51.0.0.0/8 the secret IP block otherwise known as Block 51.
The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
31–40 of 127 posts
Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
#32Eventually in the future, people will come to realize the over-exaggeration of running out of ipv4 addresses. The unused blocks will come out of woodwork from everywhere. Well, I hope my opinion is wrong.
By future do you mean right now where NAT is being used by some providers already? I know Rogers in Canada has all mobile devices going through NAT unless you pay a nice "VPN" fee. Also the assigned but unused IPv4 blocks don't do anything for other providers that actually need addresses.
So a home network will be NAT'ed twice. How nice, we almost got things sort of working with one NAT, now the Internet breaks again.
Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
#33Can IP blocks actually be sold?
Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
#34Can IP blocks actually be sold?
Yes. Privately and normally as part of bankruptcy proceedings. The most famous recent example is probably Microsoft's purchase of Nortel's addresses, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12859585
Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
#35There 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.
Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see that it would be a lot of work, but so will switching to IPv6 be. The question is: which will be worse? which will actually happen? I don't know. I'm probably forgetting a lot of things but to me it would seem doable to switch to private LAN addresses using DHCP and NAT, as long as there are no hardcoded IPs lingering around (but only hostnames which can be updated in a central location).
The problem comes when two companies using 10.0.0.0/8 decide to merge. For example, IBM acquires multiple companies every year.
You could still keep the networks separate.
Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
#37I find this funny. The IANA holds 15 IPv4 /8 blocks, even mentions "Reserved for future use" when whoissing, and nobody cares.
Not really. All the blocks that are marked "reserved" are more like "unusable"; e.g. real equipment cannot use class E. People have been over this stuff with a fine-toothed comb. http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/ipv4-addr...
I know, but I still think it's stupid. Nevermind though, it's an endless opinionated discussion.
Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
#38We 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.
Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there are no networks defined, as far as RIPE is concerned, it's un-used. We just got audited for RIPE for exactly this reason, and they made us specify details for all of the networks we use on our allocation to be allowed to keep our address space.
That's not the case for older legacy networks. Those don't fall under the purview of RIPE as they were allocated before RIPE existed. I'm wondering if RIPE can even do anything regarding that netblock in terms of possibly pulling it and re-allocating it.
As far as I know, they can't.
All they can do (and have already done) is ask nicely for it back.
Re: The UK has an entire IPv4 /8 that it isn't using
#40Hooray, 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.
>Do you have an idea of how many IPv4 addresses that are unused or not really needed?
If by "really needed" you mean just in terms of having one address for each machine then sure there's a bunch not being used. Let's suppose half of them. Assuming a constant growth rate, that would last us for ten more years. But actually internet adoption is still accelerating. A safer assumption would be something like five.
But our routers would collapse under the strain of the enormous routing tables long before then. To be able to route efficiently subnets need to be logical regions in the network topology, not arbitrary collections of 2^n machines. CIDR, needed to mitigate against the shortage of IPv4 addresses (or more properly the shortage of subnets) has been slowing the internet down since 1993.
>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.
Given that we've been working on IPv6 for 15 years and it's not fully deployed yet, no we can't. Even if every single address was unallocated today, we'd use them up before then.