In January, roughly 10% of IPv4 addresses remained unallocated. Just a few months later in June, new information from ARIN shows that number has shrunk to 6.25%.

The Internet is set to run out of IP addresses by 2011. A mass-switch to IPv6 would solve this problem, but so far few businesses and ISPs have taken the initiative to do so.

So what will happen as the number of available addresses continues to shrink? Expect web hosts and server providers to charge more for extra IPs. A number of universities and non-profits also have large blocks of unused IPs. ARIN will very likely take these back. Regardless of this, the situation still looks very grim.

Continue reading: Only 6% of IPv4 addresses left

In light of the upcoming IPv4 shortage, ARIN President John Curran is concerned that so-called “IP cybersquatting” could emerge where companies could sell their unused addresses on the black market for profit:

We’re going to see a similar circumstance [to domain name cyber squatting] to some extent. Certainly there will be a lot of pressure for companies to hold onto their IPv4 addresses even if they don’t need them because they can monetize them. That’s what we’re looking at as a potential scenario.

ARIN is the organisation that manages the world’s IPs. As of right now, 90% of the world’s IPs are in use, but only 3% of websites have transitioned to the new IPv6 technology.

I think ARIN is right about IP cybersquatting, but whose fault is it? Years ago the organisation gave out large blocks of IP addresses to universities and companies without considering future need. Considering the commercial goals of most IP block owners, did ARIN honestly ever expect them to hand the addreses back?

Source | Computer World
Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Is IP cybersquatting a real threat?

Question: I have been setting up my own server, and a lot of help documents refer to the 127.0.0.1 address. What is 127.0.0.1?

Answer: 127.0.0.1 is the standard ip address assigned to the lookback network interface in IPv4. Because it is a standard, all server should conform to it, and you should be able to access any open ports on your own server through that address. It is also known by the hostname “localhost”, and it is actually more common for documentation to use localhost just in case a server happens to use a different ip address.

If you are running Apache on a local machine, you can use 127.0.0.1 or localhost to access it through a web browser or other method. It is also used by MySQL, CUPS, and many other services, all using their own various ports. Even if no other network devices are setup on a Linux server, the “lo” loopback device should still be present. To find out information about it, you can type “ifconfig” from the command line. It should produce output that looks something like this:

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:49476 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:49476 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:9790315 (9.7 MB) TX bytes:9790315 (9.7 MB)

Photo Source: Flickr

Continue reading: What is 127.0.0.1?

Web service company IP2Location has released its annual Internet IP Address Report. The document analyzes IP usage in 240 countries during 2009.

Unsurprisingly, the United States currently holds 37.46% of the world’s IPv4 addresses. Far behind in the number-two position is the United Kingdom, which only owns 9.94% of addresses. Next is China with 8.33%, Japan with 7.13%, and Germany with 3.90%. Together, the top ten countries in the report control 79.1% of allocated IP addresses.

According to the report, the number of new IP addresses allocated to networks is slowly decreasing in the United States as it increases in China. Considering the heavy growth China has seen over the last decade, this trend isn’t surprising.

Continue reading: Internet IP Address 2010 Report released

Some had feared that the IPv4 address system might run out this year, but Internet users can now breathe a sigh of relief. According to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the organisation under ICANN that manages IPs, 10.2% of the IPv4 system is still left. That’s enough to last us about 625 days.

John Curran, president and CEO of ARIN, has said requests for IPs will be granted as usual, but is pushing ISPs to adopt the new technology. ARIN has also had success getting unused IPs back. Many of these addresses were given in enormous blocks to universities and companies a long time ago and never fully utilized.

Presently, Curran is at CES attempting to inform manufacturers about the need to move to IPv6. But with two years of addresses left and a slew of new products to develop, tech companies seem largely uninterested in making the switch. Oh well, maybe next year?

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: 10% of IPv4 addresses left

In an effort to grab increasingly scarce IPv4 addresses, malware makers are now grabbing blocks of IPs. By colocating servers and requesting IPs under a fake business name, cyber criminals are snatching some of the last remaining addresses.

Unfortunately, this practice is hard to track down given the shear size of the Internet. Thousands of requests are made for IPs daily, but there is no system in place to verify them. Who should get the last few remaining IPs? Is a request a true need or merely a convenience?
In the coming year, expect to see more attention given to questions like these.

Personally, I think more effort should be put into verifying IP requests. Anything that cuts down on cyber crime and frees up precious IPv4 addresses is a good thing.

Source | Ars Technica
Photo | clix

Continue reading: Malware makers scramble for IPv4 address blocks

IP addresses are starting to become few and far between. In an effort to deal with the shortage, Japan is expected to allow the trading of IPs next year. Currently, millions of addresses are sitting unused and Tokyo is hoping monetary incentive will push holders to sell them.

Japan is not the first to allow IP trading. The practice has been legal in Europe for a year and was approved in the United States in June.

The current IPv4 address system is slated to run out in two years or less. If dormant addresses are sold, however, an extra year of time will be gained to transition to IPv6.

Source | TMCnet

Continue reading: Japan to permit IP address trading

A survey of 610 organization in Europe and Asia reveals that only 17% have upgraded to IPv6. This is worrying news considering the current IPv4 address system is slated to run dry by 2011.

Adding further gloom and doom to the situation is the fact that only 8% of ISPs have started using IPv6. Most IPs are used for Internet access, so this is not good at all.

Internet providers and other companies are hesitant to upgrade to IPv6 because the transition is costly and would cut into profits. Most will likely wait until hardware is too old to use until upgrading to IPv6 compatible equipment.

In my opinion, the government needs to do more to step up IPv6 adoption. Why not offer tax incentives for ditching IPv4 or provide grants for purchasing new network hardware? At the rate things are moving now, IPs will run out long before the world is ready to use IPv6.

Photo | Rotorhead

Continue reading: Europe and Asia slow to adopt IPv6

Facing an imminent shortage of IPv4 addresses, American ISPs are beginning to request more and more IPv6 addresses.

So far this year, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) has received some 300 requests for IPv6 address blocks– greater than the number of requests made in 2007 and 2008 combined.

John Curran, President of ARIN, said:

We’re seeing an uptick in IPv6 address space requests; it’s a very significant growth rate.We’ve seen a slight slowdown in IPv4 address space requests…It’s probably dropped off 10% or 20% year over year.

ISPs are asking for IPv6 addresses so they can make their networks IPv6-enabled so they are ready [for the future].
We give each ISP enough IPv6 addresses to support 4 billion networks, and each network can contain trillions and trillions of hosts.

The question is, will ISPs adopt IPv6 fast enough before IPv4 runs out? Providers will have to move much more rapidly if they want to avoid an IP shortage.

Source | Network World

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: American ISPs stock up on IPv6 addresses

Given the increasing scarcity of IP addresses, especially in rapidly developing countries, it’s no wonder that the Indian government now wants the ability to regulate IP allocation.

The Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) currently governs IP distribution in the region. If India can obtain permission from the organization to hand out addresses, it would mean that users could obtain IPs more quickly and for a lower price.

An ISP executive stated:

At present, if one wants an IP address that entity has to pay the retail price directly to APNIC. If an Indian NIR is set up, it will buy IP addresses from APNIC on wholesale rates and then resell it to Indian corporates at much lower rates

Because a national IP allocation system would reduce APNIC’s revenue, it is unlikely that the agency will be eager to accept the change.

Source | Hindu Business Line
Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Indian government seeks to regulate IP allocation

When I signed up for my first dedicated server three years ago, my provider handed out IPs as if they grew on trees. Just for signing up, I received 5 and was allowed unlimited add-on addresses. At one point, I had around 12 IPs on one box. Many hosts have followed this practice in order to stay competitive, but don’t expect it to continue much longer.

The fact of the matter is, few have made the switch to IPv6 and we are slated to run out of IPv4 addresses in less than two years. Until the situation is resolved, hosts will have to be much more conservative with their IPs or risk running out.

Expect free add-on addresses to become a thing of the past. Additional IPs will probably always be available, but at a cost. The days of indulgent IP allocation are near their end.

Photo | steved_np3

Continue reading: Don't expect hosts to continue being generous with IPs

As IPv4 addresses run out, those countries with the fastest-growing number of Internet users will run low on IPs first. A perfect example of this is China, which currently adds more people to the web per year than any other country in the world.

According to Wu Hequan from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the land of the Great Wall is set to run out of IP addresses in two or three years. Compared to the rest of the world, it is in decent shape.

The problem is, this calculation assumes that computer deployment will continue to increase at the same rate. As tech devices like computers, cell phones, and PDAs become less expensive, adoption rises at a disproportionate rate.

IPv6 adoption so far only extends to Chinese universities. It is my guess that the number of addresses needed by this economic powerhouse will increase much more quickly than Hequan predicts. China has the disadvantage of being a relatively late Internet adopter, so when IPs were first allocated, it didn’t receive nearly as many as Western nations.

Source | People’s Daily Online

Continue reading: China feels the IP squeeze