RFC 1380 (rfc1380) - Page 2 of 22
IESG Deliberations on Routing and Addressing
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1380 ROAD November 1992
4. SETTING DIRECTIONS FOR THE IETF............................... 10
4.1 The Need For Interim Solutions............................... 10
4.2 The Proposed Phases.......................................... 10
4.3 A Solution For Routing Table Explosion -- CIDR............... 12
4.4 Regarding "IP Address Exhaustion"............................ 13
4.5 Milestones And Timetable For Making a Recommendation for
"Bigger Internet Addresses".................................. 14
5. SUMMARY....................................................... 15
Appendix A. FOR MORE INFORMATION................................. 16
Appendix B. INFORMATION AND SELECTION CRITERIA FOR "BIGGER
INTERNET ADDRESSES".................................. 16
Appendix C. BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................... 20
Security Considerations.......................................... 21
Authors' Addresses............................................... 22
1. INTRODUCTION
It seems unlikely that the designers of IP ever imagined at the time
what phenomenal success the Internet would achieve. Internet
connections were initially intended primarily for mainframe computers
at sites performing DARPA-sponsored research. Now, of course, the
Internet has extended its reach to the desktop and is beginning to
extend into the home. No longer the exclusive purview of pure R&D
establishments, the Internet has become well entrenched in parts of
the corporate world and is beginning to make inroads into secondary
and even primary schools. While once it was an almost exclusively
U.S. phenomenon, the Internet now extends to every continent and
within a few years may well include network connections in every
country.
Over the past couple of years, we have seen increasingly strong
indications that all of this success will stress the limits of IP
unless appropriate corrective actions are taken. The supply of
unallocated Class B network numbers is rapidly dwindling, and the
amount of routing information now carried in the Internet is
increasingly taxing the abilities of both the routers and the people
who have to manage them. Somewhat longer-term, it is possible that
we will run out of host addresses or network numbers altogether.
While these problems could be avoided by attempting to restrict the
growth of the Internet, most people would prefer solutions that allow
growth to continue. Fortunately, it appears that such solutions are
possible, and that, in fact, our biggest problem is having too many
possible solutions rather than too few.
This memo provides a preliminary report of IESG deliberations on how
routing and addressing issues can be pursued in the IAB/IETF.
Gross & Almquist