Couldn't you just expose those networks via non-overlapping blocks? Surely the entire private space wasn't spoken for.
We'd have to do private bi-directional NAT44. NAT is expensive to run and is one of those things that always breaks. It could work but it basically just makes permanent tech debt that will frustrate maintenance forever.
It also only really works when it's a 1:1 scale, as you add more networks the configuration grows with N^2.
Re:Are we past peak IPv4?
by justsomehnguy on Sunday January 28, 2024 @05:15AM
(#39164207)
> expose those networks via non-overlapping blocks
For this to work you need to expose the services to those non-overlapping blocks, ie write DNS views and associated shenanigans.
At this point you are half-way to IPv6, so why bother with implementing NAT44 at all?
It would also be very helpful if Mars had potable water and an electrical grid already set up for when we start living there.
Re:Are we past peak IPv4?
by Dylan16807 on Sunday January 28, 2024 @02:43AM
(#39163365)
Can you explain this analogy?
The way you structured it, I feel like the analogy for "living on Mars" would have to be "merging company networks", but that happens all the time.
If Mars is supposed to be IPv6 then I can't figure out what the utilities are supposed to represent.
It was in response to the implication that it would be nice if all the new companies that big businesses acquire have everything (like ipv6) "ready to go" upon acquisition.
I was making a "joke" that it's as likely as us getting to another planet and it being already setup to be habitable by humans.
Re:Are we past peak IPv4?
by Dylan16807 on Sunday January 28, 2024 @04:19PM
(#39169922)
I think that would be a pretty good goal if we were going to new planets every day!
Are you me? I had this exact experience, except after dealing with trying to resolve the conflicts with NATs and all the DNS pain that comes with a system having a different IP depending on where you are accessing it from, and the pain of re-iping an entire company, we actually DID go IPv6. All the offices still had their local IPv4 networks, but the mesh was IPv6 only. Turns out it was SIGNIFICANTLY less effort to get a new office IPv6 ready (usually just tweaking a couple toggles, occasionally replacing some ancient networking hardware) than resolving the IPv4 conflict.
My company has bought other companies in the past and inevitably we've had IP space conflicts. Work arounds involved requiring users to connect to different VPNs to use services running in different networks. The end result was that we had to renumber huge chunks of the company and patch up the routing tables to make this work.
If we'd both been running IPv6 there wouldn't have been any IP space collision. We could just connect them together and be done with it.