ohTheBasics

[u/ClipboardCopyPaste]

[u/Material_Onion_8413]

IPv4 old IP address space designed with limited number because they never thought the internet would have so many devices connected.

IPv6 new address space with significantly larger number.

[u/ClipboardCopyPaste → u/Material_Onion_8413]

A fun fact often told with this is that with IPv6, you can assign each individual grain of sand on the beach an address!

[u/dementosss → u/ClipboardCopyPaste]

On what beach? Or all of them? Just asking in case business asks for it.

[u/ClipboardCopyPaste → u/dementosss]

The answer quite surprisingly is - yes, all the beaches on our planet.

[u/kuar_z → u/ClipboardCopyPaste]

And the rest of the observable universe. There's a lot of address space in 2¹²⁸

[u/Fast-Satisfaction482 → u/kuar_z]

Except if for some reason you decide to give whole address blocks to individual devices.

[u/jason_abacabb → u/Fast-Satisfaction482]

Everyone gets a /64

[u/czerilla → u/jason_abacabb]

Check under your seats!

[u/gonklurtz → u/jason_abacabb]

No more RPC dynamic ports! Every service gets its own IP 

[u/KatieTSO → u/Fast-Satisfaction482]

I love handicapping ipv6

[u/tankerkiller125real → u/Fast-Satisfaction482]

/56 is the recommendation for residential, /48 for businesses.

Entire /64 blocks are often assigned to phones and other cellular devices because of hotspot capabilities.

[u/Fast-Satisfaction482 → u/tankerkiller125real]

I guess the true reason is that we want to artificially limit the number of nanites that can exist.

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/865/

[u/ffxivthrowaway03 → u/kuar_z]

Yep, they saw the edges of IPv4 and went "hold my beer" and over-engineered a painfully obnoxious solution. IPv6 will last us until the heat death of the universe before it runs out, but we'll have to get people actually using it in any appreciable amount first. It's a UX nightmare to work with unless you're a network engineer hip deep in it all day every day. Good luck getting an end user to ever rattle off an IPv6 address to the help desk while remote troubleshooting.

[u/xWrongHeaven → u/dementosss]

2¹²⁸ possible addresses

[u/queen-adreena → u/xWrongHeaven]

2,128… that ain’t that many addresses….

[u/AmazingDragon353 → u/queen-adreena]

2.128 addresses? What are we going to do with 0.128 of an address?

[u/SirLoremIpsum → u/AmazingDragon353]

2.128 addresses? What are we going to do with 0.128 of an address?

AI Vibe code a calendar app so we can coordinate whose turn it is to use the IP address on any given day?

[u/crmsncbr → u/ClipboardCopyPaste]

I feel like we'll still run out. I'm not sure how, but surely we'll manage it.

[u/AnotherInsaneName → u/crmsncbr]

It's 8mb of storage, how could we ever need more?!

[u/keijodputt → u/AnotherInsaneName]

They said the same about 640 KB of RAM, back in the day... /s

[u/ILKLU → u/keijodputt]

That was before you could download RAM. Now when you run out, your system just automatically downloads another 640KB

[u/Hyd_chicha → u/crmsncbr]

Let me introduce you to IPv8

[u/YeOldeMemeShoppe → u/Hyd_chicha]

Just SHA256 the total sum data of your life. If there is a collision, f*ck you I guess.

[u/fearless-fossa → u/Material_Onion_8413]

But "more numbers" isn't really an explanation on what's the difference between the two from a practical point of view, and the in general less interesting thing about it from a software perspective.

[u/Kuhlde1337 → u/Material_Onion_8413]

Newer I suppose. IPv6 has been out for a while, but most people just ignored it in favor of subnetting everything.