Re: 240/4

On 18 Oct 2007, at 09:34, <michael.dillonbt.com>  
<michael.dillonbt.com> wrote:

>
>> Okay, this has descended to a point where we need
some fact  
>> injection.
>
> You get a D on those facts because you did not review
the  
> "literature",
> did not attempt reasonable coverage of the problem
space, and did not
> investigate whether or not there were other versions of
the software
> that have been patched to support 240/4.

step awaaaay from the crack pipe...

Joe's facts were excellent. I read his email and thought
"wow, this  
will kill this thread for sure"

why on earth would you want to go and hack this stuff
together,  
knowing that it WILL NEVER WORK

so, as using these IPs publically isnt feasible why bother
privately.  
you may as well use RFC1918 or IPv6. the latter whilst not
without  
issues is at least being rolled out as part of a series of
standards  
that are 10+yrs old

i am really struggling with some of the logic being given
here. more  
specifically the omissions in that logic are glaring.

>  not attempt to engineer a solution that will work for
everybody
..
> not our reponsibility to fix every problem out there
..
> I believe that people are not that stupid.
..
> We do not have a good reason to deny them that
possibility.
..
> This is easy for vendors to fix.
..
> It is a trivial amount of work for the IETF to release
the address  
> space
..
> removing the 240/4 blockages could also be considered a
trivial  
> level of effort.
..
> those of us who do not want or need 240/4 addresses can
ignore it.
..
> The cost is effectively zero in the first case,
..
> why should anyone try and convert them to the one true
Internet  
> architecture?

i think you are somewhat deluded.

Steve

On Thu, 18 Oct 2007, Stephen Wilcox wrote:

>> You get a D on those facts because you did not
review the "literature",
>> did not attempt reasonable coverage of the problem
space, and did not
>> investigate whether or not there were other
versions of the software
>> that have been patched to support 240/4.
>
> step awaaaay from the crack pipe...

I almost wrote a message similar to Joe's (actually did, and
then canceled 
it).  I think (realy hope) that there's a misunderstanding
here about 
exactly what 240/4 space would be used for.

I think Michael's point is that it can be allocated as
"unique space for 
internal use".  i.e. kind of like 1918 space, but you
know your slice of 
240/4 is only used on your network[1].  For that purpose,
it's fine, as 
long as you determine that all your gear allows it.

If anyone really thinks it can be announced into the global
routing table 
and expected to function, I'm afraid they've swallowed the
crack pipe so 
far down that this thread is pointless for them.  Too many
devices will 
never (can never[2]) be upgraded and are unlikely to go away
in the 
forseeable future.  You just can't expect 240/4 (regardless
of how trivial 
the code change would be) to ever work as globally &
reliably as people 
expect the internet to work.

I could see bits of 240/4 perhaps being of use to large
cable companies 
for whom there just isn't enough 1918 space to address all
their CPE 
gear...and/or they really want unique addressing so that
if/when networks 
merge IP conflicts are avoided.

1) As much as this can ever be known...you can't stop random
IP squatters 
from picking random IP space out of their hats for use as
"private" 
networks behind NAT.  Eventually, they realize some bit of
the internet is 
unreachable...because it's their LAN.  The various squatters
using 1/8 and 
the other "not-yet-allocated" /8s will all get the
rude awakenings they 
deserve in time.

2) Anyone care to guess how much network gear is deployed
that either 
won't or can't be upgraded?  i.e. Old cisco gear without the
RAM and/or 
flash to handle a newer code train...the old one in use long
since 
unsupported, or gear from vendors that no longer exist?  As
long as this 
stuff generally works, nobody's likely to replace it.

------------------------------------------------------------
----------
  Jon Lewis                   |  I route
  Senior Network Engineer     |  therefore you are
  Atlantic Net                |
_________ http://www.lewis.org
/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________

> why on earth would you want to go and hack this stuff
together,  
> knowing that it WILL NEVER WORK

Because I have read reports from people whose technical
expertise I
trust. They modified the TCP/IP code of Linux and FreeBSD
and were able
to freely use 240/4 address space to communicate between
machines. This
means that IT WILL WORK.

The reports stated that the code patch was simple because it
involved
simply removing a line of code that disallowed 240/4
addresses.

This demonstrates that enabling 240/4 is a very simple
technical issue.
The only real difficulty here is getting the right people to
act on it.

Companies like Cisco don't even need to wait for the IETF in
order to
implement a command like
   ip class-e
as long as they ship it with a default of
   no ip class-e

--Michael Dillon