IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2011-February/032107.html

by jedsmith • 15 years ago

241 105 15 years ago

mailman.nanog.org

BoppreH2• 15 years ago

Let me get some popcorn.

Any ideas of what will happen next? How far are we until some home users with outdated ISPs be blocked from the internet?

eli2• 15 years ago

Why would anyone be blocked?

BoppreH2• 15 years ago

No available addresses, or not compatible with many places?

Manfred• 15 years ago

It will take a long time if it will ever happen. ISP's can still assign the old IP's they already have while they roll out new modems with IPV6 addresses.

imajes• 15 years ago

not quite; there are issues with whether those clients can talk to the rest of the net not yet on ipv6 [like, 90% of it or something]).

What appears to be happening is that people are just now seriously beginning to ask the questions about ipv6. We're seeing stuff like incredible performance penalties, poor routing and a complete lack of 6to4 (and back) support anywhere.

There's a long long slog to go and we're just getting started.

rst• 15 years ago

Nothing happens immediately --- the regional authorities still have some free space left, although some are planning to get more stingy. (The discussion here --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion --- is at least a starting point for the curious. FWIW, the first that's likely to really run out is APNIC, for the Asia/Pacific region, within the next three to six months; the RIRs for Europe and North America expect to run out in maybe a year or so, and those for Africa and Latin America expect a couple of years' left of run room.)

Once congestion hits (a few months to a year), I think ISPs natting ipv4 clients, or demanding a premium price from anyone who wants a routable address, is likely to happen somewhat more quickly than ipv6 to the home. But that's based on no inside information...

tocomment• 15 years ago

What I don't understand is what happens to website hosting? Will the cost of a Linode go up? Will they be able to get IP addresses for new customers?

philwelch• 15 years ago

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.

ominous_prime• 15 years ago

I think mobile carriers will be some of the first to transition. The number of devices they need to connect is exploding, and since they have more control over the devices than general ISPs, they can smooth the transition.

eli2• 15 years ago

Nokia's been pushing IPv6 for a while. It apparently has a significant improvement in battery life because they no longer require devices to check in and renew DHCP leases as often.

bryanlarsen• 15 years ago

I'm under the impression that many mobile carriers already NAT their client's devices, so they've already "fixed" their problem.

zaphoyd2• 15 years ago

This is happening already. All of Verizon's currently shipping LTE (4G) devices have native IPv6.

jedsmith8• 15 years ago

Now it's up to the registries. From a nearby thread on NANOG, the forecasted exhaustion dates of the individual registries: http://www.tndh.net/~tony/ietf/IPv4-rir-pools.jpg

flyt• 15 years ago

It's time to invade Africa and take all their precious IP addresses!

kbyers2• 15 years ago

Enough with the fear mongering headlines already. Yes, IANA allocated the last 5 /8's to the regional registries. IPv4 is not going anywhere anytime soon.

taylorbuley• 15 years ago

People have been beating the same "IPv4's time is running out" drum since the late 90's apparently

jedsmith8• 15 years ago

It isn't running out. It is out.

I edited out over and replaced it with depleted to satisfy the concern about the headline, but I didn't even like doing that. The cavalier attitude that "nothing is really wrong, keep doing what we're doing" has been an extensive contributor to the problematic situation we're in right now.

People have been beating the drum, as you say, because this day was foreseen more than a decade ago. IPv6 has been in use for far longer than a decade. It was anticipated that we'd be most of the way through the transition by now, but we're not, partially due to "nothing's wrong" attitudes.

Edit: By it in the first sentence, I meant IPv4's time (and was responding to the parent's usage of time running out). I don't mean IPv4 addresses have been exhausted, as I'm quite aware they're not. However, IPv4 has reached the end of its usefulness, is the underlying root of my meaning.

derleth• 15 years ago

People have been beating the same "gas is running out" drum since we left Tulsa apparently, and that was three hours ago.

Hey... why aren't we moving anymore?

Perihelion• 15 years ago

Panic! At the RIR

sshconnection2• 15 years ago

Best tweet of the morning: "I came here to kick ass and assign IPv4 addresses. And I'm all out of IPv4 addresses."

tetsuo13• 15 years ago

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/secretsquirrel/status/325967820137472...

sshconnection2• 15 years ago

Thanks, someone retweeted it and I didn't have the link handy.

noonespecial2• 15 years ago

Get used to 192.168.x.x y'all.

calloc2• 15 years ago

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)

noonespecial2• 15 years ago

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 publics to get them cheaply, or at all.

pdx• 15 years ago

I can't wait till everybody has an IPv6 modem/router. No more of this NAT hole punching or long polling crap for pushing notifications.

calloc2• 15 years ago

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

rcbuse• 15 years ago

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

dfox3• 15 years ago

Actually, most deployment recommendations expect, that ISP will allocate something larger than /64 to each customer, with /48 being the ideal scenario and something like /56 being reasonable.

MichaelGG• 15 years ago

As far as hole punching/long polling, how is NAT different than a firewall with deny inbound and only allow outbound connections?

Florin_Andrei• 15 years ago

Technically, with NAT you don't even have a route to the internal stuff. While with the pure firewall approach there is a route.

In practice, yeah, not much of a difference.

JacobAldridge• 15 years ago

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've heard of IPv6 before this week, but waiting for someone else to ensure I transition?

jedsmith8• 15 years ago

> 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 7 will hear RA and autoconfigure itself.

Start here: http://www.ipsidixit.net/2010/02/24/228/

You can get a tunnel here: http://tunnelbroker.net/main.php

Other people use this, but I prefer HE: http://www.sixxs.net/

dfox3• 15 years ago

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)

zmn• 15 years ago

As for fun exercises, you might want to try out the Hurricane Electric Free IPv6 Certification: http://ipv6.he.net/certification/ It consists of a series of small and manageable tasks that will get you up to speed in no time.

Waywocket• 15 years ago

>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.

bodyfour• 15 years ago

> Ask for a timeline for IPv6, if you'd like, but don't expect much.

This is actually one of the best things you can do. One of the frustrating things is when I talk to vendors about IPv6 and they say "oh, you're the only person to ever ask about that.."

Just drop a quick line to any networks you do business with (home ISP, hosting provider, hosted DNS, etc...) and politely ask them what their IPv6 rollout timeline is. Their response will give you a lot of information about how on the ball they are in general.

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

Comments like these make me wish HN had a save feature. Thanks, you just got bookmarked.

Dobbs• 15 years ago

First I would request it from my ISP. The more people requesting the more likely they are to take it seriously.

The second thing I would do is setup ipv6. We are currently in a chicken/egg problem. No one uses ipv6 because no sites use it. No sites use it because no users use it.

Adding a bit of ipv6 traffic to the internet helps. If your ISP doesn't offer ipv6 you can setup a tunnel using a ddwrt router and a tunnel provider like Hurricane Electric.

axod5• 15 years ago

Nothing.

Even if you host websites, nothing until ipv4 actually gets scarce or costly.

Just because all ipv4 address space is "allocated" doesn't mean it's used or even allocated to end users.

I'd start worrying when you have to pay a lot of money to get a second IP on a server for example.

That'll probably be years away.... still good to read up on ipv6 though.

xearl3• 15 years ago

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/publications/news/2011/delegation)

DrPhish• 15 years ago

I have been bugging my ISP (small, regional outfit) about IPV6 for the last 2 years, hoping to get them to move earlier than later. I called them again this morning, and they say that they still can't make a business case for it as they have 25% of their assigned IP space unallocated. They're waiting for some real momentum or need before committing resources to roll it out across their infrastructure. This attitude just adds to the chicken-and-egg problem, but I also know that this ISP is (human) resource constrained. They are constantly rolling out wireless solutions to unserved rural areas, so I must admit they are just being pragmatic. That said, as some other posters have suggested, getting a tunnel broker like HE and going through their IPV6 training game (Guru!) would be a great way to get yourself ready while your ISP figures things out on their end.

yummybear• 15 years ago

I suspect some workaround for IPv4 depletion will be created so ISPs wont have to upgrade to IPv6.

xxpor• 15 years ago

NAT?

theBobMcCormick• 15 years ago

Most likely. My understanding is that some ISP's are already giving customers RFC 1918 private addresses and NAT'ing them out to the Internet.

ajb• 15 years ago

Anyone know how the transition in China is going? My employer sells networking products there, and all Chinese customers require IPv6 support. It would be interesting to know if it's rolled out to consumers yet.

sprachspiel• 15 years ago

I wonder how long it will take until there is a market for IP addresses. I suspect once such a market is in place IPv6 will not see widespread adoption, since most IPv4 addresses are not really used.

wmf3• 15 years ago

The market is here: https://www.arin.net/resources/transfer_listing/index.html

clistctrl• 15 years ago

do you know if goldman sachs or some other financial entity has created an investment vehicle that I can use to speculate in the market with?

azernik• 15 years ago

At which point the routing properties of IP will be destroyed (all addresses in a given /16 or /24 routing through the same link helps router performance a lot). I think at that point you'll get a real ISP push to switch to IPv6

51Cards• 15 years ago

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?

sammcd• 15 years ago

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.

danudey4• 15 years ago

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

jedsmith8• 15 years ago

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.

oasisbob• 15 years ago

Many people don't realize how non-trivial renumbering a network is. I transitioned the resnet at a public university from a /19 to a new /18, and it took several months of planning to pull off.

90% of the space was assigned via DHCP, but that remaining 10% which was statically assigned was a lot of work. Imagine tracking down every device assigned an IP address, scattered across a college campus.

Our routing configuration was trivial (single super-net, single site, &c), compacting an enterprise /8 would be an insane amount of work.

The long view isn't making a quick buck off v4, it's moving to v6 as quickly as possible.

eekfuh• 15 years ago

I heard Egypt isn't using theirs.

(edit: i can feel the down-voting coming)

snipsnipsnip• 15 years ago

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

hapless• 15 years ago

IPv4 is only "depleted" in a very technical sense. The last free /8 was allocated to a regional authority. This does not mean no IPv4 addresses are available.

The regional authorities (RIRs), the guys who actually allocate the addresses to user organizations, still have many, many blocks to allocate. The first RIR isn't expected to run out of ipv4 space until October.

That's when the shit really hits the fan -- requests for IPv4 space start to be rejected, ISPs start deploying NAT or 6RD, network administrators start jumping from windows etc.

jedsmith8• 15 years ago

APNIC is expected to run out sooner than October. October is on the high end of predictions, with some predicting as early as May based on burn rate. Two different sources:

http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/rir.jpg (probability distribution per-month)

http://www.tndh.net/~tony/ietf/IPv4-rir-pools.jpg

The entire point of this exercise is to raise awareness. The IPv4 reserves are depleted, and the five regions are now chewing on the crumbs. Granted, this isn't shit hitting the fan -- however, preparations for shit hitting the fan must be on everybody's radar right now.

Huge changes to infrastructure, which honestly should have been completed years ago, do not happen overnight. That's why this is news.

yread• 15 years ago

An IPv4 address space walks into a bar. He says to the bartender, "A strong CIDR please. I'm exhausted."

squeed• 15 years ago

A lot of the mobile telcos are going to be using DS-Lite or NAT64. What does this mean? Well, NAT64 relies on modifying dns entries. So, take this as a reminder to NEVER EVER hardcode pubic-facing ip addresses if possible!

iwwr• 15 years ago

Always remember to shave your pubic-facing IP addresses.

nuxi• 15 years ago

There's still the complete 240.0.0.0/4 range left (class E), but unfortunately it's probably too late to make use of them now.

IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

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