Overhaul of net addresses begins

[TechBear_Seattle]

Overhaul of net addresses begins

The first big steps on the road to overhauling the net's core addressing system have been taken.

On Monday the master address books for the net are being updated to include records prepared in a new format known as IP version 6.

Widespread use of this format will end the shortage of addresses that sites can be given.

The net's current addressing scheme is expected to exhaust the pool of unallocated addresses by 2011.

The rest of the article is not too technical and continues at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7221758.stm

[northzax]

1. not unreasonable at all to run out of IP addresses

there are only 4 billion or so (and there are 6 billion people) but even within that, I personally use three (home, work, iPhone) and I wager most people in the US use at least one (if you use one, you probably use two)

it's like phone numbers, combine work, work fax and cell, I use three, people with home phones add another one or two.

is this also the update that will allow for foriegn character IP routing? I know there was a movement to employ Chinese characters at one point.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

3. with the number of addresses that become

EVENTUALLY available to the end user you will be able to address the hairs on your head if you want :-) ... ok, maybe not that much (i mean, you could use them that way...but probably not what most people would do), but certainly one for every electrical device you could own...

sP

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

12. They have been saying we will run out of ip addresses for *years*

NAT has made the 'problem' moot..

What needs to be done is to collect the huge IP blocks (Multiple Class A) owned by companies like Apple and hand them back a class B or two.

My company of 6000 people has *one* external IP address which we use and a handful of addresses used for our servers..

[ProdigalJunkMail]

16. well, the problem IS with allocation

and due to the allocation problem they have to do something. it is not as easy as getting those addresses back and this will be an easier solution than trying that. and even if they were to retrieve the unused address space, it will still eventually become a problem.

sP

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

17. Wha?

"this will be an easier solution than trying that. "

Upgrading the net infrastructure in countless parts of the world to handle ipv6 is eaiser than taking some wasted space back?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

18. it is not just taking back some space

you reallocate ClassA addresses even a little and you are dealing with HUGE changes...and once a ClassA moves, you have to make the changes immediately. Routers (even entry level routers) have had IPv6 code on them for years (I was teaching on this 6+ years ago). The good news about migrating to the new structure, is that the v6 address space allows for incorporation of the v4 address during conversion. Also, you can roll out v6 on the core and then work down as time permits...it is a much easier migration.

sP

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

20. Ok ive been doing and teaching this for more than a dozen years

Routers have had classless rouing as a feature for far longer and in far greater number than iv6 support.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

21. well...classless routing is nothing more than a little

fancy bit masking...(well, not fancy) and IPv6 is on just about every major router vendor's products all the way down to the home market. Heck, you can configure IPv6 on your Linksys if you want. If you have been teaching this as long as your one-upsmanship would indicate, then you know well that this has been in the works forever (10+ years).

The allocation is certainly the problem. By breaking it into classes for routing they forced us to use the private address ranges (and that to me has been the savior of IPv4) CIDR and the lot of other 'patches' (yes, I know they are not really PATCHES but the certainly are workarounds for the existing routing and allocation issues). Taking Class A addresses given to companies and universities and giving them to countries and continents will only be another 'patch'. Fix the problem while we can...

sP

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

22. Your a touch off

"fancy bit masking...(well, not fancy)"

Until the mid 90's you *could not* route in a classless manner on a huge majority of routers ( anything with ios for certain ). Some of the huge huge stuff maybe but not the majority of units. If youve been doing this 6 years you're missing allot of the history.

"just about every major router vendor's products all the way down to the home market."

Which is why Classless routing, NAT, and IP reallocation are far easier than having folks have to start supporting ipv6

"By breaking it into classes for routing they forced us to use the private address ranges (and that to me has been the savior of IPv4)"

No you're really not you can break up a range and leave the classless addys alone 10, 172, 192,168 alone. Yet take the 21/8 network and split it into a bunch of C's and make sure that there is a limit on what a given entity might own.. People who still ant an internal class a can just supernet..

There is no doubt IPV6 needs to be the long term solution but itll be another half dozen years *at least* until the infrastructure is completely in place to the small business level..

[ProdigalJunkMail]

23. ok...we'll disagree

i think we are missing each other on a couple of things that we might otherwise agree on. I have only been teaching IPv6 for six years...my history goes back a touch longer than you might expect. I have worked on carrier class gear for quite some time...

IPv6 is coming...the core will utilize it first...and i would agree with your assertion that it will be a lengthy transition. And all I was saying about the classful structure to IP routing was that it was an issue of allocation that has forced the use of the private address ranges...without the use of private IP ranges (which you point out) we would have had a problem long ago...but it is an allocation problem...not a raw numbers problem. Hell, HP has TWO Class A's (about 33MILLION addresses9(granted the whole DEC/Compaq thing made that happen)) and the DOD has about 10 or 11 and what the hell but if I am not mistaken InterOp still has 45/8.

sP

OnEdit : HEY, you became a member on my birthday!!! NICE...

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

24. Well I couldnt get you a card so....

;)

[ProdigalJunkMail]

25. you and my wife...

:-) Thanks for the geeky talk and the laugh!

And if you will allow me a small one-upsman...I have THREE little angels...you better get to work, amigo!

sP

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

26. Right now the wife and I are considering moving back east

to be near family that and the fact my kids are 1 and 2 years old I think well take a break ;)

Seriously my wife wants more but we have difficult pregnancies (hyper emesis means she is bedridden for months and has to be fed and hydrated through a tube)

Maybe when the kids we have are school aged so she wont have to care for them..

[ProdigalJunkMail]

27. yikes...that is some rough stuff and a break for you both is

more than deserved! We have 1...2...5 as the years for our little ones...and it has been a challenge! but an amazing one!

Good luck with all!

sP

[ProdigalJunkMail]

2. this has been coming for some time...

I was teaching IPv6 addressing 6 years ago...not that it isn't needed...but the person writing that article is a few years behind the times with the word 'new'... :-)


sP

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. I think "new" means it is finally being implemented net-wide

In terms of actual use on world wide web, this is new technology. Ok, "new" technology if you are going to be fussy about it. :hi:

[ProdigalJunkMail]

6. yeah, I am a crotchety old net weenie...

I just bristle at the term new because I've been telling people "it's right around the corner, I PROMISE" for years and looking like a dork in the process...it became a joke for me after a while...dern that private address space...

sP

[KharmaTrain]

5. This Was First Proposed Over 10 Years Ago...

When InterNIC was overloaded with domain requests the flaws in the IP system were obvious and the IPv6 was rolled out at that point, but resisted by the large IP companies who would have had to redo their entire router systems. They chose instead to increase the number of domains with new prefixs.

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. Except that the number of domain prefixes has nothing at all to do with availability of addresses

Currently, all internet traffic is routed by means of four eight bit numbers separated by periods. If you have ever seen a string of numbers such as 128.0.0.1, you have seen an IP address. Any domain text you use, such as www.democraticunderground.com, first gets mapped to an address and then gets routed.

Because the four numbers in an IP address range between 0 and 255, there are only 4,294,967,296 possible IP addresses. According to the article, 86% of all possible address are already in use, making further expansion of the web next to impossible. If I understand this correctly, the new addressing scheme adds two more numbers, extending the range to 281,474,976,710,656 possible addresses. That, hopefully, should last us a bit.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

8. a fully written IPv6 address is well...HUGE

it is a 128 bit address vs the current 32 bit address structure. And for a little math fun...2^128 = 3.4X10^38 and that is a LOT of address...

sP

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. Ah, so is 8 byte rather than 6?

If it is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx then... wow. That is a lot of addressing capability.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

13. they are going to have a lot more than just station address

in there...flow...security...stuff normally reserved for layers 4 and 6 are going to land in the addressing and the routing. Someone did the math (that I cannot confirm) and came up with 3.1 million addresses per square meter of the earth's surface...sounds good to me...

They will look like these found on wiki

2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:0000:1428:57ab (actual address...all others compressed)
2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000::1428:57ab
2001:0db8:0:0:0:0:1428:57ab
2001:0db8:0:0::1428:57ab
2001:0db8::1428:57ab
2001:db8::1428:57ab

consecutive zeros may be compressed in the address space by the use of '::'

sP

[SpiralHawk]

9. "Ahh, but Mercury is Retrograde." - Ronald Regan's Dead Republicon Astrologer

"D'oh. You pinheads should have checked with a republicon occultist. You are going to regret your timing. Smirk."

- Ronald Reagan's Dead Republicon Astrologer*


* Courageously channeled by Ye Olde Spirale Hawke, who consumed 1/2 dozen cream-filled doughnuts to protect his Precious Bodily Fluids while surfing about in the occult republicon Netherworld.

[SpiralHawk]

11. "Don't interupt a serious I-net discussion with republicon occultism." - Anti-Occutist Brigade

[sutz12]

14. So, does the old hardware map forward?

Or do we all need to buy new modems/routers?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

15. it'll be a simple code update

even entry level Cisco routers have had the IPv6 code in them for years...simply a matter of making use of it...

sP

[backscatter712]

19. Most stuff in the past couple years can handle IPv6.

Old routers, and ancient computers that are still running things like Windows 98 might need to be replaced.