Okay, not really. It was a dirty little clickbait. But at the RIPE NCC Days conference, held on September 24-25 in Kyiv, it was announced that the distribution of /22 subnets to new LIRs would soon end. The IPv4 address space exhaustion problem has been talked about for a long time. It has been about 7 years since the last /8 blocks were allocated to regional registries. Despite all the restraining and restrictive measures, the inevitable could not be avoided. About what awaits us in connection with this, under the cut.
Historical background
When all these Internets of yours were just being created, it seemed to people that 32 bits for addressing would be enough for everyone. 232 is approximately 4.2 billion network device addresses. How could, in the distant 80s, the first few organizations that united in a network think that someone would need more? Why, the first register of addresses was kept by one uncle named Jon Postel (Jon Postel) manually, almost in an ordinary notebook. And it was possible to request a new block over the phone. Periodically, the current dedicated addressing has been published as an RFC document. For example, in , published in September 1981, for the first time we meet the familiar 32-bit record of IP addresses.
But the concept "went", the global network began to develop actively. This is how the first electronic registers arose, but there was still absolutely no smell of fried. With justification, it was quite possible to get at least a block / 8 (more than 16 million addresses) in one hand. Not to say that the justification at that time was so checked.
We all understand that if you actively consume some resource, sooner or later it will end (blessed memory for mammoths). In 2011, IANA, which distributed blocks of addresses on a planetary scale, distributed the last /8 to regional registries. On September 15, 2012, the RIPE NCC announced the depletion of IPv4 and began distributing no more than /22 (1024 addresses) to one LIR hands (however, it allowed opening several LIRs for one company). On April 17, 2018, the last block 185/8 ended, and since then, for a year and a half, new LIRs have been eating bread crumbs and pasture - blocks returned to the pool for various reasons. Now they are running out. You can watch this process in real time at .
The train left
At the time of the report, approximately 1200 continuous /22 blocks remained available at the conference. And a rather large pool of unprocessed applications for allocation. Simply put, if you are not a LIR yet, the last block /22 is no longer for you. If you are already a LIR but have not applied for the last /22, there is still a chance. But it's better to apply yesterday.
In addition to the continuous /22, there is still a chance to get a combined selection - a combination of /23 and / or /24. However, according to current estimates, all these opportunities will be exhausted within weeks. Guaranteed by the end of this year, you can forget about /22.
Few reserves
Naturally, addresses are not cleaned to zero. RIPE left a certain address space for various needs:
- /13 for temporary appointments. Addresses can be allocated upon request for the implementation of some time-limited tasks (for example, testing, conferences, etc.). After the task is completed, the block of addresses will be selected.
- /16 for exchange points (IXP). According to estimates, exchange points should have enough for another 5 years.
- /16 for contingencies. They are not to be foreseen.
- /13 β quarantined addresses (more on that below).
- A separate category is the so-called IPv4 dust - scattered blocks smaller than /24, which cannot be advertised and routed according to current standards in any way. Therefore, they will hang unclaimed until the adjacent block is released and at least / 24 is formed.
How are blocks returned?
Addresses are not only allocated, but sometimes get back into the pool of available ones. This can happen for a number of reasons: voluntary return as unnecessary, LIR closure due to bankruptcy, non-payment of membership fees, violation of RIPE rules, and so on.
But the addresses do not immediately fall into the general pool. They are quarantined for 6 months to be βforgottenβ about them (mostly various blacklists, spammer databases, etc.). Of course, much fewer addresses are returned to the pool than are issued, but in 2019 alone, 1703 /24 blocks have already been returned. Such returned blocks will be the only way for future LIRs to receive at least some IPv4 block.
A bit of cybercrime
The scarcity of a resource increases its value and desire to own it. And why not?.. Blocks of addresses are sold at a price of 15-25 dollars apiece, depending on the size of the block. And due to the growing shortage, prices are likely to jump even higher. At the same time, having gained unauthorized access to the LIR account, it is quite possible to divert resources to another account, and then it will not be easy to scratch them back. The RIPE NCC, of ββcourse, assists in resolving any such disputes, but does not take on the functions of the police or the courts.
There are many ways to lose your addresses: from the usual bungling and password leaks, through the ugly dismissal of a person with access without depriving him of these very accesses, and to completely detective stories. So, at the conference, a representative of one company told how they almost lost their resources. Some nimble guys, using false documents, re-registered the company for themselves in the register of enterprises. In fact, they made a raider seizure, the only purpose of which was to take away IP blocks. Further, having become de jure legal representatives of the company, the scammers contacted the RIPE NCC to reset access to manager accounts and initiated the transfer of addresses. Fortunately, the process was noticed, operations with addresses are frozen "until clarification." But the legal red tape with the return of the company itself to the original owners took more than a year. One of the conference participants mentioned that in order to avoid such situations, his company has long moved its addresses to a jurisdiction where the law works better. Let me remind you that not so long ago we ourselves .
What's next?
During the discussion of the report, one of the RIPE representatives recalled an old Native American proverb:
It can be considered a thoughtful answer to the question βhow can I get some more IPv4β. The draft IPv6 standard, which addresses the shortage of addresses, was published back in 1998, and virtually all network devices and operating systems released since the mid-2000s support this protocol. Why aren't we there yet? "Sometimes a decisive step forward is the result of a kick in the ass." In other words, providers are just lazy. The leadership of Belarus acted with their laziness in an original way, obliging them to provide support for IPv6 in the country at the legislative level.
However, what will happen to the allocation of IPv4? A new policy has already been adopted and approved, according to which, after the /22 blocks are exhausted, new LIRs will be able to receive /24 blocks as they become available. If there are no blocks available at the time of application, the LIR will be placed on a waiting list and will (or may not) receive a block when it becomes available. At the same time, the absence of a free block does not exempt from the need to pay entrance and membership fees. You will still be able to buy addresses on the secondary market and transfer them to your account. However, the RIPE NCC avoids the word βbuyβ in its rhetoric, trying to abstract from the monetary aspect of something that was not originally conceived as an object of trade.
As a responsible provider, we encourage you to actively implement IPv6 into your life. And being LIR, we are ready to assist our clients in every possible way.
Don't forget to subscribe to our blog, we are planning to publish some other interesting things we heard at the conference.
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Source: habr.com