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The IPv4 Internet Hiccups
New submitter pla writes: Due to a new set of routes published yesterday, the internet has effectively undergone a schism. All routers with a TCAM allocation of 512k (or less), in particular Cisco Catalyst 6500 and 7600's, have started randomly forgetting portions of the internet. 'Cisco also warned its customers in May that this BGP problem was coming and that, in particular, a number of routers and networking products would be affected. There are workarounds, and, of course the equipment could have been replaced. But, in all too many cases this was not done. ... Unfortunately, we can expect more hiccups on the Internet as ISPs continue to deal with the BGP problem." Is it time to switch to all IPv6 yet?
Surely 512k ought to be enough for any router?
And home users aren't even close to getting on board. Most people's PCs and other devices will handle IPV6 just fine. Many new home routers are ready but a lot of people haven't bought a router in years, and their old one can't handle IPV6. And at least where I am, there aren't any home ISPs who even have IPV6 on the roadmap.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
In many cases, the "work around" is to use software routing instead of hardware routing. In the cases of the Cisco routers linked above, their TCAM can be re-partitioned, then restarted. But with the rate of IPv4 route fragmentation, it will only buy so much time. The fix is to use IPv6 or get newer hardware with a larger TCAM.
The Mayans had predicted that we would run out of IPv4 addresses in 2012 -- and they were right.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.