Feasibility of using Class E space for public unicast (was re: 44/8)

Sat Jul 27 05:07:27 UTC 2019

On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 9:21 PM Doug Barton <dougb at dougbarton.us> wrote:
> When I was running the IANA in the early 2000's we discussed this issue
with many different experts, hardware company reps, etc. Not only was there
a software issue that was insurmountable for all practical purposes (pretty
much every TCP/IP stack has "Class E space is not unicast" built in), in
the case of basically all network hardware, this limitation is also in the
silicon. So even if it were possible to fix the software issue, it would
not be possible to fix the hardware issue without replacing pretty much all
the hardware.

> So the decision was made to start tooting the IPv4 runout horns in the
hopes that folks would start taking conservation of the space seriously
(which happened more often than not), and accelerate the adoption of IPv6.
*cough*

Hi Doug,

That's what you wrote. Here's what I read:

"We decided keep this mile of road closed because you can't drive it
anywhere unless the toll road operators in the next 10 miles open their
roads too. What's that you say? Your house is a quarter mile down this
road?** La la la I can't hear you. Look, just use the shiny new road we
built over in the next state instead. Move your house there. The roads are
better."

** Not every unicast use of 240/4 would require broad adoption of the
change. Your reasoning that it does is so absurd as to merit outright
mockery.

> So no, there were exactly zero "IPv6 loons" involved in this decision.
:-)

No, when I said IPv6 loonies, reasoning of this character was pretty much
what I was talking about.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William Herrin
bill at herrin.us
https://bill.herrin.us/
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