[ih] When did "32" bits for IP register as "not enough"?

[Dave Taht]

Ross Callon <rwcallon at gmail.com> writes:

> There was some mumbling about 32 bits not being enough as early as
> 1980. In 1980 there was the beginning of the effort that became CLNP.
> The first related proposal came out of BBN and NBS (National Bureau of
> Standards, which is now called NIST) in 1980 and proposed that what
> became CLNP should be just IPv4 with 64 bit addresses and the source
> quench removed, and nothing else changed other than the version. At
> the time BBN had a contract with NBS. This proposal was taken into
> ANSI bound in bright orange cover paper, which caused it to be
> unofficially named the “pumpkin paper”.

Hah. Even though I worked on the ISO stuff stuff I cannot remember the
final address size. 

> Around the same time I
> privately mentioned to Vint that instead of going from an 8 bit
> network number plus a 24 bit subnet address to class A,B,C addresses,
> instead they should go to 64 bits. He said this would be too
> disruptive. I didn’t find out until the ROAD meetings many years later
> that someone else, I think probably Bob Hinden, had told Vint the same
> thing at about the same time. 
>
> Of course, at the time I had absolutely no idea how to get anyone to
> agree with this change, and I was unaware that ANSI and ISO would be
> unable to get anyone to follow their standards. 
>
> I recall the ROAD group as occurring while I was still at BBN, which I
> left in 1988. As such the group must have met no later than 1988. NAT
> was discussed. I thought that Van Jacobsen brought the idea into the
> ROAD group although Paul Francis was also participating, and there was
> someone else whose name escapes me (possibly Vince Fuller) who was
> also proposing NAT, and of course this doesn’t say whose idea it was
> originally. 

It sounds like the official formation of ROAD long followed an
unofficial group thinking about the same stuff.

ROAD itself is fascinating, in that it was a closed group (contrary to
ietf processes) and it achieved results.

> I think of CIDR as having two parts. One was just getting away from
> the class A, B, C restrictions. I don’t know where this came from. The
> other was assigning addresses topologically. I think that the
> topological part came later than the “no A,B,C” part. 

CIDR (in these two parts) and NAT "saved the internet". Or I guess,
in some views, totally pushed back the urgency for ipv6.

The ROAD not taken.

> Bob Hinden might remember some of this. 
>
> Ross
>
>     On Feb 13, 2019, at 5:01 PM, Noel Chiappa
>     <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>     
>     
>         From: Craig Partridge
>         
>
>     NAT was a product of the ROAD (Routing and Addressing) working
>         group
>         
>
>     Err, I don't think so. AFAICR, the IETF stuck its head in the sand
>     for a long
>     time over NAT. (Which definitely has its downsides...)
>     
>         I recall, NAT was Van Jacobson's idea
>         
>
>     He and Paul Francis/Tsuchiya independently invented it, I think? I
>     first heard
>     about it from Van at the IAB 'addressing/routing retreat', or
>     whatever that
>     meeting was called.
>     
>         CIDR, I think, was Jeff Mogul's idea.
>         
>
>     I don't think so; I'm pretty sure Jeff was out of the IETF world
>     by then. Maybe
>     you're thinking of his earlier document on subnetting a la MIT?
>     
>     CIDR came out of the ROAD meetings, but I don't know if it was any
>     specific
>     person's? Also, like I said, it was in mechanism identical to
>     Roki's
>     supernetting thing (in fact, the early RFC's on it call it
>     'supernetting', not
>     CIDR), although he had proposed it for a totally different
>     reason/need (IIRC,
>     he wanted a host on an X.25 VAN to be able to send packet to a
>     host on a
>     different VAN, without going through a router).
>     
>     Noel
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