[ppml] Big numbers

[Marshall Eubanks]

I thought that the rightmost 64 bits were supposed to be used to store 
the
MAC address and related info, so a /64 is like a IPv4 /32 ?

I think that there is no possibility of running out of IPv6 addresses
from shear exhaustion - there are way too many. However, with some of 
the schemes I have seen (where the address space is carved up to store 
various things) might be in danger of running out.

Regards
Marshall Eubanks

On Tuesday, April 8, 2003, at 01:07 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote:

> In a message written on Mon, Apr 07, 2003 at 05:28:24PM -0500, Bill 
> Darte wrote:
>> Of course, we are not talking about numbering individuals, but 
>> potentially
>> every electrical and electronic component as well as subsystem 
>> elements
>> perhaps....  there is no census data for these things, but 
>> undoubtedly this
>> represents a very large number as well.
>
> But, probably smaller.
>
> For instance, it's easy to invision every house having an IPv6
> network inside it where the refrigerator talks to the toaster or
> whatever.  Sure, all those devices need an address, but a /64 should
> be _more_ than enough for even the largest palace. :)  Even if we
> assume a 2nd network to support "internet" stuff (so the first one
> can be firewalled/secured/protected differently and easily) that's
> two per house.
>
> Items outside the house (electrical grids, water systems, whatnot)
> are likely to be "aggregated" by the authority running them.  Again,
> while /64 subnets may be sparsely populated by what they could
> hold, they would probably often still have hundreds, or thousands,
> or more devices in them.
>
> I'm not too worried about the number of numbers available.  I am
> very worried about the routing system.  Let's allocate one /64 to
> every home for home automation.  Let's allocate one /48 to every
> person for them to do with as they please.  Let's give utilities
> some /40's to make every meter be "online", number wise, no problem.
> However, let's now try and have a routing system that allows every
> house to have it's own subnet, and be provider independent, and
> not have to renumber when someone sneezes.  That's a huge problem.
>
> -- 
>        Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
>         PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
> Read TMBG List - tmbg-list-request at tmbg.org, www.tmbg.org
> <mime-attachment>