Internet address system set for major upgrade [Web has officially run out of existing IP addresses]

news.com.au ^

[Sub-Driver]

Internet address system set for major upgrade

NewsCore June 04, 2012 8:45AM

Web has officially run out of existing IP addresses World to make the switch on to IPv6, Wednesday IPv6 system recognises 128-bit IP addresses There may be some "irritations" for users during transition

THE internet is set for a major upgrade in the coming week. But if all goes well, users won't even know it's happening.

The switch occurs Wednesday at 12:01am GMT (9.01am AEST), when the internet system shifts to a new standard that allows for trillions of "IP" numbers or addresses, up from the current four billion.

Known as the World IPv6 launch to those in the know, the move will see web operators and others switch permanently to the new system from the existing standard, IPv4. A test of the system was held last year.

The new standard was needed because the number of IP addresses under the old system has been exhausted.

The full transition will take several years, and old IPv4 devices and networks should continue to function as before.

"Most users shouldn't notice anything," according to Leo Vegoda, a "numbers resources" manager for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the internet address system. "If ordinary internet users need to know stuff, then the technology isn't right."

But Mr Vegoda said there may be some "irritations" for users as those using equipment on the old standard connect to computers and networks on the new standard.

[zeugma]

Cerf basically says that IPv6 is the production version. We've all been working on an experiment these past few decades.

I've always thought the internet seemed more like a beta test than anything else.

[zeugma]

Comcast has announced that in addition each home account will get a static /64 subnet in the IPv6 address space.

That’s 2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 unique IP addresses per home. Should be enough awhile :-).

That's just stupid and insanely wasteful. The equivalent of an IPv4 class B network (2¹⁶ = 65,536) would be more than enough for any but the largest networks. Hell, even a class A network (2²⁴ = 16,777,216) would be far less insane than a /64 IPv6 subnet. Comcast shouldn't be given more than a single /64 for its use, and even at that, it could still  give everyone a IPv4 class A address block and have tons to spare.

[dayglored]

> I have tools at home on my primary workstation that it is useful to me to be able to access from anywhere via ssh. I would be really pissed if I couldn’t get home.

15 years ago I reached my home SSh server on DHCP roadrunner cable by using a program I wrote that determined whenever the current dynamic public IP changed, and sent it to me in email.

Later I switched to using DynDNS, when my outfacing router supported it.

These days I use a variety of outbound client protocols, depending on need... LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, Skype... Mainly because I’m behind a couple levels of firewalls and routers these days for other reasons.

If my DSL provider offers a public IP for a reasonable price and I feel I need one, I’ll pay for it.

[dayglored]

> That’s just stupid and insanely wasteful.

Yep. Sorta defeats the whole point of having a big address space. It’ll just be sparse as hell again. And “fill up” just like the IPv4 space did.

Sigh.

[OB1kNOb]