I just found a link to this
http://www.arin.net/announcements/policy_changes.html

Are these the people who decide who gets what IP's. If so are they saying they will no longer give more than a few ip's per server and that you must now go to named based hosting?

The web page linked above was very short and brief. Any clarification on the affects of this and what it all means would be greatly apreciated.

Thanks

This is not a new policy from ARIN. They've been pretty much doing this for some time now - only lately has there been a formal announcement on the site. It certainly doesn't mean ARIN is going to tell the big guys "no" when they order another block of IPs. The ones who will lose are the folks like smaller ISPs who want to give, say, static dialups.

Any idea what reason for such a rule is?? Are they running out of ip's?

Yes Kunal,

That's because the way IPs are structured at the moment, there is a limitation on the maximum number of IPs Arin can dish out.

XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

To explain in brief: The number in each of the above four segments can go up to a maximum of 255, not more.

With the internet expanding the way it is... exponentially almost every few months, there is going to come a time when IPs run out... and that is about to happen soon enough.

That is why Arin is forced to resort to this. Acutally, if one studies the history of how the IP numbering system came into being... it is something akin to the Y2K problem the world faced recently. No one possibly saw the futuristic demand for the internet at that point of time. Therefore, the potential problems we are facing today because of the limitation on the availability wasn't foreseen in the past... I'm talking late 1960's early 1970's here.

If others would like to learn a little more on this, I could easily bore everyone further by expanding on the technical issue of IPs :)

Learner

Originally posted by kunal
Any idea what reason for such a rule is?? Are they running out of ip's?

I think that is part of the problem. There are more computers on the Internet than ever before and the number is increasing greatly. It is not so much that they are running out of IP addresses now as it is they have projected that they will run out in the not too distant future.

Best regards,
Frank Rietta

Last I heard they were coming out with a new system of IP's that would allow them to go higher or offer more. ANyone know what the status is on this.

yes, IPv6 instead of the current IPv4... it is complete different of what we use now. They made the system so that the current internet architecture can handle the new ip model.

A sample of a old vs new ip.

old IPv4
123.123.123.123

new IPv6
FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:FEDC:BA98:7654:3210
fun uh?
check Mr. DNS for more info about DNS in general :)
http://www.acmebw.com/cats.htm
and for IPv6 stuff:
http://www.ipv6.org/

I didn't check the anywhere for more info on this subj., but hope that *this* new system will be able to handle the load and that it is expandable.

What am I talking about? Well, take area codes for instance. Sure, area codes worked fine until everyone decided to get a pager, a fax machine, and another line for their computer (damn those computer people). So they (they being the phone guys, whoever they are), decide to split the area codes. Fine. Now they want to split it again. Grrrr. I think they even have plans for the next split. Just split the damn things ONCE so I don't have to reprint everything, and tell everyone 60 times that I have a new number. Grrrr.

/ random rant

Originally posted by Félix C.Courtemanche
IPv6 instead of the current IPv4...

:D Seems like these IP planners did a Netscape too!!!

Whatever happened to poor ol' IPv5... and come to think of it... Netscape 5.0 ?????? :D

Maybe they were planning out IPv5, but as they were scratching their heads perfecting it, the internet outgrew their forecast this time too!!!!

Learner

Heh, just develop IPv10 and be done with it. Note: it doesn't have to last forever, just at least until I croak.

Originally posted by Learner
:D Seems like these IP planners did a Netscape too!!!

Whatever happened to poor ol' IPv5... and come to think of it... Netscape 5.0 ?????? :D
Learner
[/B]

The same thing happened with IBM's PC DOS several years ago. There was never a version 6.0 (it went straight to 6.1). It is a marketing stance that companies use to make their product look newer and better than the product of the competitors.

Oh, and did Windows 95 sound a lot better than Windows 3.95 (the original version of 95)? ;)

Best regards,
Frank Rietta

Actually Frank, you just said it!!!

It would be a fantastic idea if these software companies gave a version date instead of a version number... you know... like Software Ver 2000.09.23 - in the YYYY-MM-DD format.

the next update could then be Software Ver 2001.02.29 :D

and the one after that could be Software Ver 2001.06.31 :D

Learner

Sorry to disapoint you, but if you add the hexadecimal number I wrote... you will see that we are... MUCH bigger than our current 256 exp4 IP :)

It is also designed to allow locating of a computer in a network, regarding what sub domain it is on, etc..
Now I am not totally sure about it I just overviewed the thing.

Tt lookes like certain protocoles already use it and they are testing the whole system to make sure it has no bug or flaws. It is designed much more secure, etc.

Anyway, if our population grow by exp 4, we will definaely need another system... and another solar system :)

Thanx for the info guys. Is there a way we can run out of bandwidth too? ;)

I don't think so, because as we use it, the companies owning the backbone expend it, lay down new lines, faster ones and re-sell them to you at an higher price than ever before :)

Still wondering why Bandwidth is so expensive? :)

lol.. I get your point! :)

If I remember correctly,
IPv6 is 32 bytes (in comparision to IPv4 which is 4 bytes: 32 bits). I read somewhere that with IPv6, we can give 6 IP addresses per square metre of earth surface.
So, the question that intrigues me is when will IPv6 be impelmented? And what are the tasks involved (routing, DNS, Operating systems, socket programming, etc). How long will this take? Are existing systems and SW IPv6 compatible?
Finally, when will we get cheap/free IP addresses?

And Kunal,
There can never be a shortage for bandwidth as we can build more backbones to get the bandwidth more than we'll ever need. It doesn't need much restructuring like the transition from IPv4 to v6.

TheWingThing.

TheWingThing, Agreed we cant, but the time taken to implement something like more bandwidth and stuff is there. So there might come a time when we run out of it, and we dun have the new lines laid down in time. ;)

Originally posted by TheWingThing
It doesn't need much restructuring like the transition from IPv4 to v6.


If you read what I wrote, IPv6 will not require a restructuration change in the majority of our current network applications, routers, switch, etc. Of course there will be some changes, but they are mainly transparent to the end user. They didnt simply added numbers, they also found ways to use it over the existent system and so on.

As for the release date... we are not yet anywhere near lacking IP, and we are not going to need more for many more years... so they are thaking their time to make this perfect... and I like that. Too often someone rush something out to debug it once it is released (ever game developpers and software does this now)