch you have very little
incentive to give them up. You actually have several incentives NOT to give them up.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Ksevio]

First, $1 is pretty cheap, especially for a large organization with lots of IPs

The bigger problem is: How do people give back IPs? Say 4 people give back their spare IPs to the ISP. The ISP now has 4 extras randomly distributed in a block that they could give out if needed, but that just means complicated routing if they want to return them to the general pool.

In the amount of time a system could be created to take them back, and convince all the corporations/organizations to return them, they'll be exhausted almost instantly and we're back to still needing IPv6 but we wasted all this time recovering IPs.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[petermgreen]

Their response? Don't worry, we have plenty... Huh???

Think about it for a minuite, if they have allocated the addresses to you they can use it to "justify" requests for further allocations. Even when buying used IP addresses you still have to justify your use of the IPs to get them registered to you.

They can then reclaim those addresses from you (and other similar customers) when the shortage gets so acute that they really need them.

OOI who is the provider?

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Wycliffe]

First, $1 is pretty cheap, especially for a large organization with lots of IPs
The bigger problem is: How do people give back IPs? Say 4 people give back their spare IPs to the ISP. The ISP now has 4 extras randomly distributed in a block that they could give out if needed, but that just means complicated routing if they want to return them to the general pool.
In the amount of time a system could be created to take them back, and convince all the corporations/organizations to return them, they'll be exhausted almost instantly and we're back to still needing IPv6 but we wasted all this time recovering IPs.

Easy. I'm really not talking about charging the end-user. ICANN would be the one sending the bill and would only be sending the
bill for the IPs it directly gives out. So we're really only talking about class C or larger. Basically companies/goverments that are
running BGP or similiar. If an ISP wants to stop being charged for a class A because they only really need a class C then they
would exchange the class A to ICANN for an appropriately sized class C and hand out new IPs to their customers. This already
happens now for whatever reason. I've had ISPs force an IP change on me multiple times because they moved to a different subnet.

Again, there is no convincing the companies to return them. The fee will convince them. If they don't pay the fee then their IP
becomes unroutable. If the fee becomes a nuisance and they see they can save 100k/year then they will migrate on their own.
If they don't migrate then ICANN now has plenty of money to pay companies to switch to ipv6 or whatever it needs to do to help
the transition.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a client who has 10 IP's ... becuase they were included in their ISP deal!

They use 2. One for internet access out of the office and one for their mail server.

8 IP's just hanging there doing nothing.... And it's not even a big company (10 people).

And I bet they are not the only case for this kind of waste.

Re:If we're not going to switch, charge per ip

[Anonymous Coward]

... Reading through that list, I'm starting to understand more clearly why we're running into a shortage.

HP, for instance, has 33,554,432 addresses. Apple, Ford, IBM, General Electric, Xerox, MIT, Halliburton, Prudential Insurance, Daimler AG, DuPont, Merck and Eli Lilly & Company have 16,777,216. Some IT consulting firms own another 3 /8s. The Postal Service and UK Department of Work and Pensions own another two.

Just for the organizations I've listed we're looking at about 8.5% of the usable address space. The various defense departments (US + UK) own about 5.5% of the usable address space.

I just have trouble fathoming how these companies can even be using 10% of this space... 50,250 people work at Apple. There would have to be 33 publicly addressable devices for every employee to use up even 10% of their allocation, and 333 to use it all up.

"It is now indispensable to make the switch"

[Anonymous Coward]

It is indispensable for the summary author to be careful with a thesaurus or find a better translator. A more effortless word would have done just fine.

Re:"It is now indispensable to make the switch"

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary author would like to point out that he isn't a native speaker, but still got the story posted without any corrections by the editor. Zeig erstmal, dass dein Deutsch besser als mein Englisch ist.

Why not an address market?

[Ken_g6]

Why does the transition to IPV6 have to happen immediately after all IPV4 addresses are allocated? Why can't someone set up a market for IPV4 addresses that can then be bought and sold? At that point, the transition to IPV6 wouldn't happen very quickly, until the cost for IPV4 addresses exceeded the cost for IPV6 equipment. Then it would happen very quickly.

Re:Why not an address market?

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv4 brokers exist, and their main function is to facilitate address block sales.

Google "ip broker" (and ignore the "intellectual property" hits).

Re:Why not an address market?

[AdamHaun]

One of the problems with IPv4 address exhaustion is that routing tables become very complex. Having everyone try to glom a dozen random /24s together to make their local networks will not help.

Also, this is an exponential growth situation, so stopgap measures won't buy much time anyway.

Re:Why not an address market?

[Anonymous Coward]

GPS address is the way to go. The altitude would be handy for high rises and satellites.

Re:Why not an address market?

[Ksevio]

The transition to IPv6 is happening already. Lots of people have it without even knowing and newer consumer hardware is able to support IPv6 without any issues. It's already getting to the point where some ISPs are NATing their users for IPv4, but giving them IPv6 addresses. Some are even doing strange things like converting IPv4 traffic to IPv6 if an AAAA record is available for a site.

Straight up trade

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll give you 1 each per bumbum girl. Text me, plz.

Any good hoster in Africa ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"As of now, only AfriNIC is not in address exhaustion mode"

BTW, is there any reputable hoster located in Africa ?

Any suggestion ?

Re:Any good hoster in Africa ?

[Anonymous Coward]

South Africa? also, with IP4 exhaustion, there may very will be one soon.

Re:Any good hoster in Africa ?

[cheater512]

I can't imagine connectivity to Europe, the US or Australia would be particularly good from anywhere other than Egypt.

Why do you need IPs? They aren't hard to get if you have a actual reason. (I'm a owner of a /24)

Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6

[Trax3001BBS]

Not saying it's not possible but all of the cable modem they've put out that is IP6 compatable has it's IP6 disabled, I've feeling there are going to be a lot of accounts on one address (Nat) style.

Not that disappointed, using a HOSTS file and working with IP4 address I've a bit of sense about them, IP6 I couldn't tell you if I've seen it before or not, age does play a bit into this/

Re:Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6

[synapse7]

I could swear I setup a router for somebody on a charter modem and a ping from a windows box to google.com returned an ipv6 address..
 
Also, I've been using HE ipv6 tunnel since the first ipv6 day(whenver that was) over a charter modem with good results. Traceroutes over ipv6 are often shorter than ipv4.

Re:Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6

[Sanians]

Not saying it's not possible but all of the cable modem they've put out that is IP6 compatable has it's IP6 disabled

If you're looking at the modem's status page (192.168.100.1) and it says IPv4-Only, that actually has nothing to do with whether you have IPv6.

The quick and easy way to find out is to just run "tcpdump -n ip6" and see if anything shows up. I didn't realize I had IPv6 until I did that, as the configuration changes I made to Linux to support a Hurricane Electric IPv6 tunnel rendered it unable to configure itself automatically with my native IPv6. Even after knowing it was there, it took me a couple of days to figure out how to get it working. Seems the OS support for IPv6 isn't completely sorted out, and so you run into a lot of odd things that work in strange ways that you then have to sort out. In particular, if you want to use a Linux box as a router, you have to set up a DHCPv4 client, a DHCPv6 client, a DHCPv4 server, a DHCPv6 server, radvd, and get the kernel parameters sorted out so that it will actually accept router advertisements and route packets at the same time. I eventually gave up and just run pfSense in VirtualBox, but even figuring out how to get that to work wasn't trivial. Thus, I wouldn't conclude that you don't have IPv6 until you see tcpdump fail to show any IPv6 packets after running for ten minutes.

Not that disappointed, using a HOSTS file and working with IP4 address I've a bit of sense about them, IP6 I couldn't tell you if I've seen it before or not,

Well, the good thing is, even if IPv4 disappears from the internet, it'll still exist on your LAN, and so you can continue to access computers on your LAN via IPv4. I ended up configuring the firewall on my computers to block all incoming connections via IPv6, and just use IPv4 when connecting between them via SSH. As such, I'm using IPv6 basically as an internet-only protocol, which seems to make a lot of sense: I have little IPv4 addresses for my little LAN, and big IPv6 addresses for the big internet.

Re:Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6

[Anonymous Coward]

I ran ipconfig on Win7 and was surprised to discover that I had both an IPv4 and an IPv6 address. Apparently Win7 generates some type of algorithmic IPv6 address. And this is on a corporate PC with all the usual attributes (AD, DHCP, GPOs, network totally based on IPv4 and no formal support for IPv6 at all).

Re:Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6

[petermgreen]

Traceroutes over ipv6 are often shorter than ipv4.

That's hardly surprising, using a tunnel hides all hops between you and the tunnel gateway from traceroute and similar tools.

Re:Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6

[petermgreen]

There are three types of IPv6 address you may see on a windows 7 machine on a network that does not provide native IPv6

1: a link local address (from the block fe80::/64), afaict you will always get this but as the name suggests it's only usable on the local link.
2: a 6to4 address (from the block 2002::/8), you will get this if you have a public IPv4 address and either no firewall or one that lets through the 6to4 packrs
3: a teredo address (from the block 2001::/16) , teredo is a nat traversing automatic tunneling system, it's enabled by default for home user machines but it's supposed to be disabled by default on corporate networks (defined as networks continaing a domain controller)

Both 6to4 and teredo should in theory allow communication with hosts on the ipv6 internet but in practice they can be somewhat flaky and said communication with the ipv6 internet largely reliant on relay servers run by a handful of altruistic providers.

Re:Perfect, Charter.com doesn't even use IP6

[petermgreen]

Sorry I got the blocks sizes wrogn in that last post, 6to4 is 2002::/16 teredo is 2001::/32

So ask big companies to stop wasting public IPs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does every cellphone, toilet, refrigerator, atm, medical device, desktop terminal, etc etc etc really need a public IP address?

That's what happens when you cry wolf

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that people were fear mongering the imminent exhaustion of IP 4 addresses for 20+ years. We were supposed to run out in 1992.

Eventually people will dismiss your warnings because you were not realistic about them in the first place. Now that it is happening, no one is paying attention until the whole thing comes to a screeching halt.

Re:That's what happens when you cry wolf

[Arancaytar]

The problem is with people not understanding probability or what a prognosis is. It's like a pack-a-day smoker whose doctor says "you're probably going to get cancer within ten years if you keep this up". Five years pass, ten years, fifteen years... nothing; clearly the doctor is an idiot and I am an immortal cancer-immune demigod. Twenty years... boom, cancer.

"Realistic prognosis"? You can't accurately predict unexpected changes. So you err on the side of urgency, because if what you predict happens sooner than expected, that's much, much worse than if you respond sooner than you actually need to.

Instead, people first ignore the warning, then see that the bad thing didn't happen on schedule, then deciding that this invalidates the entire warning.

(See also: Climate change.)

Re:That's what happens when you cry wolf

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Back in 1992, they said we were going to run out in a few months. Not someday 22 years from now.

Your smoking analogy doesn't hold up. The correct analogy would be if you smoked one cigarette ever, and someone who saw you smoke that one cigarette started to claim that you would drop dead the very next day. Yes. Such a doctor would indeed be an idiot.

Re:That's what happens when you cry wolf

[marcosdumay]

The problem is worse than that. It's a matter of the media missrepresenting the problem, and people not looking into the details to notice the hype.

I've never seen a technical forecast being delayed, only anticipated. The first one I saw from the working group was working with widespread adoption (like what we have now) of IPv6 by 2020-2025 and IPv4 addresses running out by as late as 2030. The media can't stand having that much time to fix a problem.

Re:That's what happens when you cry wolf

[marka63]

Back in 1992 we would have run out except for CIDR and NAT which staved off the exhaustion 20+ years.

People acted on the initial warnings. I was actually running IPv4 networks back then. We upgraded routers and hosts to support CIDR.

More efficient use of addresses was put into play so less addresses were wasted CIDR. By sizing the net mask to the number of hosts on the link we wasted less addresses. Address allocations strategies also changed to assume CIDR was available and you couldn't get more addresses unless you could prove you were properly utilising the addresses you had. If you didn't upgrade your machines to support CIDR you were out of luck if you need new addressees.

Stop gap measures were also put into play like NAT.

Work also started on a replacement for IPv4 which was capable of supporting everyone. That replacement is IPv6.

CIDR and NAT are no longer sufficient to keep IPv4 running.

Re:So ask big companies to stop wasting public IPs

[Chrisq]

Does every cellphone, toilet, refrigerator, atm, medical device, desktop terminal, etc etc etc really need a public IP address?

How else do you expect the NSA to track them?

Just Latin America, not Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Latin America who, pale face?

Net effect of such a policy

[Opportunist]

1024 per 6 months per organization.

So what will organizations do? Right. Reserve 1024 IP addresses every 6 months, need them or not, because they MIGHT need a few 1000 down the road at some time. Chances are they don't, but "just in case".

Our government tried to limit water use by cutting off water supply whenever it got scarce. Can you imagine how much water got wasted? The reason is simple, people filled every kind of container (bathrub, sinks, buckets, even coffee cups) whenever water was available, only to drain it whenever water got available again to refill with fresh water...

Re:Net effect of such a policy

[Bengie]

You have to show proof that you need them and ICANN can reclaim IP blocks if they "feel" you don't "need" them anymore.

only AfriNIC is not in address exhaustion mode

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like they need some good old-fashioned democracy, to liberate their IPv4 reserves.

Re:So ask big companies to stop wasting public IPs

[Opportunist]

So why doesn't the NSA pump money behind IPv6 rollout?

If there's one organization that SHOULD have an interest in (virtually) unlimited unique IP addresses that allow tracking every single device using one, it's them.

Price

[KraxxxZ01]

Price = demand / supply There will never be IPv6. If it's up to market.

Slashdot

[Alioth]

These kinds of stories have been popping up on Slashdot for a while, but I note Slashdot *STILL* doesn't have an IPv6 address even though it's a site supposedly run by and for technologists. Meanwhile, Facebook, a site made for teenagers to post selfies on, has had IPv6 support for three or four years.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a site supposedly run by and for technologists.

Hah! You must be new here (TM).

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because facebook is for an international community, where many are on IPv6 networks, whereas slashdot is mainly read in North America, which is still mostly using IPv4.

Re:Slashdot

[radarskiy]

We are now too old to learn to internet.

Re:Slashdot

[Samantha Wright]

See also: Slashdot and unicode support.

I'm waiting for IPv7

[Anonymous Coward]

Waiting for IPv7, I hear its going to be much better.

Re:I'm waiting for IPv7

[Arancaytar]

It's going to be implemented as soon as 2214, I hear.

Re:I'm waiting for IPv7

[Minwee]

Waiting for IPv7, I hear its going to be much better.

Whatever you do, don't settle for IPVista.

Re:I'm waiting for IPv7

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv11 is where it's at because it goes to.... 11!

Re:I'm waiting for IPv7

[Anonymous Coward]

Waiting for IPv7, I hear its going to be much better.

No, you need to skip the odd releases. That's why I'm skipping IPv5.

ARIN is not in address exhaustion mode

[thue]

> As of now, only AfriNIC is not in address exhaustion mode."

That is not true - ARIN (north America's RiR) is still handing out IPv4's and will continue to do so until down to their last /10.

https://www.arin.net/resources...

Re:ARIN is not in address exhaustion mode

[3.1415926535]

They were referring to this: "ARIN enters phase four of the IPv4 countdown plan"

They're doing it wrong

[Minwee]

This is a solved problem. As one of the smartest and most knowledgeable computer experts in the world, Stephen Fry, has said, all they need to do is register a .uk domain to generate new IP numbers.

Re:They're doing it wrong

[Darinbob]

The Registry seems to have a broken sarcasm detector.

and yet one more new domain...

[swschrad]

.idiot

who cares, let's play footbol

[gelfling]

It's world cup. big titted groupies and cheap beer. screw this internet shit.

Simple and elegant IPV4 vs cluttered unelegant V6

[Anonymous Coward]

Why has people not generally adopted V6 years ago ?

It's simple ... IPV6 is not simple.

It is a complicated piece of work, trying to please everybody. Crypto,Traceability, cryptic syntax ect. ect.

Somebody should design ipv8, an 8 byte adress ipv4 version with none of the ipv6 crap - release it and watch it getting adopted in less than a year ....

I too wonder about that too.

[Marrow]

Like forcing IPv4 to stay in country only. If you want to go to a server in another country, you have to get there via IPv6.

Or give each country a IPv4 address range, but certain addresses are reserved for international servers. Multiple IPv4 networks that overlap on addresses that are outside the country.

Latin America Exhausts IPv4 Addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv4 Addresses: "We are la tired."

Skip

[fulldecent]

IPV6 is like the iPhone *c and *s models that everyone skips while waiting for the next version -- not enough new features, the current one is good enough, and "polycarbonate" doesn't that just mean "plastic"?

Re:Simple and elegant IPV4 vs cluttered unelegant

[Ksevio]

Why has people not generally adopted V6 years ago ?

Probably because the hardware in (almost) every routing device needs to be updated to support it. Even if you went with a simple expansion of IPv4 it wouldn't be simple because a router that's looking for a 4 byte address isn't going to know what to do with an 8 byte address. Might as well go with a 16 byte address while we're updating everything.

don't they know how to set up their nat ?

[issicus]

I never use my IP address why would they? maybe they can put Latin America on its own private lan.

Re:Yeah, poop on that

[Darinbob]

IPv6 is an extension of IPv4. You can't extend IPv4 without giving it a new version number, the most you can do is add some protocols layered on top of it or tunnel through it.

Any ping program that can deal with an address longer than 32-bits is inherently incompatible with IPv4 ping protocol. Now it is true that you could write a single ping program that can deal with both IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously.

Re:Yeah, poop on that

[fisted]

ICMPv6 != ICMPv4

Got it on Kickass, you lost WB

[Anonymous Coward]

It's WB's fault. My kids wanted the Lego Movie last month. I went to Amazon, didn't have it. I went to iTunes, didn't have it. I went to Kickass.to, it had it (good copy too). Problem solved and "they" lost the money.

Re:Yeah, poop on that

[Tough Love]

The problem with IPv6 is that it is *not* an extension of IPv4. Instead, it is a "second system syndrome" monument to itself, which entirely explains why it has so far not succeeded in spite of immense hype and effort. The dumbest feature of IPv6? 128 bit addresses instead of 64. But the list just starts there.