On Oct 3, 2012, at 3:49 PM, Jimmy Hess <mysi...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 10/3/12, Jay Ashworth <j...@baylink.com> wrote: >> So the address space for IPv8 will be... >> </troll> > > In 100 years, when we start to run out of IPv6 addresses, possibly we > will have learned our lesson and done two things: > > (1) Stopped mixing the Host identification and the Network > identification into the same bit field; instead every packet gets a > source network address, destination network address, AND an > additional tuple of Source host address, destination host > address; residing in completely separate address spaces, with no > "Netmasks", "Prefix lengths", or other comingling of network > addresses and host address spaces. >
Agreed, mostly. Prefix lengths can still be useful for route summarization and it would be useful to have separate segments of the network address, such as Autonomous System Number, Intra-AS Organizational Identifier, and Intra-Organizational Network, for example. It might be useful to use prefix lengths in those cases to allow for variability in the boundary between these identifiers. > And > (2) The new protocol will use variable-length address for the Host > portion, such as used in the addresses of CLNP, with a convention of > a specified length, instead of a hardwired specific limit that comes > from using a permanently fixed-width field. > On this, I disagree… Once host identifiers are no longer dependent on or related to topology, there's no reason a reasonable fixed-length cannot suffice. > Need more bits? No protocol definition change required. > Nope, just new ASICS everywhere and no clear way to identify where they are or are not deployed and… Owen