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But this was what literally happened. All routers today support NAT and most of them actively use it. Isn't it a magical form of extended IPv4 address space? Co

by rini17 3y ago

But this was what literally happened. All routers today support NAT and most of them actively use it. Isn't it a magical form of extended IPv4 address space? Could have been easily done in less band-aid fashion instead of chasing IPv6.

vlovich123 3y ago
How?
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ianburrell 3y ago
It is impossible to address hosts behind NAT. Only the public IPv4 address is visible. It might have been possible to extend IPv4 by having each NAT hop add the internal IPv4 address as option header. Then it would be possible to refer to inside host directly with a list of addresses. That isn't worth doing now because it would require rewriting everything to deal with the new protocol. For one thing, lots of NAT boxes remove all the option headers. The new protocol wouldn't be reliable.
- inopinatus 3y ago
  Not a counterexample exactly, but your remark reminded me of this eldritch horror: https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-servers-dont-own-ips-anymore/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-servers-dont-own-ips-... TLDR: Cloudflare is using five bits from the port number as a subnetting & routing scheme, with optional content policy semantics, for hosts behind anycast addressing and inside their network boundary. Filed in my bookmarks under "abominations".
  - jbernsteiniv 3y ago
    From the link: "A lot of Cloudflare's technology is well documented. For example, how we handle traffic between the eyeballs (clients) and our servers has been discussed" Already 1 sentence in and we've already got Eldritchian horrors with customers described as just their watery orbs in their skull.
djbusby 3y ago
NAT doesn't change IP Header size, just the contents - while staying the same size. The header size is a requirement for compatibility.
adrianmonk 3y ago
No, it's not a magical form of extended address space. It's a magical (clever) way of extending the networking without extending the address space.

by rini17 3y ago

vlovich123 3y ago

How?

deleted 3y ago

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ianburrell 3y ago

It is impossible to address hosts behind NAT. Only the public IPv4 address is visible. It might have been possible to extend IPv4 by having each NAT hop add the internal IPv4 address as option header. Then it would be possible to refer to inside host directly with a list of addresses. That isn't worth doing now because it would require rewriting everything to deal with the new protocol. For one thing, lots of NAT boxes remove all the option headers. The new protocol wouldn't be reliable.

inopinatus 3y ago
Not a counterexample exactly, but your remark reminded me of this eldritch horror: https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-servers-dont-own-ips-anymore/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-servers-dont-own-ips-... TLDR: Cloudflare is using five bits from the port number as a subnetting & routing scheme, with optional content policy semantics, for hosts behind anycast addressing and inside their network boundary. Filed in my bookmarks under "abominations".
- jbernsteiniv 3y ago
  From the link: "A lot of Cloudflare's technology is well documented. For example, how we handle traffic between the eyeballs (clients) and our servers has been discussed" Already 1 sentence in and we've already got Eldritchian horrors with customers described as just their watery orbs in their skull.

djbusby 3y ago

NAT doesn't change IP Header size, just the contents - while staying the same size. The header size is a requirement for compatibility.

adrianmonk 3y ago

No, it's not a magical form of extended address space. It's a magical (clever) way of extending the networking without extending the address space.