Incompetance abounds at the InterNIC

Wed Jan 20 18:18:58 UTC 1999

From: Phil Howard <phil at whistler.intur.net>

:"Some" communication?
:
:It's not an issue of "completely" fill ... it's an issue of logistics.
:
:This "communication" you speak of will involve probably thousands of
:companies when you consider the whole range of all of them that
interconnect
:(even though they don't interroute).  Any one of them that already has an
:established addressing _MAY_ end up connecting to any other of them that
:already has established addressing.  That means this "communication" has
:to basically implement an entire allocation structure.  And every business
:that is not even yet connected would have to be sure their use of RFC1918
:space conforms to this allocation structure.

You don't sound very sure of your arguments.  To which thousand companies
are you referring?

:Basically, it's like saying, RFC1918 space will no longer be private
:address space that can be used on a whim, but instead will now be allocated
:by yet another entity.

Usage of RFC1918 space shouldn't be determined by "whims", it should be
planned just like anything else at a company is planned, and it should be
accounted for.

:> The best way to do this is with a firewall (companies doing this probably
:> already have one, otherwise their "private" network ain't so private),
and
:> just about every firewall worth putting on a box will do NAT. You map
:> individual machines that need their own IP address directly through on a
:> one-to-one relationship, and the rest you let the firewall masquerade
:> through. Conserves "real" IP space.
:
:NAT wasn't a common reliable tool when these things were established.  The
:first of these I remember getting involved in over 4 years ago.  It is a
:little better today, but the good ones are very costly.  You will fail to
:convince the vast majority of these companies to buy an overpriced super
:firewall that does highly scalable NAT reliably when their needs are met
:with a low priced router (e.g. Ascend Pipeline 50 to Cisco 25XX scale).

There was a discussion of low-priced high-capacity NAT solutions a few
months ago on NANOG, I'm sure if you look in the archives you will find it.

:Yes, if you were starting this kind of thing today, NAT would probably be
:the better way to go.  But as well all know, business does not just go
around
:spending money to revamp what is currently working fine.

That's fine.  As long as they don't mind spending time and money renumbering
their entire network once it gets connected to the internet.

:And further, that also makes 10/8 unavailable for actual internal uses for
:which RFC1918 was intended.  And since many such companies already do have
:RFC1918 in use for the intended purposes, this isn't the space that can be
:just simply moved in to.

RFC1918 is entitled "Address allocation for private internets".  I think it
describes exactly what you are talking about.

:Dream on.
:
:You have to include _EVERY_ company that might ever do this.

Not really.  Companies do not usually route their entire corporate network
to each other.  When one company wants to connect to another, all they need
to do is come up with one or two common subnets that neither company is
using at that particular time, and only route between those IP's.  That way,
it doesn't matter to company A what company G which is two "corporate hops"
away is doing.

--Adam