And so begins the IPv4 Wars......

[sybrows]

Looks like IPv4 addresses are due to run out in a few days!!!!

LINKY

BrOw

[aidanjt]

Yeah it was brought up in another thread. And the regional address authorities are estimated to run out of addresses before the year is out. Although it's not really Vint Cerf's fault, IPv4 was designed well before anyone expected every man and his dog to jump online. IPv6 has been around for 11 years, and most ISPs still don't have as much as a migration plan in place. I'd put the blame squarely on their shoulders.

[Moby-Dick]

I can't see it making too much difference for home users though - they'll just get NAt'd by their ISP

[aidanjt]

I can't see it making too much difference for home users though - they'll just get NAt'd by their ISP

Maybe, but when scarcity of addresses is virtually non-existent, NAT becomes a senseless barrier.

[Moby-Dick]

even if they still run ipv4 internally and tunnel out over IPv6 ?

[aidanjt]

even if they still run ipv4 internally and tunnel out over IPv6 ?

That's hardly a long term solution, though. Sooner or later the internet will say adios to IPv4, perhaps not in whole, but in parts, and then you'll have a screwed up, fragmented internet.

[Moby-Dick]

so whats the solution ? all I have heard is doomsaying.

[aidanjt]

so whats the solution ? all I have heard is doomsaying.

Getting everyone on IPv6 would seem to be a good first step.

[Moby-Dick]

so how do you propose upgrading all the home routers to handle IPv6 ?

[aidanjt]

so how do you propose upgrading all the home routers to handle IPv6 ?

For the ones which doesn't handle IPv6, a firmware update can handle that, or replacing it with an IPv6 capable router.

[Stringent]

Well if its a broadband supplied router, they will have to swap them out. If one you purchased, you buy a new one. Or the manufacturers will have to issue a firmware update to be installed onto the router.

I doubt they will issue an update to ALL routers though, I would think ones made in the last couple of years is good enough.

[aidanjt]

ISPs really should have had this all planned out 5 years ago, and specified IPv6 as a requirement when they were negotiating the acquisition of new router supply deals. Their short sighted greed and unwillingness to invest in their networks has caused this natural progression to become a serious problem.

[oolon]

I think short term new/budget users will get a choice nated IPV4 (to be honest that would be just fine for my dad, my aunts my sister... infact anyone who does not need to run a server process just to connect) or an IPV6 ip address will be offered in addition to the nat IPV4 one.

If you pay more you can have a public IPv4 address (normally just the users of static services) and at a premimum, a quick way to make 5 quid extra a month for the ISP.

IPV6 throws up many other issues, Nated IPV6? the point of it was everything can be properly addressable, are ISPs going to hand over blocks of IPs to customers, there is the space however is there the will. With the rise of internet enabled devices, probably up to 1024 per customer is not unthinkable. People have got used to Nat hiding them away, IPv6 if done the way the purists want mean everything will be exposed.

[this_is_gav]

As well as the complete lack of forward thinking, what about the millions of mini sites? Every album gets a mini site. Half the new products (such as the Toshiba tablet from yesterday) get a mini site. What's the point? What happened to sub domains?

Note I'm not clued up on IP, so they may be a way around it, but they still annoy me.

[Moby-Dick]

you can host a number of websites on a single IP

[oolon]

As well as the complete lack of forward thinking, what about the millions of mini sites? Every album gets a mini site.

Actually http has a kind of "nat" already in it. When your browser connects to a web server it tells it what site it thinks it is accessing, this is called name virtual hosting, and is now the norm relative to IP virtual hosting. The problem with this is SSL (https), the SSL tunnel is created before the web site knows what site your trying to access so the certificate has to be multi-homed and valid for EVERY web site the server provides, otherwise you will get an invalid certificate error.