Enhanced IP: IPv4 with 64 Bit Addresses (2012) [pdf]

Let IPv4 addresses run out. Allow parties to trade them. Slowly migrate from "one IP per box" to "one IP per net" with what looks like NAT, but can easily be traversed if you understand the extension. And once we start running out of IPs again, rinse and repeat. What am I misunderstanding / oversimplifying?

Re: Enhanced IP: IPv4 with 64 Bit Addresses (2012) [pdf]

#5

Post by zokier » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

d33 wrote: post #4

Curious why this hasn't taken off, it seems to make so much more sense to me. Let IPv4 addresses run out. Allow parties to trade them. Slowly migrate from "one IP per box" to "one IP per net" with what looks like NAT, but can easily be traversed if you understand the extension. And once we start running out of IPs again, rinse and repeat. What am I misunderstanding / oversimplifying?

Too little too late. Even in 2012 it was obvious that ipv6 is the future; pretty much everything already supported it, maybe the hardest obstacle was overcome. Maybe 15 years earlier some alternative format could have gotten traction, but then dot-com boom was in full swing and nobody worried about future and ipv4 exhaustion.

Re: Enhanced IP: IPv4 with 64 Bit Addresses (2012) [pdf]

#6

Post by teddyh » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

What is the rational reason, if any, for bringing up things like these? The time to have this discussion would have been in like 1993 or so. Now, IPv6 is what we have, and the standards are what they are, flaws and all.

The only reason I can think of is psychological: People don’t want to learn new things, so they find reasons to dislike the new thing to be able to pretend they don’t need to learn it.

Re: Enhanced IP: IPv4 with 64 Bit Addresses (2012) [pdf]

#7

Post by AndrewDucker » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

d33 wrote: post #4

Curious why this hasn't taken off, it seems to make so much more sense to me. Let IPv4 addresses run out. Allow parties to trade them. Slowly migrate from "one IP per box" to "one IP per net" with what looks like NAT, but can easily be traversed if you understand the extension. And once we start running out of IPs again, rinse and repeat. What am I misunderstanding / oversimplifying?

Because it's not forward compatible - every existing device which speaks IP would need to be upgraded to talk the new way.

Which means that, as you have to start over in a non-compatible manner, you might as well use the opportunity to make other improvements.

Re: Enhanced IP: IPv4 with 64 Bit Addresses (2012) [pdf]

#8

Post by ay » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

d33 wrote: post #4

Curious why this hasn't taken off, it seems to make so much more sense to me. Let IPv4 addresses run out. Allow parties to trade them. Slowly migrate from "one IP per box" to "one IP per net" with what looks like NAT, but can easily be traversed if you understand the extension. And once we start running out of IPs again, rinse and repeat. What am I misunderstanding / oversimplifying?

IPv4 options stopped being viable on the internet (everyone drops packets with options) sometime in early 2000s (the quickest doc with references I could find is [0] dated 2014, but I remember the practice started much earlier…), otherwise it looks like an interesting proposal at first sight.

Edit: I didn’t read much into detail, assuming that the hosts that do not understand this extension could just ignore the option. If the scheme doesn’t work in this case as sibling comment suggests, then yeah that’s a problem indeed :)

[0] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7126

Re: Enhanced IP: IPv4 with 64 Bit Addresses (2012) [pdf]

#9

Post by kingcharles » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

A day late and a dollar short, as they say.

Re: Enhanced IP: IPv4 with 64 Bit Addresses (2012) [pdf]

#10

Post by yakattak » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

Can someone explain to me how about a decade ago we were going to run out of IPv4 addresses in a matter of months and we needed to switch to IPv6 or else, but now we’re still using it fine?