Subject: Re: Reality (was RE: Stupid NAT tricks and how to stop them.)

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:35:58 -0400 (EDT)

> From: "Tony Hain" <[email-masked]>

    > The world needs the wake up call that reality is about to hit them in
    > the face and they will need all the time there is left to develop a
    > managed IPv6 deployment plan. If they don't start now they will be
    > forced into a crash deployment when they try to get more space and find
    > out the pool had long ago run dry. The IETF as a whole needs to wake up
    > as well and stop developing for a dead end technology. 

"The best laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft agley."
	-- Robert Burns

"'Do not put too much faith in this hairy architecture you have constructed',
retorted Daemon Feature. 'All this is insignificant compared to the Hack.'"
	-- Mark Crispin, "Software Wars"

Many years ago now, a funny thing happened on the way to "complete exhaustion
of the IPv4 address space (Version 1)". Some clever people worked out this
ugly hack, which the marketplace judged - despite its ugliness - to be a
superior solution to the forklift upgrade to IPv6. It's been selling like
hot-cakes ever since, while IPv6 languished.

I've become rather disenchanted with my crystal ball, which seems quite
cloudy of late (if you'd told me, in 1986, we'd still be running a
Destination-Vector routing architecture for a routing table of this size 20
years later, I'd have *known* you were bonkers), so I have no specific
prediction to make, but...

Don't be surprised if the world, facing "complete exhaustion of the IPv4
address space (Version 2)" decides, yet again, that some sort of Plan B is a
better choice than a conversion to IPv6.

I have no idea exactly what it will be (maybe a free market in IPv4
addresses, plus layered NAT's, to name just one possibility), but there are a
lot of clever people out there, and *once events force them to turn their
attention to this particular alligator*, don't be surprised if they don't
come up with yet another workaround.

	Noel

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:31:06 +0200

> hot-cakes ever since, while IPv6 languished.

That's the popular view. In reality, people deployed NAT mostly for  
reasons that have little to do with the global IPv4 address  
depletion. And IPv6 hasn't been ready for any kind of deployment  
until the early 2000s.

> years later, I'd have *known* you were bonkers),

The future just doesn't want to honor the principle of least  
astonishment: what we expect to change, often stays the same, while  
what we expect to stay the same, more often than not changes.

> better choice than a conversion to IPv6.

Everyone who thinks that regular users are going to forego IPv4  
connectivity in favor of IPv6 connectivity as long as IPv4 still  
works to a remotely usable degree is a card carrying member of the  
Internet Fantasy Task Force*.

For now, the usability of IPv4 is relatively constant while that of  
IPv6 is much lower, but steadily increasing over time as IPv6 support  
in hard- and software increases in quantity and quality. Assuming  
that the people who get all those millions of IPv4 addresses every  
year actually use them for something, like connecting new customers,  
in 4 to 8 years, something will have to give. I don't think the big  
change will be in the demand side, as we see that countries with  
several IPv4 addresses per capita (even without legacy /8s) are still  
using up new ones while other countries have a lot of catching up to  
do, and more IP devices seems likely for just VoIP if nothing else.

(I've made a new page that shows addresses per capita: http:// 
www.bgpexpert.com/addressespercountry.php There are actually several  
countries that have a factor 1000 fewer IPv4 addresses per capita  
than the US and a factor 10 is fairly common even in Europe.)

> come up with yet another workaround.

Well, the IETF has done its job by creating IPv6, so whatever  
happens, we should be in decent shape. Soon enough we can turn our  
attention to the fact that we're still doing our interdomain routing  
with RIP on steroids.  (-:

Iljitsch

* coined by Tony Hain

---

From: Peter Dambier <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:52:37 +0200

> hot-cakes ever since, while IPv6 languished.

Wasn't there a thing called ISO or OSI?

The think that was meant to revolutionize the internet. I still have my
ISODE kit running on my old machines that probably never will run IPv6.

ISODE could seamlessly run over IPv4 and directly on the ISDN interface.
Only today ISDN runs over IPv4 itself :)

> prediction to make, but...

Exactly here thems to be IPv6 biggest problem.

The people playing with IPv6 could not but connect via IPv4 tunnels.
Nobody had a clue about routing. In the old 3fff:: network network1/64
was in Stockholm, network2/64 in Newyork, network3/64 in Stockholm again
and so on. This was not a problem because everybody was connected by
point-to-point links and the routing was done by IPv4.

Now they have changed to the 2001:: network but they still have no clue
about the routing issues at all.

To make things worse site local IPv6 addresses were deprecated. So you
dont have a chance to number your machines locally and play with IPv6
for learning. You have to get an official /64 network to run your site.

> better choice than a conversion to IPv6.

RFC 1347   TUBA: A Proposal for Addressing and Routing   June 1992

> come up with yet another workaround.

The chinese internet with its own root and TLDs like
XN--55QX5D, XN--FIQS8S, XN--IO0A7I
and the Great Firewall Router is researching into TUBA and I dont
beleave we will like the outcome. Every dictator will like it.

Peter and Karin

-- 
Peter and Karin Dambier
The Public-Root Consortium
Graeffstrasse 14
D-64646 Heppenheim
+49(6252)671-788 (Telekom)
+49(179)108-3978 (O2 Genion)
+49(6252)750-308 (VoIP: sipgate.de)
mail: [email-masked]
mail: [email-masked]
http://iason.site.voila.fr/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/iason/

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:50:40 -0400

--On Monday, 10 April, 2006 19:31 +0200 Iljitsch van Beijnum
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> Everyone who thinks that regular users are going to forego
> IPv4  connectivity in favor of IPv6 connectivity as long as
> IPv4 still  works to a remotely usable degree is a card
> carrying member of the  Internet Fantasy Task Force*.

Because I think part of this comment is important, I want to
disagree with part of the statement.

The gating factor isn't just "works to a remotely useable
degree".  It is also a matter of cost.   Especially at the
"regular user" end of the market, decisions are typically very
cost-sensitive.

So, let's assume that I'm an ISP and (i) I discover that  I've
switched to IPv6 to avoid needing to use private addressing in
my core network, (ii) I discover that it is now costing me more
to support IPv4 customers (because they require protocol and
address translation gateways, even with 4-to-6 and similar
schemes) than it does to support native IPv6 customers.  (iii) I
decide to start passing those costs along to the IPv4 users,
maybe even disproportionately to get people to migrate.   Or
suppose that, as an ISP, I decide I want to save IPv4 addresses
for my big-bucks customers and hence to force those "regular
users" to pay the big bucks to keep using IPv4. 

Now, at least two things impact whether migration occurs at that
stage.  One is whether there are still effective options for
IPv4 at a sufficiently low differential price point to justify a
switch in providers.  How large that differential would need to
be is pretty much speculation -- far harder than predicting the
future of address space exhaustion.  And it is complicated by
the question of how much choice of providers that regular user
actually has -- in many areas, the answer is not a lot of
choices.

The second is whether IPv6 is really good enough to deliver
services (at the applications layer, which is all those "regular
users" care about) that are roughly as good, and as complete as
set, as the IPv4 services.    It is there that I think we are in
trouble with regard to hardware, support costs, tutorial
information, etc.

But it isn't just "still works well enough" ... there are some
incentives that can be applied here and that some might claim
are inevitable that might cause a "regular user" shift on a
purely economic basis.

     john

---

From: Mark Andrews <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 07:12:52 +1000

> for learning. You have to get an official /64 network to run your site.

	But now you have Locally Assigned Local Addresses and if you
	do the right thing choosing your prefix then you can usually
	connect multiple sites together without having to renumber
	one of them.

--
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: [email-masked]

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:25:10 +0200

Iljitsch van Beijnum writes:

> depletion.

They deployed it mainly because getting an IPv4 address costs money,
and involves considerable red tape.  Mainly because it costs money.

> what we expect to stay the same, more often than not changes.

Yes, this is the problem faced by all futurists, including those who
work in IT.  The only thing that one can reliably predict is the
unknown.

> Internet Fantasy Task Force*.

Yes.  Even I don't plan to do so unless my ISP forces the issue; the
change would bring me nothing and would cost time and money to
implement.

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:31:44 +0200

John C Klensin writes:

> switched to IPv6 to avoid needing to use private addressing in my
> core network, (ii) I discover that it is now costing me more to
> support IPv4 customers (because they require protocol and address
> translation gateways, even with 4-to-6 and similar schemes) than it
> does to support native IPv6 customers. (iii) I decide to start
> passing those costs along to the IPv4 users, maybe even
> disproportionately to get people to migrate. Or suppose that, as an
> ISP, I decide I want to save IPv4 addresses for my big-bucks
> customers and hence to force those "regular users" to pay the big
> bucks to keep using IPv4.

Plausible so far.

> stage. One is whether there are still effective options for IPv4 at
> a sufficiently low differential price point to justify a switch in
> providers. How large that differential would need to be is pretty
> much speculation -- far harder than predicting the future of address
> space exhaustion. And it is complicated by the question of how much
> choice of providers that regular user actually has -- in many areas,
> the answer is not a lot of choices.

In the areas that make the heaviest use of the Internet, there will be
many choices, and the only ISPs able to get away with an IPv4
surcharge will be the last ones to support IPv4. The first one to
attempt a surcharge will inevitably lose customers.

> trouble with regard to hardware, support costs, tutorial

There will also be trouble if someone decides to use IPv6 services
that were never available in IPv4, and discovers that the rest of the
world is still not on IPv6.  The interesting thing is that the last
part of the world to move to IPv6 will probably be the part that has
the most IPv4 addresses ... that is, the United States.  So anyone
with IPv6 will have trouble dealing with hosts in the United States,
and that will not help adoption of IPv6.

---

From: "Fleischman, Eric" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 12:11:54 -0700

Noel,

Back in 1993 I predicted that what you have just stated is what us end
users will actually do in regards to IPv6 (which we called IPng back
then). I documented my thoughts in that regards in RFC 1687. RFC 1687 is
somewhat dated now, since the example of a "killer app" I selected is
rather "quaint" (to be generous), but the types of motivation underlying
that identification still persist. 

In any case, I applaud your insight below that us end users will go to
great lengths to avoid any costly network upgrade that does not
contribute anything to our bottom line. Think about it: why would we
spend tens of millions of dollars to get equivalent network connectivity
to what we already have? It makes absolutely no sense from our
point-of-view.

--Eric

-----Original Message-----
From: Noel Chiappa [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 7:36 AM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Reality (was RE: Stupid NAT tricks and how to stop them.)

"'Do not put too much faith in this hairy architecture you have
constructed', retorted Daemon Feature. 'All this is insignificant
compared to the Hack.'"
	-- Mark Crispin, "Software Wars"

Many years ago now, a funny thing happened on the way to "complete
exhaustion of the IPv4 address space (Version 1)". Some clever people
worked out this ugly hack, which the marketplace judged - despite its
ugliness - to be a superior solution to the forklift upgrade to IPv6.
It's been selling like hot-cakes ever since, while IPv6 languished.

I've become rather disenchanted with my crystal ball, which seems quite
cloudy of late (if you'd told me, in 1986, we'd still be running a
Destination-Vector routing architecture for a routing table of this size
20 years later, I'd have *known* you were bonkers), so I have no
specific prediction to make, but...

Don't be surprised if the world, facing "complete exhaustion of the IPv4
address space (Version 2)" decides, yet again, that some sort of Plan B
is a better choice than a conversion to IPv6.

I have no idea exactly what it will be (maybe a free market in IPv4
addresses, plus layered NAT's, to name just one possibility), but there
are a lot of clever people out there, and *once events force them to
turn their attention to this particular alligator*, don't be surprised
if they don't come up with yet another workaround.

	Noel