Re:India is leading IPv6 migration with 61.67% adoption
by throw0101a on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @01:59PM
(#28212858)
Ethernet MACs have 48-bit addresses, and I don't think we've run out of those, and I also don't think is anyone is even worrying about running out of those, so 64-bit IP addresses probably would have been sufficient.
But given all the drama with IPv6, I think it was reasonable to go with 128-bit addresses just so we don't have to go through all of this again.
On a related note, messing up the assignment of IPv6 address was actually accounted for. If you look at any unicast address that's currently live, you'll see that it begins with a "2". This is because addresses are only being assigned from 2000::/3:
If, for some reason, we realize there's a mistake in how things were done with that space, it will be declared legacy/deprecated, and IANA will start over with addresses from 4000::/3. If that is screwed up, then 6000::/3 will be next, then 8000::/3, a000::/3, and finally c000::/3.
So the Internet community has six tries to get IPv6 addressing correct.
But given all the drama with IPv6, I think it was reasonable to go with 128-bit addresses just so we don't have to go through all of this again.
On a related note, messing up the assignment of IPv6 address was actually accounted for. If you look at any unicast address that's currently live, you'll see that it begins with a "2". This is because addresses are only being assigned from 2000::/3:
* https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv6-address-space/ipv6-add...
If, for some reason, we realize there's a mistake in how things were done with that space, it will be declared legacy/deprecated, and IANA will start over with addresses from 4000::/3. If that is screwed up, then 6000::/3 will be next, then 8000::/3, a000::/3, and finally c000::/3.
So the Internet community has six tries to get IPv6 addressing correct.