Waste will kill ipv6 too

Thu Dec 28 22:52:59 UTC 2017

> On 29 Dec 2017, at 9:31 am, Thomas Bellman <bellman at nsc.liu.se> wrote:
> 
> On 2017-12-28 22:31, Owen DeLong wrote:
> 
>> Sure, but that’s intended in the design of IPv6. There’s really no need
>> to think beyond 2^64 because the intent is that a /64 is a single subnet
>> no matter how many or how few machines you want to put on it.
> 
>> Before anyone rolls out the argument about the waste of a /64 for a point
>> to point link with two hosts on it, please consider that the relative
>> difference in waste between a /64 with 10,000 hosts on it and a /64 with
>> 2 hosts on it is less than the rounding error in claiming that a /64 is
>> roughly 18 quintillion addresses. In fact, it’s orders of magnitude less.
> 
> [...]
> 
>> We may, someday, wish we had gone to some value of N larger than 128,
>> but I seriously doubt it will occur in my lifetime.
> 
> My problem with the IPv6 addressing scheme is not the waste of 64 bits
> for the interface identifier, but the lack of bits for the subnet id.
> 16 bits (as you normally get a /48) is not much for a semi-large organi-
> zation, and will force many to have a dense address plan, handing out
> just one or a few subnets at a time, resulting in a patch-work of
> allocations.  24 bits for subnet id would be more usable.

What’s wrong with a dense allocation?  That’s what we have routers for.  Thats why we have a protocol for prefix delegation.  You can do on demand subnet allocation without involving humans.

> Consider e.g. a university or company campus.  There are probably at
> least 16 departments, so I would like to use 8 bits as department id.
> Several departments are likely to have offices on more than one floor,
> or in more than one building, so I would like to let them have 4 bits
> to specify location, and then 8 bits to specify office/workplace within
> each location.  And allow them to hand out 16 subnets per workplace.
> That adds up to 24 bits.  So a /40 would be nice, not a /48.

Stop with the IPv4 think.  This is all driven by humans allocating addresses.  Use the features of IPv6.  You have on demand prefix allocation.  you have ULA addresses where every student can have their own /48 play space by randomly selecting a ULA /48 prefix.

> Similarly, an ISP that wants a structured address plan, e.g. to encode
> prefecture, city and part of city in the address, will quickly use up
> bits in the customer id part of the address.
> 
> 
> 	/Bellman
> 

-- 
Mark Andrews, ISC
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