[AusNOG] /20 Available

[Michael Andreas Schipp]

>From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address - think we will be ok :)

IPv6 address space
[edit<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IPv6_address&action=edit&section=13>]General allocation
The management of IPv6 address allocation process is delegated to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority> (IANA)[8]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#cite_note-rfc1881-8> by the Internet Architecture Board<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Architecture_Board> and the Internet Engineering Steering Group<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Engineering_Steering_Group>. Its main function is the assignment of large address blocks to the regional Internet registries<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Internet_Registry> (RIRs), which have the delegated task of allocation to network service providers and other local registries. The IANA has maintained the official list of allocations of the IPv6 address space since December 1995.[9]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#cite_note-9>
Only one eighth of the total address space is currently allocated for use on the Internet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet>, 2000::/3, in order to provide efficient route aggregation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_aggregation>, thereby reducing the size of the Internet routing tables; the rest of the IPv6 address space is reserved for future use or for special purposes. The address space is assigned to the RIRs in large blocks of /23 up to/12.[10]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#cite_note-10>
The RIRs assign smaller blocks to local Internet registries<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Internet_registry> that distributes them to users. These are typically in sizes from /19 to /32.[11]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#cite_note-11>[12]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#cite_note-12>[13]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#cite_note-13> The addresses are typically distributed in /48 to /56 sized blocks to the end users.[14]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#cite_note-rfc6177-14>
Global unicast assignment records can be found at the various RIRs or other websites.[15]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#cite_note-15>
IPv6 addresses are assigned to organizations in much larger blocks as compared to IPv4 address assignments-the recommended allocation is a /48 block which contains 280addresses, being 248 or about 2.8×1014 times larger than the entire IPv4 address space of 232 addresses and about 7.2×1016 times larger than the /8 blocks of IPv4 addresses, which are the largest allocations of IPv4 addresses. The total pool, however, is sufficient for the foreseeable future, because there are 2128 or about 3.4×1038 (340 trillion<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10%5E12> trillion trillion) unique IPv6 addresses.
Each RIR can divide each of its multiple /23 blocks into 512 /32 blocks, typically one for each ISP; an ISP can divide its /32 block into 65536 /48 blocks, typically one for each customer;[16]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#cite_note-16> customers can create 65536 /64 networks from their assigned /48 block, each having 264 addresses. In contrast, the entire IPv4 address space has only 232 (about4.3×109) addresses.
By design, only a very small fraction of the address space will actually be used. The large address space ensures that addresses are almost always available, which makes the use of network address translation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation> (NAT) for the purposes of address conservation completely unnecessary. NAT has been increasingly used for IPv4 networks to help alleviate IPv4 address exhaustion<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion>.

Thank you,

Michael A Schipp
A10 Networks

From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Craig Askings
Sent: Monday, 21 January 2013 8:15 PM
To: ausnog at ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] /20 Available


On 21/01/2013, at 3:45 PM, Jacob Gardiner <jacob at jacobgardiner.com<mailto:jacob at jacobgardiner.com>> wrote:



Might be time for a branch in the email chain for this next comment - but with ipv6, doesn't it seem a little wasteful assigning 18 quntillion IPs to my non-technical mother's ADSL service? Even if she bought 'all of the things' and connected all of them to myface.com<http://myface.com/>, we're going to be wasting a lot of resources.. Right?

Ugh not this straw man argument again. The current allocation policy / best practice is only for 2000::/3, if we some how manage to use that all up. IANA can make a new allocation policy for 4000::/3, 6000::/3, 8000::/3 and so on.

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