IPv6 mistakes, was: Re: Looking for an IPv6 naysayer...

Fri Feb 11 04:06:39 UTC 2011

On 2/10/2011 9:46 PM, Ricky Beam wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:43:50 -0500, Matthew Kaufman 
> <matthew at matthew.at> wrote:
>> There is no one universal "global routing table". They probably 
>> appear in someone's routing table, somewhere... just not yours.
>
> Using public address space for private networking is a gross misuse of 
> the resource.  Go to any registry and ask for address space for your 
> private networking that you do not intend to announce to the 
> internet.  They will laugh at you, and point you to RFC1918. (and 
> likely flag you as someone to whom address space should never be 
> assigned.)  The only reason legacy holders get away with such crap is 
> because there's no clear contract governing their assignment.
>

https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#four35

Encourages use of RFC1918, but does not require it, especially when 
private peering with other networks is involved.

>> How many days do you think a single /8 lasts at current assignment 
>> rates?
>
> APNIC says the last 2 /8's they were assigned (triggering the dead-man 
> clause) would last ~6mo.  With responsible use, 22 /8's would last 
> several years. (3-5 best guess.  Of course, there could be a land-rush 
> and all of it disappear next week -- see also: responsible use)
>
If all 22 /8's were free to use, yes, 3-5 years. However, it violates 
existing RIR policies if those addresses are in use, even if not routed 
publicly.

> First off, someone will have to do a lot more than 5 minutes of poking 
> router-servers to see just how sparsely used ("announced") the space 
> really is.  That includes digging through BGP histories to see if it's 
> ever been announced.  Then research who should be in control of the 
> space (announced or not.)  Then send out nasty sounding letters 
> informing whomever that X address space has not been announced to the 
> public internet in Y years; on Z date, the space will reenter the 
> IANA/ICANN free pool for reassignment. (cue lawyers :-))  They'd also 
> be highly motivated to return unused space if they were being billing 
> for it.
>
All of this would have to be accomplished in less than 6-9 months, but 
no one is going to wait in the hopes it might be accomplished, as 
failure would mean ruin. So the networks will deploy counter measures 
before the 6-9 month mark. They are already in the process.

>
> As for this "not fixing the problem", IPv4 is going to be a problem 
> for MANY years to come.  IPv6 deployment is glacially slow.  IPv4 
> being "out of space" is getting news attention now, but will fade from 
> the spotlight shortly.  The people who have space will continue to 
> have it and generally not notice the lack of availablity.  The likes 
> of Facebook, etc., have jumped on IPv6 because they have a reason 
> to... they have volumes of IPv6 connected eyeballs.  Yet the likes of 
> Amazon and Akamai, aren't supporting IPv6 (and have no published plans 
> to.)  Almost all of the major ISPs in the country still don't fully 
> support IPv6 -- the few that do embrace v6 make it a pain in the ass 
> to get it setup.  I don't support IPv6 (since elink killed their 
> experiment); I can get everywhere I care to go, and everyone who cares 
> to get to me does.  I, like many/most others, will fix that problem 
> when it *is* a problem.
>

IPv4 will not be a problem for MANY years to come. If it survives 5 
years in the DFZ, I'll be shocked.

Errr, wasn't it this list that Akamai said they were testing and working 
on IPv6 deployments less than a week ago?

Also, just because I have space (currently a /19 free), only means I 
have until that space runs out (assigning a /22 to a telco tomorrow 
morning as they just hit 98% utilization tonight, technically 100%, but 
I managed to free up a few). After that, IPv4 requires CGN or IPv6 with 
NAT64/DNS64. Neither option is pretty.

Jack