RFC 1631: The IP Network Address Translator (NAT)
datatracker.ietf.org
This memo proposes another short-term solution, address reuse, that complements CIDR or even makes it unnecessary. The address reuse solution is to place Network Address Translators (NAT) at the borders of stub domains. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

From the conclusion:

NAT may be a good short term solution to the address depletion and scaling problems. This is because it requires very few changes and can be installed incrementally. NAT has several negative characteristics that make it inappropriate as a long term solution, and may make it inappropriate even as a short term solution. Only implementation and experimentation will determine its appropriateness.

  • blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.uk
    155·
    6 months ago

    A few people need to get off their horses and come up with and agree to IPv4². It’s exactly the same as IPv4 except there’s 2 more octets of address space - 48bits for addresses*. Job done. You’d see wide spread adoption in under 2 years and then we can forget about it all and move on with our lives safe from the clutches of IPv6.

    I don’t give a crap that doesn’t neatly fit into 32 or 64 bit architectures. It’s more than doable at plenty fast speed and it keeps everything manageable.

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
      17·
      6 months ago

      And what would be the advantage? It wouldn’t be routable through legacy systems, and you’d run out of addresses in a couple of years again.

    • frezik@midwest.social
      4·
      6 months ago

      If we rolled back the clock to 1998 or so, that’d probably be worthwhile. At this point, everything is set for IPv6, and we just need to do it.