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The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

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Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#41

Post by zokier »

tomjen3 wrote: post #10
lmm wrote: post #8

Hooray, another /8, that'll last us for a good month or so. Exponential growth people, reclaiming unused IP blocks isn't going to stop it. And that's ignoring the possibilities that a) it's being used internally by its legitimate owners b) it's being used internally by other people. T-Mobile were seen to be (mis)using the /8 that belongs to the UK MOD for their internal networks, I wouldn't be surprised if they were…

Do you have an idea of how many IPv4 addresses that are unused or not really needed? Between the bunch MIT got, the bunch that the military got and the bunch that IBM got, we can implement an entirely new protocol before we run out.

There are approximately 52 unadvertised /8s. Before the addresses ran out, we were using about one /8 per month. So even if we'd reclaim all unadvertised ranges, that would still buy us maybe 4 years (probably less considering the explosive growth in Asia).

The design of IPv6 began in the mid-90s, and RFCs were released in 96-98. Now, 15 years later, we are mostly still using IPv4.

In conclusion I think saying that we would have enough time to implement entirely new protocol if we'd reclaim unused addresses is way too optimistic. Even getting IPv6 really deployed at large in 4 years would be challenging enough.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#43

Post by mayneack »

tomjen3 wrote: post #10
lmm wrote: post #8

Hooray, another /8, that'll last us for a good month or so. Exponential growth people, reclaiming unused IP blocks isn't going to stop it. And that's ignoring the possibilities that a) it's being used internally by its legitimate owners b) it's being used internally by other people. T-Mobile were seen to be (mis)using the /8 that belongs to the UK MOD for their internal networks, I wouldn't be surprised if they were…

Do you have an idea of how many IPv4 addresses that are unused or not really needed? Between the bunch MIT got, the bunch that the military got and the bunch that IBM got, we can implement an entirely new protocol before we run out.

At MIT a 30 person living group gets 18.n.x.x

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#44

Post by cbs »

sjwright wrote: post #38
cbs wrote: post #29

We need to quit looking back at the v4 space like this, bite the bullet and deploy v6. It's already in use on some networks, and inevitable on 95+% of the rest. The amount of time spent bike-shedding "well, v4 isn't running out as fast as they say it is" or "NAT will save us" (lol, no) that time is better spent deploying v6. For many installations, its actually not that big of a deal to do.

And we will move, but it's not going to happen until 98% of the world's networking infrastructure (both public and private) is IP6 ready, which probably won't be for another decade.

That's the thing though. If everyone is waiting on everyone else, nothing gets done.

If your network doesn't already support v6, you're the person everyone is waiting on! You don't need to wait for your upstream provider to supply you with v6, tunnels are super easy to get.

The only exception to tunneling is if you're hosting a public-facing service, don't have v6 connectivity and don't trust existing tunnel providers. In this case: First, why are you at you're current host or colo center? They're probably shit. Second, set up a box at a provider with good connectivity to run the tunnel yourself. This is basically what we already do when we want to use our public v4 space but the ISP doesn't want to let us talk BGP.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#45

Post by sjwright »

CrLf wrote: post #3

No traces of this block in the public Internet doesn't mean it isn't being used. It may be in use in some internal network(s) instead of a private address range (yes, that happens).

Running NAT behind a routable IP address range AND using a totally different range for all servers, VPNs, and various sysadmin crap? I don't believe it.

There's no way they would be so diligent to use that IP range internally without even a tiny bit of evidence externally.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#46

Post by debacle »

bo1024 wrote: post #35
tptacek wrote: post #26

There are lots of stories like this. Many of them are worse; at least you can imagine that the UK is holding these addresses in reserve. There are companies with giant allocations that are holding them so that they can give every desktop and every printer in their enterprise a routable address; others are doing the same thing, but also operating flat, unrouted networks . More evidence for the core problem: fiat alloc…

...and, anyone who didn't have $1bn to spend would be SOL. There's plenty of numbers to go around; the sooner we get to v6 and get around this mess, the better.

If you need 16 million IP addresses, you probably have $1bn.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#47

Post by Diamons »

cbs wrote: post #44
sjwright wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we will move, but it's not going to happen until 98% of the world's networking infrastructure (both public and private) is IP6 ready, which probably won't be for another decade.

That's the thing though. If everyone is waiting on everyone else, nothing gets done. If your network doesn't already support v6, you're the person everyone is waiting on! You don't need to wait for your upstream provider to supply you with v6, tunnels are super easy to get. The only exception to tunneling is if you're hosting a public-facing service, don't have v6 connectivity and don't trust existing tunnel provider…

This is a hackers perspective and doesn't apply to the normal consumer.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#48

Post by cbs »

Diamons wrote: post #47
cbs wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing though. If everyone is waiting on everyone else, nothing gets done. If your network doesn't already support v6, you're the person everyone is waiting on! You don't need to wait for your upstream provider to supply you with v6, tunnels are super easy to get. The only exception to tunneling is if you're hosting a public-facing service, don't have v6 connectivity and don't trust existing tunnel provider…

This is a hackers perspective and doesn't apply to the normal consumer.

Thats kind of my point. If you're the type of person to actually know what v6 is, you're the type of person we're all waiting on.

edit: And its not a "hackers" thing, its a "technical competency" thing.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#49

Post by grandinj »

X-Istence wrote: post #20
andreasvc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once no more unused addresses turn up, they can start economizing on the used ones too. For example my university gives a publicly routed IP address to EVERY computer, even though most are completely firewalled off.

IBM has an entire /8 that they use internally for addressing their computers, none of them are publicly routable or even publicly accessible. Even if they were to start announcing them or selling them it would be a HUGE project for IBM internally to make sure that their computers aren't going out on the web for internal resources, and it becomes an huge issue of having to renumber. Unfortunately there is no good way…

They wouldn't have to fix the whole thing. They could carve out /16 blocks, one at a time and give them back, starting with the ones that are currently not in use.

Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using

#50

Post by cynicalkane »

bo1024 wrote: post #35
tptacek wrote: post #26

There are lots of stories like this. Many of them are worse; at least you can imagine that the UK is holding these addresses in reserve. There are companies with giant allocations that are holding them so that they can give every desktop and every printer in their enterprise a routable address; others are doing the same thing, but also operating flat, unrouted networks . More evidence for the core problem: fiat alloc…

...and, anyone who didn't have $1bn to spend would be SOL. There's plenty of numbers to go around; the sooner we get to v6 and get around this mess, the better.

What the heck? If you want an /8 you're probably SOL anyway.
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