Why are ipv4 addresses not enough?
Good Morning,
I wanted to do some private research on the topic of IP addresses, but I don't quite understand one thing. As I understand it, they plan to switch to IPv6 at some point, because the nearly 4 billion possible addresses of IPv4 will eventually no longer be sufficient. I'll quote what I read: "Because the internet is a huge network, and there are now significantly more than 4 billion devices connected to it." (heise.de)
I also watched several YouTube videos about it and they said things like every device has an IP address, like cell phones, smartwatches, smart TVs, etc.
As far as I understand it, there are private and public IPs, public ones for example for servers or routers, but I understand that devices for end users, such as cell phones, etc., only have variable IP addresses because the public one is created by the router and the private one can vary in each network.
So my question is why it's said that every device will be assigned a unique IP address, which will reduce the 4 billion address possibilities, when these are actually just private IP addresses that can exist in duplicate. My question is: Does every device now have a unique IP address, or can this always vary? And is it really the fault of all consumer devices that IPv4 addresses are becoming scarce?
Nevertheless, I have shared a little bit of my thoughts so that you can point out any errors in thinking or misunderstandings.
Thank you in advance for reading this long text and answering my half-knowledge.
Greetings 🙂
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Even if all devices in your home WiFi use a private IP, some of them may have another in mobile.
Then, of course, the 4 billion private areas are also included, as well as multicast and other benefits for special uses.
In addition, there is the problem of misallocation. In the past, there were unnecessarily large blocks left to users.
The IPv6 addresses have been available for many years. IPv4 is virtually the traditional standard. Both are valid in principle. IPv4 is primarily used for classic online content (websites).
For server providers, you can still choose as a customer whether only IPv4 addresses can access the content or also IPv6 variants.
In principle, IPv4 addresses are typical for surfing living beings in the network; the IPv6 addresses are used, for example, predominantly in so-called SMART devices or in corresponding networks.
In the IPv4 area, some address areas are still blocked and are not generally released for use. There is also air for further awards.
IPv4 addresses are more clear in the readability for people.
Right, most devices have private IP addresses.
But, for private IP addresses a certain part of the IP addresses is already blocked.
Then you have the subnetting, which means that various IP addresses can not be used or sometimes simply broken.
One of the biggest problems comes from the beginning, when everyone thought that 4 billion addresses are almost infinite and then they were distributed generously. Thus, many universities, larger companies, etc. have been assigned huge address blocks, from which they still use only a small part and the rest is just broke.
No, not every device has its own public IPv4 address.
In practice, devices share an IPv4 address by NAT.
At NAT, a router manages the traffic that is sent to the public IP when you build a connection to eg good question and then sends good data back to the public IP, the router must of course send you the answer to the private IP. Previously, this happened in your local network, meanwhile it is standard for Internet providers as private customers share a common public IP.
And clearly, internally in such networks there are certain address areas that are only valid in this network, in another private network these addresses may also be assigned.
NAT, however, is not a perfect solution, it makes direct communication of terminals in various networks more difficult, if you want to accept incoming connections, you have to add an exception (which does not happen if NAT already happens with your internet provider) and so on. That is, it does not solve the problem with servers, for example.
IPv6 solves this problem by having many more addresses. Then each device really has its own address and you don't need NAT theoretically. Here you will have a prefix that indicates which network your device belongs to (quasi like a public IP) and then a part of the device says exactly from this network.
Which is why we are currently arriving at 4billion. Understand IPv4 addresses?
Because these are variable addresses. In other words, you get an IP address from your provider when you dial into the Internet (via IPv4). If you go offline, your IP address will be assigned to the next customers. The provider has a pool of IP addresses, which he repeatedly assigns as soon as one of his customers chooses to the internet.
However, such a public (variable) IP address only receives the directly connected terminals or gateways.
A completely theoretical example – simple and folk German explains:
A small company has a total of 10 PCs on the Internet. More precisely, these 10 PCs hang on the same router. The router is therefore the gateway with the only public IP address – although 10 PC's communicate online via this router. To this end, the router distributes internal IP addresses to the 10 PCs, but they do not come into direct contact with the Internet. All data that go out of the company or come into the company are "managed" by the router. For the 10 PCs, only one public IP address is occupied!
Now you only have to count all gateways in this world and multiply with the number of possible devices to be coupled, then you can calculate how many terminals with the 4 billion. IP addresses can theoretically be "provided". These are a lot (My small 5G router can manage up to 32 devices simultaneously)
…this has happened long ago. A real private IPv4 address is more difficult to get in Germany for a private customer (new customers).
So each device has a unique assigned public IP address? And then it is not used in a Wi-Fi network because there the router regulates everything.
Lg
If you still have an IPv4, then the router (on the interface "in the direction of the Internet") and that translates it into the local home network, which is made up of one of the networks defined in the RFCs, the ones for the private (ie "not routed on the Internet"). used, comes. Only because of this, IPv4 has reached so long (+ change to CIDR)
I'm trying to get some light in the dark. IP addresses are something like the postal address for you for networkable devices, ie the communication is always handled via the IP. The websites you enter as text in the internet browser are also translated by DNS servers into these IP addresses. Private IPs play only a minor role in address shortages, as only a few address areas are reserved that cannot be used publicly by ISPs and others. Within your network, your router delivers addresses from the private areas reserved for this purpose, so these private addresses are million times at the same time as they are not public. This can be imagined as a comparison that you get your mail completely into the mailbox (router) and that are distributed from there into various mail baskets (equipments with private IP addresses behind your router).
The public addresses, on the other hand, are only available once (just like your postal address), otherwise a delivery of the data packets would not be possible.
It is even more complicated, among other things because ISP often put its customers in a private network (Provider-NAT) because of its low address availability, but this should be understandable for the first time.
Look at the structure of this number, and you'll only see it at last. And right here we are now, all numbers or IP are forgiven – so easy. The whole thing is still running with the trick that you create sub-domains and has a new pool of numbers there. Otherwise, our Internet would not be possible. At least in my knowledge. Greetings
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Address shortage
There are a lot more devices connected directly to the Internet, so you think. Today every car, every station display board, every beverage machine, every surveillance camera and much more is connected directly to the internet.
You can continue the list forever, only when you look around in a city: advertising boards, traffic lights, lighting, sensors and measuring instruments, loudspeakers,…
most of the devices should have private IP addresses.
But many aren't. Cars not at all. Everything that doesn't move.
In times of 5G, IoT devices are more and more directly on the Internet.
What is this about?
Oh, my God. Are you sure you're a German opponent of smart meters, huh?
with a private address and CGNAT.
Your computer comes to the Internet with a private IP address because the router does the NAT. In the mobile network, it stops the provider.
Of course bad luck, because then the car would be accessible directly from the internet and therefore vulnerable. And you don't want to have that in a car at all!
Sura. Cars are on the Internet today. No, it's not a security disaster.
That's bullshit. Go to whoer.net with your mobile phone, see your public IP. No matter what band. How else is this thing on the Internet??
Cars with public IP addresses?? Really? that would be a security disaster. In mobile networks, no public IP addresses are actually assigned, not even to business customers. At least up to 4G it was like that.