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In Taking Back The DNS I described new technology in ISC BIND as of Version 9.8.0 that allows a recursive server operator to import DNS filtering rules in what ISC hopes will become the standard interchange format for DNS policy information. Later I had to decry the possible use of this technology for mandated content blocking such as might soon be the law of the land in my country. I'm a guest at MAAWG this week in San Francisco and one of the most useful hallway discussions I've been in so far was about the Spamhaus DROP list. more
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a protocol intended to enable machines (servers, game consols, etc) wishing to be "online" the ability to request Internet Protocol information from a DHCP server automatically. ... In this article we will begin to outline some of the fundamental differences between DHCPv4 and DHCPv6, explore historical uses of DHCPv4 and how those concepts will adapt/change in IPv6. more
It's no secret that the supply of IPv4 addresses, on which the Internet has been based since the dawn of digital time, is rapidly running out. The official replacement is much larger IPv6 addresses, but I can report from experience that the task of switching is not trivial, and for a long time there will be a lot of the net that's only on IPv4. So once the initial supply of IPv4 addresses run out, and the only way to get some is to buy them from someone else, what will the market be like? more
Yesterday morning (26-April-2011), in US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Judge Kevin Gross signed an order authorizing Nortel's sale of IPv4 addresses to Microsoft. This is an important moment for the Internet community, as it represents the beginning of a new market-based mechanism for the distribution of scarce IPv4 address resources. As the various Regional Internet Registry (RIR) organizations exhaust their supply, traditional "needs-based" distribution will become impossible. more
Exponential growth of networks combined with the complexity introduced by IT initiatives e.g. VoIP, Cloud computing, server virtualization, desktop virtualization, IPv6 and service automation has required network teams to look for tools to automate IP address management (IPAM). Automated IPAM tools allow administrators to allocate subnets, allocate/track/reclaim IP addresses and provide visibility into the networks. Here are some examples of what a typical IPAM tool can do... more
The recent tempest in a teacup on ARINs PPML list over the transfer of IP address blocks from Nortel (a company in Chapter 11) to Microsoft has some interesting Internet Governance dimensions that are yet to be discussed. One aspect that has been overlooked amidst all the sound and fury, is the governmental perspective on IP address transfers. more
Every time I witness another argument about changing the rules of the Whois system I marvel at how such an important core internet protocol could be so widely misunderstood. I don't mean that the protocol's technical details are not well understood -- it's a very simple device, easy to implement correctly and easy to use even for new users. I mean that the Whois system itself and its purpose in the Internet ecosystem is widely misunderstood. Everybody uses Whois and lots of people argue about Whois but precious few folks know why Whois exists in the first place. more
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've doubtless seen reports that the supply of IPv4 addresses is running out. Earlier this month IANA, the master allocation authority, handed out the last so-called /8, a large chunk of 16 million addresses, to one of the regional address registries... Then what? The conventional wisdom is that everyone needs to support IPv6, a mostly compatible upgrade to IPv4 with much larger addresses, by the time the v4 space runs out. But I'm not so sure, particularly for e-mail. more
I have been attending the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) meeting in Toronto. ARIN is one of the RIRs, i.e., the Internet address registry and policy making authority for North America. Although I have observed and participated on RIR lists for some time and interacted with RIR representatives at ICANN, WSIS and IGF, this is the first time I have been able to attend a meeting. I'm glad I did. more
As Internet authorities prepare to announce that they have handed over all of the available addresses, a USC research group that monitors address usage has completed the latest in its series of Internet censuses. There is some good news, according to computer scientist John Heideman, who heads a team at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Information Sciences Institute that has just released its results in the form of a detailed outline including a 10-minute video and an interactive web browser that allows users to explore the nooks and crannies of Internet space themselves. more
In August 2010, we looked at the growth in RIPE NCC membership and concluded that the number of new RIPE NCC members is still growing at an amazing pace, even during the recent economic downturn... This time we are looking at the different sizes of RIPE NCC members over time. It is often claimed that there is massive consolidation happening in the ISP community, especially in times of economic difficulties like in the early 2000s and now. We were curious to find out if this is really the case. more
As rumours tend to be more accurate than predictions, the last /8's are hanging already on this years Christmas tree and one should hurry to get hold of a small little RIR block to put on next year's tree. I will miss the decade of heated and passionate debates between Tony Hain and Geoff Huston on when the exhaustion would actually happen. Estimates ranged all the way from 2008 to 2020 with Tony predicting early demise of IPv4 addresses while Geoff initially thought exhaustion would come later. As time passed the interval converged and here we are. more
In the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, the preferred solution for network endpoints is to have both native IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity (also called dual-stack connectivity). If a site cannot get native IPv6 connectivity, however, the IPv4 network endpoints can choose from a number of conversion technologies to connect to the IPv6 Internet. The most commonly used conversion mechanisms are 6to4, Teredo and tunnel-brokers. At recent RIPE meetings there have been claims that 6to4 connectivity is quite often broken. We were interested to find out how broken it really is. more
I attended the RIPE 61 meeting this month, and, not unexpectedly for a group that has some interest in IP addresses, the topic of IPv4 address exhaustion, and the related topic of the transition of the network to IPv6 has captured a lot of attention throughout the meeting. One session I found particularly interesting was one on the transition to IPv6, where folk related their experiences and perspectives on the forthcoming transition to IPv6. I found the session interesting, as it exposed some commonly held beliefs about the transition to IPv6, so I'd like to share them here, and discuss a little about why I find them somewhat fanciful. more
Jeff Pulver proposed an interesting idea called IPv6 Day... In geeks term, we call this a 'flag day'. The last time we have a flag day was 1st Jan 1983 when Internet moved from NCP (Network Control Protocol) to IPv4. So why not do it for IPv6? more
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