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

Thu Feb 10 13:31:23 UTC 2011

On Feb 10, 2011, at 12:15 AM, Ricky Beam wrote:

> On Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:42:14 -0500, Nathan Eisenberg <nathan at atlasnetworks.us> wrote:
>> What do you mean, lit up?  You mean they're not in the routing tables that you get from your carriers?  I'd argue that's no indication of whether they're in use or not.
> 
> That's pretty much the definition of "in use".  If they don't appear in the global routing table, then they aren't being used.  I cannot send traffic to them; they cannot send traffic to me.
> 
> In my recent probe of route servers, I found 22 legacy /8's that were partly or completely unused.  I'm a little surprised ARIN/ICANN thinks it's a waste of time to even try to reclaim them.
> 
> --Ricky

This dead horse keep coming back for another beating.  The purpose of a global registry of numbers is to provide a common source for unique numbers.  The definition of "in use" by internet registries does not require appearance in your routing tables or even in the route servers. Not only that, the "users" may not even want or need to exchange traffic with you.

As a survivor of many network consolidations due to corporate acquisitions, I have many scars from trying to get separate RFC 1918 islands to interwork properly. That is the reason that even so-called private networks need unique IP addressing.

And now, since IPv6 is actually being deployed and used, there is absolutely no economic incentive to continue to fight the "IPv4 addresses not in my routing table are not 'in use'" battle any more. It is a waste of time and money.

James R. Cutler
james.cutler at consultant.com