Networks
Giving v4 an ‘area code’ based on ASNs to give operators more addresses to play with, without upgrades
A veteran network architect named James Thain has drafted a
proposal for “Internet Protocol Version 8” (IPv8) and hopes to crowdfund work
to create a testbed that will demonstrate his ideas.
Thain’s proposal
appeared as an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet-Draft on April
16th. Like all such documents, it has no official standing – the
multistakeholder systems under which the internet is governed allow open
participation and this is Thain’s contribution.
The draft opens with a bold vision for IPv8, describing it
as “a managed network protocol suite that transforms how networks of every
scale – from home networks to the global internet – are operated, secured, and
monitored.”
On the IPv8 website he describes it as “a managed network protocol suite that resolves IPv4
exhaustion, unifies network management, and stays 100 percent backward
compatible — no flag day, no forced migration.”
The draft protocol is also “a proper subset of IPv8. An IPv8
address with the routing prefix field set to zero is an IPv4 address. No
existing device, application, or network requires modification.”
In conversation with The Register, Thain
said he created the IPv8 draft because existing protocols were developed for
the networking problems of the day, and things have now well and truly moved
on. He also thinks that few organizations other than hyperscalers and network
operators have a good reason to adopt IPv6, because it doesn’t offer major
improvements over IPv4 and migrations to the newer protocol seldom produce
return on investment.
He allows that IPv4 exhaustion means many organizations and
network operators do need to consider IPv6 but feels the best course of action
is to improve IPv4 so users get a better protocol without the need for upgrades.
One improvement in IPv8 expands the IPv4 numberspace by
adding what he calls an “area code” based on a network operator autonomous
system number (ASN), the unique identifiers assigned to networks by regional
internet registries. ASNs effectively function as addresses for a network, to inform
routing decisions.
IPv8 proposes an address format r.r.r.r.n.n.n.n where the
“r” is the ASN address encoded as a 32-bit integer and the “n” is a
conventional IPv4 address.
This scheme means every ASN holder gets 232 host addresses
– 4,294,967,296 addresses apiece. Thain thinks that will suffice for almost
every organization, and those who need more probably already operate multiple ASNs.
His scheme would see the IPv4 numberspace expand to around 30 trillion (3 x
1013) unique addresses. That’s well short of the 340 undecillion 3.4 x 1038
addresses available under IPv6, but Thain thinks it’s still enough and that
users will appreciate not having to migrate away from IPv4.
“It doesn’t require a ton of changes to Border Gateway
Protocol which already knows how to route multiple protocols,” Thain told us. “So
does MPLS.”
IPv8 therefore “gives you a roll forward of IPv4, you just
need servers to translate the ‘area codes’. The rest of the stack is all
well-known,” Thain said. “There is no magic here, it is just an area code plus
IPv4
Another IPv8 feature is what Thain calls a “Zone server”
that his draft explains “runs every service a network segment requires: address
assignment (DHCP8), name resolution (DNS8), time synchronisation (NTP8),
telemetry collection (NetLog8), authentication caching (OAuth8), route
validation (WHOIS8 resolver), access control enforcement (ACL8), and IPv4/IPv8
translation (XLATE8).”
IPv8 has caused a stir in internetworking circles, and some at times bitter criticism.
Others have been more nuanced. Silvan Gephart of ISP Openfactory blogged about the draft and said “I like that there is a proposal thinking
about the routing table, addressing, management, authentication and operational
complexity as one bigger problem.”
Some of the criticism levelled at the protocol suggests it’s
the work of AI. Thain doesn’t shy away from having used chatbots to work on his
draft and told The Register he feels doing so is
contemporary practice.
He thinks he can prove the nay-sayers wrong by building an
IPv8 testbed and has commenced a crowdfunding campaign that aims to raise $100,000
to cover the cost of developing open-source software, research and testing
infrastructure, plus demos and documentation.
You can find the crowdfunding project here. ®
