nanog mailing list archives

Re: DoD IP Space


From: Doug Barton <dougb () dougbarton us>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2021 09:50:56 -0800

On 2/10/21 5:56 AM, Ca By wrote>
The 3 cellular networks in the usa, 100m subs each, use ipv6 to uniquely address customers. And in the case of ims (telephony on a celluar), it is ipv6-only, afaik.

So that answers the question of how to scale networks past what can be done with 1918 space. Although why the phones would need to talk directly to each other, I can't imagine.

I also reject the premise that any org, no matter how large, needs to uniquely number every endpoint. When I was doing IPAM for a living, not allowing the workstations in Tucson to talk to the printers in Singapore was considered a feature. I even had one customer who wanted the printers to all have the same (1918) IP address in every office because they had a lot of sales people who traveled between offices who couldn't handle reconfiguring every time they visited a new location. I thought it was a little too precious personally, but the customer is always right. :)

Sure, it's easier to give every endpoint a unique address, but it is not a requirement, and probably isn't even a good idea. Spend a little time designing your network so that the things that need to talk to each other can, and the things that don't have to, can't. I did a lot of large multinational corporations using this type of design and never even came close to exhausting 1918 space.

Doug


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