IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries • Hacker News Board

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#61

Post by dpifke » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:25 PM UTC

tastybites wrote: post #54

xearl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years away? Gosh! Depends a bit on where you want your servers to be located, I guess, but still. For a lot of server hosting customers, prices for additional IPs have already increased steadily over the last few months. But don't take my word for it, here's a bit from a recent APNIC announcement, for example: "APNIC expects normal allocations to continue for a further three to six months." ( https://www.apnic.net/pu…

For a lot of server hosting customers, prices for additional IPs have already increased steadily over the last few months That's just retail markup. If you peer with tier 1 transit providers you can still get IPv4 space for practically nothing.

Practically nothing? Are there tier-1 providers charging for IP space now? I can confirm that neither Level3 nor Global Crossing charge for IP allocations as of a month ago.

(The whole "charging for IP addresses" racket always left a bad taste in my mouth, since it's a public resource for which ISPs aren't paying, other than the overhead of being expected to justify and account for the space they've been allocated.)

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#62

Post by tastybites » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:33 PM UTC

dpifke wrote: post #61

tastybites wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a lot of server hosting customers, prices for additional IPs have already increased steadily over the last few months That's just retail markup. If you peer with tier 1 transit providers you can still get IPv4 space for practically nothing.

Practically nothing? Are there tier-1 providers charging for IP space now? I can confirm that neither Level3 nor Global Crossing charge for IP allocations as of a month ago. (The whole "charging for IP addresses" racket always left a bad taste in my mouth, since it's a public resource for which ISPs aren't paying, other than the overhead of being expected to justify and account for the space they've been allocated.)

Level 3 doesn't charge us either - what's really funny is some of the second-string ISP's actually pay you to take IP space from them.

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#63

Post by mauriciob » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:34 PM UTC

rcbuse wrote: post #29

calloc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each person is supposed to get assigned a /64 from their ISP, which will be then assigned to any downstream devices.

Then you get your bill from your isp, $5 extra per device.

I can seriously see this happening.

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#64

Post by danudey » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:37 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #33

calloc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pfft. 10.x.x.x for me. http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1918.html 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix) 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix) 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

Yeah, take your pick. It was kind of a joke but the reality is already starting to make itself known. It used to be that every cable modem and many DSLs got public addresses even if they weren't static. It's getting more and more rare. IPv4 won't die overnight, or even any time soon but there is likely to be an uncomfortable transition period where it becomes difficult for people like me who like to have static publi…

I did a traceroute from my cable modem a few years ago, and found that my traffic went from my internal network to my public-facing IPv4 address (assigned to my router), then through several 10.x hops before finally hitting the public internet again. Quite a sane use of resources, I thought.

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#65

Post by jedsmith » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:38 PM UTC

51Cards wrote: post #48

I always thought that when we ran out of IP4, that some of the companies holding on to Class A blocks would release parts of those for use. I'm not a master of how blocks are assigned or if addressing wise it would be feasible but really, does Ford fully use its Class A block? Prudential Insurance? Eli Lilly? GE?

They could be playing the long view and realizing how much that address space is worth. If I were in charge of IT at those companies, I'd renumber out of the block and start thinking about selling the space, once it gets tight.

I've noticed that the perceived view in the netops community -- backed up by mailing list messages today, even -- is that such an IPv4 broker market is an inevitability no matter what the RIRs do. There are policies about it, but some regions (i.e., APNIC) have a model that encourages reselling space without their involvement.

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#66

Post by danudey » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:40 PM UTC

sammcd wrote: post #53

51Cards wrote: post #48

I always thought that when we ran out of IP4, that some of the companies holding on to Class A blocks would release parts of those for use. I'm not a master of how blocks are assigned or if addressing wise it would be feasible but really, does Ford fully use its Class A block? Prudential Insurance? Eli Lilly? GE?

Looks like Stanford already did this with their block: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IP_address_... Its a pretty interesting list of companies that still hold onto these blocks.

I have to wonder what the DoD's Network Information Centre needs with 151 million IP addresses. Surely they could spare a few.

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#67

Post by snipsnipsnip » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:52 PM UTC

http://xkcd.com/195/ IPv4 space, 2006

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#68

Post by danudey » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:54 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #49

philwelch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also keep in mind there's likely to be a bit of IP reallocation happening. There are a number of companies with full /8 blocks they can't possibly fully utilize.

Yeah, HP as 2 /8s and they seem to be shrinking rather than growing.

The Department of Defence Network Information Centre has 151 million addresses. I'm not sure what they're doing with them but they could probably squeeze by with just 100 million if they had to.

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#69

Post by danudey » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:59 PM UTC

slug wrote: post #59

dfox wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or if you don't have static routable v4 address but have at least dynamically allocated v4 routable address you can use 6to4. I use this to configure my Debian-based router to change used v6 addresses to match DHCP-allocated v4: https://gist.github.com/806333 (bit of an ugly hack)

I strongly recommend this or 6RD. It's a very straightforward and easy way of getting into IPv6 before ISPs start offering IPv6, as comcast did recently ( http://www.comcast6.net/ ).

From the Comcast link:

Each user has been delegated a /64 block of approximately 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (18 quintillion) unique IPv6 addresses.

This seems like a ridiculous number of addresses, until you realize that this basically allows for 18 quintillion users, each with 18 quintillion addresses, before we exhaust the IPv6 space.

Re: IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

#70

Post by Waywocket » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 6:59 PM UTC

jedsmith wrote: post #23

JacobAldridge wrote: post #22

I asked this question on a similar article that gained no traction here recently: what do I, as a regular user of the internet, hosting no domains, and with no real responsibility for any website technicals, need to do about this? (Or what can I do about this?) Do I need to request something from my ISP? Lobby them to see if they take it seriously? Or do I have little choice but to hang around, feeling smug because I…

> Do I need to request something from my ISP? Lobby them to see if they take it seriously? Yes, but it's less crucial for you. Ask for a timeline for IPv6, if you'd like, but don't expect much. You can also set up IPv6 for yourself or your home network via a tunnel (which is a pretty fun exercise), and get access to the IPv6-enabled Internet. All recent operating systems have very good support for it -- even Windows…

>You can also set up IPv6 for yourself or your home network via a tunnel (which is a pretty fun exercise), and get access to the IPv6-enabled Internet. All recent operating systems have very good support for it -- even Windows 7 will hear RA and autoconfigure itself.

In fact, even Windows XP will automagically set up a 6to4 tunnel with no configuration needed if you have a public IPv4 address. Just enable IPv6 support for your connection and it does it all for you.