We're running out of internet addresses

[Ancient Dragon]

According to this article the internet will run out of IP addresses some time in 2011. Will the internet stop working then? Most likely not, its just that no new ip address can be assigned until IPv6, for "version six" is adopted, and will add more digits to the ip addressing scheme.

[happygeek]

According to this article the internet will run out of IP addresses some time in 2011.

Is the author one Chicken Little by any chance AD?

I've been reading 'news' stories based around IPv6 stating that the Internet is about to run out of addresses for, what, at least five years now and quite possibly even ten.

It's one of those subjects that tech journos keep as a spare for when there is no real news to report but the Editor wants some space filled anyway :)

All in my never humble opinion, of course!

[Ancient Dragon]

There seems to be quite a bit of discussion about this topic, and it seems logical that with 32-bit IP addresses we would run out of them some time.

This is a topic I just came across -- if its old news then probably not something anyone would want to write an article about here at DaniWeb.

[happygeek]

There's no doubt that the address space will reach capacity at some point, trouble is that every six months or so there's some vendor or other which has the media getting their collective panties in a bunch that the time is real soon and the media bites.

[Ancient Dragon]

I guess that sounds like some of those "the world is coming to an end" theories. Yes it will, but when is anyone's guess.

[happygeek]

Yep. That said, ICANN and ISOC are making a joint announcement about the matter this week - so that could be interesting.

[Ancient Dragon]

Just heard about this topic on TV a couple minutes ago. They (whoever that is) has handed out the last remaining addresses under the current addressing scheme.

[jlego]

i too, like other posters, have heard this same story since of maybe 2000

[jlego]

if it runs out of addresses, i, am happy that i already have a few statics :)

[jlego]

In IPv4, which uses 4x bytes or 32 bits, there is a theoretical maximum of 4,294,967,296 IP addresses. In IPv6, which attempts to resolve the address shortage, uses 128bits, giving a maximum of ~ 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,770,000,000 addresses.

how do you pronounce that number?

heres my question, ok. we need to switch to ipv6 probably sometime soon. I know there has been ipv6 implementations in os and networking devices, it isnt a new technology and there are preperations for it.

but i have never actually seen someone implement IPv6. what kind of adaptions and changes are we going to have to make with firewalls, software, websites, DNS records, and so on.

is IPv4 and IPv6 going to place nice together?

fe80:0:0:0:200:f8ff:fe21:67cf IPv6
207.255.10.29 IPv4

[WaltP]

340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,770,000,000 addresses.

how do you pronounce that number?

340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366 nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion, 463 sextillion, 463 quintillion, 374 quadrillion, 607 trillion, 431 billion, 770 million

[Ancient Dragon]

Are all the operating systems in the whole world which are connected to the internet going to have to be changed in order to implement IPv6? Or will the first 128 bit address going to break the entire internet?

[jlego]

i wouldthink that they would have to migrate everything almost at the same time though. i am more than likely wrong however.

[happygeek]

340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366 nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion, 463 sextillion, 463 quintillion, 374 quadrillion, 607 trillion, 431 billion, 770 million

Actualy, it's 340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366 nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion, 463 sextillion, 463 quintillion, 374 quadrillion, 607 trillion, 431 billion, 770 million and 1.

I bet they have a spare in order to avoid the IPv4 thing all over again... :)

[Nick Evan]

how do you pronounce that number

Like this:

A lot

[jlego]

Lol