We disagree with recent restrictions on ip allocation aimed at attacking the "littlehosts"

[Larry Johnson]

I feel that several things have been overlooked in this host header policy. 
I would like to make several points about this. It is no problem at all to 
setup web sites via host header to allow many sites to use one IP address. 
In fact, we use shared IP hosting whenever possible. However, this also 
creates other issues.  All domains that we host also have mail services.  
All mail systems that we have looked at handle shared IP mail delivery in 
a very sloppy manner. This also makes the mail system and other features 
much harder for the end user (customer) to use. For example most mail 
servers will require the user to log in as user at domain rather than just 
“user”.  Many mail clients don’t like this email address as the user ID and 
will return an error. Other features such as mailing lists, auto responders, 
etc don’t work nearly as well on shared IP.  This results in a frustrated 
end user. This greatly increases the technical support needed to service 
the same number of customers as it would with fixed IP. In fact, shared 
IP hosting increases our costs.  Even so, we do use it as we feel we must 
do our part to conserve address space. The fact is that shared IP “host 
header” works well only for HTTP traffic. FTP, Telnet, and mail services 
are another story. Also when Apache and Microsoft makes the statement 
about doing this they have no knowledge of the mail, telnet, or FTP 
services used. They are speaking only of the webserver which is only a 
portion of the services we have to provide.  

We had a situation where there was about 40 sites on a single IP address. 
One of the sites violated the listing rules at one of the major search 
engines. The search engine blocked by IP address. All of the sites were 
kicked out of the search engine and could not list again because of the IP 
address. It is very hard to explain to a customer how and why this 
happened. The point is that just because shared IP hosting can be done it 
doesn’t mean that it is a great idea. 
			
A large portion of customers seeking web hosting are transferring their 
site from another host.  The very first thing they need is an IP address to 
publish their site to. This requires a fixed IP address.

Other areas where shared IP addressing won’t work are: High traffic 
sites. Too much traffic on a single IP address will cause a severe 
bottleneck at the router. The high traffic of a single site or too many sites 
on the same IP can create the same condition.  This can be a technical 
nightmare that slowly builds over time. Sites that use SSL certificates 
also require a fixed IP address to maintain the integrity of the key 
exchange.

I would like to share an experience that I had which demonstrates gross 
waste of IP address space.  Recently I had cable modem service installed 
at my home. The service was provided by AT&T cable services.  These 
cable services use a series of nodes around a given city.  Each node 
serves 50 to 150 customers on average. Each computer connected to 
each node is setup with its own IP address. These companies should be 
introduced to modern technology.  Only the live node would require a 
fixed IP. All computers behind it would not as their IP address would 
never be broadcast past the proxy. They could use non-routable IP 
addresses for every computer behind the firewall as they are never seen 
by the outside world.

I have four computers in my home networked together. I told the installer 
that I had plans in install proxy software on the main system to allow 
Internet access by the other systems. I was told, “You can’t do that!  You 
will have to pay for additional IP addresses.”  There s no practical reason 
for this. They would be able to easily identify me and my systems as any 
traffic would appear to come from my main system.

I have to say that this left a bad taste for me. As we set there and squeeze 
the blood out of every IP we have hosting sites, it looks like these cable 
operators have IP space to burn. They certainly make no attempt to 
conserve.

In closing I would like to say that I was very disappointed in the attitude 
of these cable operators. Even when an offer is made and technology 
exists that would conserve IP address space they insist on needlessly 
wasting them. This is a huge drain on address space. Unlike dial-up 
connections, the IP addresses used by cable operators are never freed so 
that another user can connect to the Internet using that same IP address.

Just a couple of days ago I was looking at a website that we host. There 
were 128 unique IP visitors on the site.  The thought that went through 
my mind was that we were servicing 128 people with one IP address and 
we are the ones that are being asked to conserve.  On their end they each 
required an IP address just to connect. It doesn’t have to be that way.

When it comes to sacrifice all users must share the burden. Again, we 
use shared IP hosting where it is practical to do so. However, there are 
some Internet industries that could conserve a huge number of IP 
addresses without impacting the quality of their service. These industries 
are making no attempt to conserve. As the saying goes, “Making sacrifice 
is fine as long as somebody else is doing it.” It appears as these cable 
operators and the “always-on DSL” folks live by this saying.

I would hope that ARIN will give this whole matter further consideration. 
  

Cordially,

Larry Johnson
President
The Western Association of Advanced Systems Integrators, Inc