4 ms·

iana.org still shows 7 unallocated blocks in the free pool... anything 5 or under will indeed trigger the final blocks to go to the RIRs, but I totally don't se

iana.org still shows 7 unallocated blocks in the free pool... anything 5 or under will indeed trigger the final blocks to go to the RIRs, but I totally don't see any source that verifies that this happened yet. Can someone provide a second source? Block 39 still shows up as reserved: NetRange: 39.0.0.0 - 39.255.255.255 CIDR: 39.0.0.0/8 OriginAS: NetName: RESERVED-39A NetHandle: NET-39-0-0-0-1 Parent: NetType: IANA Reserved RegDate: Updated: 2002-09-12 Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-39-0-0-0-1 OrgName: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority OrgId: IANA Address: 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330 City: Marina del Rey StateProv: CA PostalCode: 90292-6695 Country: US RegDate: Updated: 2004-02-24 Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/IANA The other remaining reserved blocks that are routable should be 102, 103, 104, 106 and 179. We are close to this event, but to my knowledge it has not yet happened. Quote ARIN: "When the IANA IPv4 free pool has only five /8 blocks remaining, they will be simultaneously distributed to the five RIRs in accordance with global policy. This means that only two blocks remain to be handed out under the normal distribution method." (From: https://www.arin.net/announcements/2010/20101130.html https://www.arin.net/announcements/2010/20101130.html which is dated a few months, but I believe this policy still stands...)

jacquesm 16y ago
How about 240/4, that's 2^28 addresses that are reserved for 'future use', that's still 256M addresses.
- djcapelis 16y ago
  IIRC the reason we can't use those is many IP stacks deployed today will refuse to even try using the addresses in 240/4. They were for a future version of IP, not for allocation later. As a hack, it's quite possible someone will try allocating these and ask everyone to patch their systems over the next half a year to a year as things get more critical and the RIRs begin to run out of /24s. (The RIRs all still have enough /24s to last us for months after the IANA pool gets exhausted.) We shall see. At the moment, there is no plans to use these. We could also arguably try to steal back the multicast ranges since it's so underused. :\
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Thanks for the explanation! I ogled the multicast ranges too but I figured that would be even harder than using a chunk that was previously not allocated at all. I think we'll be seeing a resurgence of NAT but for companies to relinquish their excessive blocks of routable IPS in return for a nice cash bonus from the new owners, a 'market for addreses' so to speak. We'll see if that is the way things will go, it would to me seem that that is a logical short term solution that does not require force.
    - djcapelis 16y ago
      Right. For now everything is fine and will be for months and months. The RIRs will start getting more stingy, some amount of reclaiming will be made possible... but at some point market forces are going to start pushing things around and we will either end up on IPv6 or we will end up in a place where having real IP addresses will be a luxury. I am hoping for the option where the end to end principle is not murdered. We shall see. In any case, some of the software I'm developing as part of a research project will work even if the Internet becomes a NAT field. I hope we don't have to resort to that. As for the multicast block... I think some of them haven't been allocated, so if we're going to patch all the systems to make 240/4 usable, we might as well throw in some of the unallocated multicast space...
      - mgkimsal 16y ago
        I'm cynical enough to think we may not see widespread ipv6 (or any alternative to ipv4) for a long time. Why not? A) The entrenched power players "have theirs" B) It will cost a lot of money for the big players to upgrade. C) Instead of spending money, the big players can make money by charging for something that is a scarce resource. This will be looked at as pure 'market forces' by many and there will be no major push for a long time. It also requires a heck of a lot of coordination, or so it seems, between major players. Why do so few (none?) retail stores carry ipv6-capable routers? Maybe because so few ISPs support ipv6? Why don't the ISPs support it? Cause no consumers have the hardware for it? Extreme chicken and egg, and the only real downside for the next few years is some orgs are in control of resources that are becoming potentially more valuable by the day. What real incentive do they have to upgrade to ipv6 ASAP?
- extension 16y ago
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-fuller-240space-02 http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-fuller-240space-02 At the present time, most IP implementations consider any IP address in the range 240.0.0.0 through 255.255.255.255 to be invalid as the source or destination of a datagram. The check for such "illegal" addresses may occur in many places, including at datagram receipt, before IP datagram transmission, when an IP address is assigned to a network interface, or even by router and firewall configuration parsers.
swalberg 16y ago
There's a rumor floating around Twitter that APNIC will be requesting two /8's this week or next, which puts us at 5 left. At that point, the remaining 5 get distributed to the 5 RIRs. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2119927 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2119927 http://twitter.com/#!/steve_evil/status/27646139280924672 http://twitter.com/#!/steve_evil/status/27646139280924672
stelfer 16y ago
We just got a new block out of ARIN. The first thing we got in response to our net-isp was this: "Your template indicates a projected need for additional IPv4 addresses in 12 months. The IANA IPv4 free pool is projected to be depleted sometime by January 2011. As a result, ARIN cannot assure you that additional IPv4 addresses will be available at that time. This will not affect your current IPv4 request, but applications and services that require ongoing availability of IP addresses should be migrated to IPv6."
- djcapelis 16y ago
  Yeah, most people expect this to happen within the next dozen days or so. The next IANA allocation is expected to be the last.

jacquesm 16y ago

How about 240/4, that's 2^28 addresses that are reserved for 'future use', that's still 256M addresses.

djcapelis 16y ago
IIRC the reason we can't use those is many IP stacks deployed today will refuse to even try using the addresses in 240/4. They were for a future version of IP, not for allocation later. As a hack, it's quite possible someone will try allocating these and ask everyone to patch their systems over the next half a year to a year as things get more critical and the RIRs begin to run out of /24s. (The RIRs all still have enough /24s to last us for months after the IANA pool gets exhausted.) We shall see. At the moment, there is no plans to use these. We could also arguably try to steal back the multicast ranges since it's so underused. :\
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Thanks for the explanation! I ogled the multicast ranges too but I figured that would be even harder than using a chunk that was previously not allocated at all. I think we'll be seeing a resurgence of NAT but for companies to relinquish their excessive blocks of routable IPS in return for a nice cash bonus from the new owners, a 'market for addreses' so to speak. We'll see if that is the way things will go, it would to me seem that that is a logical short term solution that does not require force.
  - djcapelis 16y ago
    Right. For now everything is fine and will be for months and months. The RIRs will start getting more stingy, some amount of reclaiming will be made possible... but at some point market forces are going to start pushing things around and we will either end up on IPv6 or we will end up in a place where having real IP addresses will be a luxury. I am hoping for the option where the end to end principle is not murdered. We shall see. In any case, some of the software I'm developing as part of a research project will work even if the Internet becomes a NAT field. I hope we don't have to resort to that. As for the multicast block... I think some of them haven't been allocated, so if we're going to patch all the systems to make 240/4 usable, we might as well throw in some of the unallocated multicast space...
    - mgkimsal 16y ago
      I'm cynical enough to think we may not see widespread ipv6 (or any alternative to ipv4) for a long time. Why not? A) The entrenched power players "have theirs" B) It will cost a lot of money for the big players to upgrade. C) Instead of spending money, the big players can make money by charging for something that is a scarce resource. This will be looked at as pure 'market forces' by many and there will be no major push for a long time. It also requires a heck of a lot of coordination, or so it seems, between major players. Why do so few (none?) retail stores carry ipv6-capable routers? Maybe because so few ISPs support ipv6? Why don't the ISPs support it? Cause no consumers have the hardware for it? Extreme chicken and egg, and the only real downside for the next few years is some orgs are in control of resources that are becoming potentially more valuable by the day. What real incentive do they have to upgrade to ipv6 ASAP?
extension 16y ago
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-fuller-240space-02 http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-fuller-240space-02 At the present time, most IP implementations consider any IP address in the range 240.0.0.0 through 255.255.255.255 to be invalid as the source or destination of a datagram. The check for such "illegal" addresses may occur in many places, including at datagram receipt, before IP datagram transmission, when an IP address is assigned to a network interface, or even by router and firewall configuration parsers.

swalberg 16y ago

There's a rumor floating around Twitter that APNIC will be requesting two /8's this week or next, which puts us at 5 left. At that point, the remaining 5 get distributed to the 5 RIRs. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2119927 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2119927 http://twitter.com/#!/steve_evil/status/27646139280924672 http://twitter.com/#!/steve_evil/status/27646139280924672

stelfer 16y ago

We just got a new block out of ARIN. The first thing we got in response to our net-isp was this: "Your template indicates a projected need for additional IPv4 addresses in 12 months. The IANA IPv4 free pool is projected to be depleted sometime by January 2011. As a result, ARIN cannot assure you that additional IPv4 addresses will be available at that time. This will not affect your current IPv4 request, but applications and services that require ongoing availability of IP addresses should be migrated to IPv6."

djcapelis 16y ago
Yeah, most people expect this to happen within the next dozen days or so. The next IANA allocation is expected to be the last.