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A comment on Ask HN: Would it be easier to make Ipv4 A.B.C.D.E vs. implimenting Ipv6?.

Re:Ask HN: Would it be easier to make Ipv4 A.B.C.D.E vs. imp... by Someone on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @02:55AM (#17957669)
No. All the migration tools in the world aren’t worth anything in a world where zillions of devices assume IP addresses are 32-bit and don’t ship with source code and/or can’t be upgraded in the field (e.g. because there’s custom hardware implementing some of the protocol)

Also, if such a tool were possible, a tool 32to128 could be written, too.

Given that an incompatible update was necessary, there’s little difference in complexity between going for 40 bit addresses and going for 128 bit addresses.

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Re:Ask HN: Would it be easier to make Ipv4 A.B.C.D.E vs. imp... by tinus_hn on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @07:22AM (#17958682)
IPv6 involves more than 128 bit addresses though. It would have been possible to create IPv4 but with longer addresses, even if that would have been a wasted opportunity for improvement and would have presented new scaling issues.
[ Parent | on HN ]