IPv6: 1x /64 does that mean over a trillion IPs?

evnix · January 2020

I see VPS providers give out /64 IPV6
does that mean over a trillion or whatever unique IPs for a single VPS?
A bit of waste if that's the case

foxone · January 2020

@evnix said:
I see VPS providers give out /64 IPV6
does that mean over a trillion or whatever unique IPs for a single VPS?
A bit of waste if that's the case

The entire IPv6 address space is about 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456, which is approximately 340 undecillion, or 340 billion billion billion billion, addresses. I believe giving you about 0.00000000000000000000000008% of the IPs available is not really a waste.

cybertech · January 2020

CC must be laughing

uhu · January 2020

@evnix /64 is, what, 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 addresses? That's enough to individually address each cell of your body.

@foxone underestimates though, by my maths 2^-64 is 5.4210109e-20, so 5.42e-18% of the total address space. My maths is usually wrong though.

cochon · January 2020

Don't forget, one of the design reasons behind the enormous /64 subnet is so that hosts within it can participate in IPv6 without using DHCP or pre-allocated addresses, they can randomly generate a local address with no realistic risk of a clash.

By design it's not intended that the address space WITHIN a /64 subnet will ever become heavily populated. Dividing up the IPv6 address space globally is all about the upper half (64 bits) of the address space not the full 128 bits.

cybertech · January 2020

Why no 64bit address?

evnix · January 2020

Each /64 is enough for an entire space faring planet when we have inter stellar travel !!
I bet there will be no hoarding!

Delong · January 2020

@evnix said:
Each /64 is enough for an entire space faring planet when we have inter stellar travel !!
I bet there will be no hoarding!

But will it be enough for multi-dimensional travel?

evnix · January 2020

@Delong said: But will it be enough for multi-dimensional travel?

You have a point, likely not with the infinite possibilities!

WSS · January 2020

@evnix said:

@Delong said: But will it be enough for multi-dimensional travel?

You have a point, likely not with the infinite possibilities!

Waiting for "No Man's Sky" patch to address this.

evnix · January 2020

@WSS said: Waiting for "No Man's Sky" patch to address this.

Well, he did promise it in the demo ?

Rahul · January 2020

@evnix said: I see VPS providers give out /64 IPV6
does that mean over a trillion or whatever unique IPs for a single VPS?
A bit of waste if that's the case

Not a waste when its, IPv6 and the Internet of Things.

WSS · January 2020

@Rahul said:

@evnix said: I see VPS providers give out /64 IPV6
does that mean over a trillion or whatever unique IPs for a single VPS?
A bit of waste if that's the case

Not a waste when its, IPv6 and the Internet of Things.

..because everyone's poorly maintained 10 year old garage door opener that barely supports WPA2 in 2030 should be exposed to the world at large.

Daniel · January 2020

@evnix said: A bit of waste if that's the case

It's not a waste; it's required for some features to work properly. IPv6 was intentionally designed this way. See https://etherealmind.com/allocating-64-wasteful-ipv6-not/

It's actually quite useful even on one server/VPS, as containers (LXC, Docker, etc) on the VPS can automatically get a public-facing IPv6 address, without you having to manually configure one. It's definitely useful to get at least a /64 on a home internet connection, as each one of your devices can get its own IP and not have to deal with NAT.

Some providers will give you a /56, /52 or /48 range if you ask nicely, which lets you have your own subnetting.

FHR · January 2020

@WSS said:
..because everyone's poorly maintained 10 year old garage door opener that barely supports WPA2 in 2030 should be exposed to the world at large.

There is this great device called firewall.

WSS · January 2020

@FHR said:

@WSS said:
..because everyone's poorly maintained 10 year old garage door opener that barely supports WPA2 in 2030 should be exposed to the world at large.

There is this great device called firewall.

...which are generally glorified NAT boxes in the majority of residences, except when IPv6 is involved with consumer hardware.

tgl · January 2020

its not a waste

Using a subnet prefix length other than a /64 will break many features of IPv6, amongst other things Neighbor Discovery (ND), Secure Neighborship Discovery (SEND) [RFC3971], privacy extensions [RFC4941], parts of Mobile IPv6 [RFC4866], PIM-SM with Embedded-RP [RFC3956], and SHIM6 [SHIM6]. A number of other features currently in development, or being proposed, also rely on /64 subnet prefixes.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5375

Janevski · January 2020

We must conserve IPv6 space, so it doesn't suffer the same fate of IPv4.
IP addresses are like an open buffeT and we ate them all.
Those nice sweets people offer on a plate during celebrations, well taking one won't hurt, let's take another one and another, after a while - i can't possibly eat any more, but, let's take another one, the stomach has to take one for the team...
While some people who can't reach the plate because i am pinching their hands with the fork while hugging the plate are left stranded, starving for sugars, transfattyacids and some proteins. Life is cruel...

yoursunny · January 2020

I have TunnelBroker on OpenWrt home router and I requested a /48 following online guides.
I found each of my devices takes about four addresses.
Am I wasting too many addresses? Should I release the /48 and go back to /64?

Daniel · January 2020

@Janevski said: We must conserve IPv6 space, so it doesn't suffer the same fate of IPv4.

There's enough IPv6 addresses for each human on Earth to have trillions of addresses, so no worries there

@yoursunny said: I have TunnelBroker on OpenWrt home router and I requested a /48 following online guides.

I found each of my devices takes about four addresses.
Am I wasting too many addresses? Should I release the /48 and go back to /64?

/48 is fine, particularly if you want to do any subnetting (ie. you want to create multiple /64 subnets yourself).

There's really no concern about wasting addresses.

You could give a /48 to every man, woman and child on earth and have only used up most of a single /15 worth of space, or 0.003% of the entire IPv6 space.

and

there are 240 trillion /48 allocations, which means every human on earth can receive 300,000 /48 allocations and we still won't be out

(from https://serverfault.com/questions/588561/why-is-arin-etc-allocating-such-large-blocks-of-ipv6-addresses)

Rahul · January 2020

IPv6 is future-proof, period.

evnix · January 2020

@Daniel said: There's enough IPv6 addresses for each human on Earth to have trillions of addresses, so no worries there

Problem is, everyone thinks human population will reach 8 to 10 billion and shrink rapidly from there.
We already see this trend in developed countries and everyone thinks this trend will continue in other countries as they get educated.

But what if this assumption doesn't hold true? Currently the population is only limited due to earth's resources.

WSS · January 2020

@evnix said:
Problem is, everyone thinks human population will reach 8 to 10 billion and shrink rapidly from there.
We already see this trend in developed countries and everyone thinks this trend will continue in other countries as they get educated.

Then we'll return to IPX/SPX as GOD and COUNTRY intended.

skorous · January 2020

@WSS said: Then we'll return to IPX/SPX as GOD and COUNTRY intended.

Now that's what I call a collision domain.

WSS · January 2020

@skorous said:

@WSS said: Then we'll return to IPX/SPX as GOD and COUNTRY intended.

Now that's what I call a collision domain.

I really want to see this CD. Obviously this will be the first song:

terrorgen · January 2020

@evnix said:

@Daniel said: There's enough IPv6 addresses for each human on Earth to have trillions of addresses, so no worries there

Problem is, everyone thinks human population will reach 8 to 10 billion and shrink rapidly from there.
We already see this trend in developed countries and everyone thinks this trend will continue in other countries as they get educated.

But what if this assumption doesn't hold true? Currently the population is only limited due to earth's resources.

If population reaches an unsustainable level there is a very dark way of getting population back to a sustainable level.

I hope this won't happen.

Rahul · January 2020

@terrorgen said: If population reaches an unsustainable level there is a very dark way of getting population back to a sustainable level.

I hope this won't happen.

terrorgen · January 2020

@Rahul said:

@terrorgen said: If population reaches an unsustainable level there is a very dark way of getting population back to a sustainable level.

I hope this won't happen.

lol nope.

VPN · January 2020

Here are the recommendations of IANA according to RFC3177:

/48 in the general case, except for very large subscribers.
/64 when it is known that one and only one subnet is needed by design.
/128 when it is absolutely known that one and only one device is connecting.

We may think that servers need /128 at best, but /64 is better, as the sysadmin can have the great flexibility of choosing what address (and ports) to use for each application. Let's not also forget that Ipv6 blacklists usually list the whole /64 block. So /48 and /64 is much better for servers.

Meanwhile we could start developing IPv8, for that moment when humanity will start exploring this galaxy by bending space. Maybe, by the time IPv8 is ready, companies like ColoCrossing and Scaleway will have proper IPv6 on their datacenters. Only time will tell, I don't know what future brings, I just hope that my organic body will sustain me long enough to see it all happening.

yoursunny · January 2020

@VPN said:
Meanwhile we could start developing IPv8, for that moment when humanity will start exploring this galaxy by bending space.

There's no future in address based systems. IPv9 was developed and still ran out of addresses. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1606

The future belongs in a purely name based system, in which every packet carries a name (of any length), and routers deliver packets directly by name. You'll never run out of addresses again because we don't need any to begin with. https://named-data.net/project/execsummary/

WSS · January 2020

@yoursunny said:

@VPN said:
Meanwhile we could start developing IPv8, for that moment when humanity will start exploring this galaxy by bending space.

There's no future in address based systems. IPv9 was developed and still ran out of addresses. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1606

The future belongs in a purely name based system, in which every packet carries a name (of any length), and routers deliver packets directly by name. You'll never run out of addresses again because we don't need any to begin with. https://named-data.net/project/execsummary/

But it all depends on what tag your packet identifies itself as..

IPv6: 1x /64 does that mean over a trillion IPs?

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