Re: legacy /8

[Dan White <dwhite () olp net>]

On 03/04/10 23:11 -0700, Vadim Antonov wrote:
> With all that bitching about IPv6 how come nobody wrote an RFC for a very 
> simple solution to the IPv4 address exhaustion problem:

+1 years.

> Step 1: specify an IP option for extra "low order" bits of source & 
> destination address.  Add handling of these to the popular OSes.

+5 years.

> Step 2: make NATs which directly connect extended addresses but also NAT 
> them to non-extended external IPs.
>
> Step 3: leave backones unchanged.  Gradually reduce size of allocated 
> blocks forcing people to NAT as above.

Never.

> Step 4: watch people migrating their apps to extended addresses to avoid 
> dealing with NAT bogosity and resulting tech support calls & costs.

+10 years.

> Step 5: remove NATs.

This is a good example of why patching v4 or trying to maintain backwards
compatibility is not practical.

--
Dan White