IPv4 addresses will apparently be exhausted in the next few weeks.

[1]

I'm actually afraid on how countries (like my own) that are still completely running IPv4 will react to this. Will we be cut off from the internet, especially if our ISPs are using dynamic IPs?

edited 25th Jan '11 2:31:53 AM by MiyaKousaka

No, current addresses will still exist, we just can't make new ones.

That makes sense once I did some more research, because apparently, my modem is routed to a bigger hub that rotates addresses. Still, it's an issue worth looking into because it's right on our heels (a few weeks is the estimate till it's all gone) and IPv6 is still not ready for worldwide deployment.

It was an issue worth looking into two years ago. At this point we're just going to have to deal with whatever odd workarounds end up getting used.

Why were 32-bit numbers used for IP addresses in the first place? Surely they could have seen 20 years ago that 32-bit addressing would run out. Hell, the CPU manufacturers saw hitting the 32-bit limit for memory addressing years ago and while the switch to 64-bit addressing for consumer CP Us was only fairly recent, server CP Us have been able to address more than 4GB of memory for years.

IP v4 did not see the rise of the Internet in anywhere near as big as it has become. It was developed when the primary networking technologies were universities, the military and the biggest corporations who could afford them.

IP v6 is just reluctant to take hold in some areas like North America for a variety of factors including personal taste, personal competence (there's a lot of network admins who know nothing of IP v6 but a lot about IP v4), cost of conversion and other things.

Simply put, the guys behind IP v4 didn't see this coming when they developed the infrastructure way back a few years after ARPANET.

edited 25th Jan '11 7:45:04 AM by MiyaKousaka

Can't we add more numbers to them?

I'm for implementation of IPv6, as the pain of switching over will be secondary to sticking with an obsolete system.

Can't we add more numbers to them?

That's IPv6, yes.

Under the current system, IP addresses are stored in a necessarily four-byte field in the packet header. That's why we need an overhaul, e.g., IPv6 (which uses 16 bytes).

Interesting that it's happening now for once. Maybe ISPs will get on the ball, finally.

edited 25th Jan '11 9:11:51 AM by Tzetze

Why not use 32 bits. We'd be set into the end of the universe. :V

16 bytes is plenty (that's 128 bits, by the way, which is enough to uniquely identify every electronic device that could exist in the known universe), and you don't want to increase the packet overhead by too much. The real issue is compatible hardware and software; the greater Internet backbone can easily be upgraded to IPv6 but the local infrastructure needs to either be ugpraded or have an IPv4 subnet.

edited 25th Jan '11 9:20:57 AM by Fighteer

I Pv 4 does use 32 bits. If you meant bytes, that'd be a little overkill.

Why not use 32 bits.

That's what we use now - 32 bits is 4 bytes.

That's 2³² or 4,294,967,296 addresses. Most people nowadays use multiple internet-connected devices, so this runs out fast. Also not helping this is the bad allocation of addresses early on, like universities getting millions of addresses that they didn't need because at the time nobody cared.

v6, on the other hand, has 2¹²⁸ or, sayeth Wikipedia, about 3.4×10³⁸, which I've heard means a few million addresses for every visible star in the sky or something like that.

I will let Wolfram elaborate.

edited 25th Jan '11 9:29:08 AM by Yej

*blink* How convenient.

To give an idea of how excessive 256-bit addresses would be, 256-bit numbering would allow you to allocate an address for every thousand atoms in the universe.

So when the exhaustion hits, what will that mean? Will we not be able to add any new internet connections?

I don't know if this was answered, couldn't we recycle unused IP?

There aren't unused IP addresses to recycle  ^*

Well, there are probably some universities that have entire top-level subnets to themselves, but that won't save us for long.

Not too much any more, looks like.

I'm planning an end of the internet party - supposed to be next Wednesday, right?

I explained the concept to my wife, in limited plebian terms (as I'm an a no-cert luddite) and she understood it fair enough. She asked if we woudlhave to buy a new router eventually. I'm not sure.

Even if your router isn't equipped for IPv6, they could just put up new firmware to download and flash in.

haha oh wow.

edited 26th Jan '11 10:20:38 AM by Tzetze

6.25%

Well its our last hope.