IP Address usage

[iWF-Jacob]

ARIN has been giving the run around to a bunch of VPS providers requesting IP allocations in recent months, making processes take weeks to complete, requesting full client information for all allocations (not just most recent -- not to mention the fact they wanted address, phone numbers, emails instead of just names). I've know of one provider who ARIN requested individual transaction information.

I believe I posted that a bit ago, but yes. Our last request needed to be accompanied by a beautiful spreadsheet of transaction numbers, which have to line up just right to that individuals' IPs...

For those providers that don't have an NDA on file with ARIN, I highly suggest you get one in sooner rather than later.

 

[SkylarM]

For those providers that don't have an NDA on file with ARIN, I highly suggest you get one in sooner rather than later.

You mean the NDA that states they aren't responsible for anything that happens with the information you provide?

 

[iWF-Jacob]

You mean the NDA that states they aren't responsible for anything that happens with the information you provide?

Yes and no, something is better than nothing though. This is the one I am referencing: https://www.arin.net/resources/agreements/nda.pdf 

 

[SkylarM]

Yes and no, something is better than nothing though. This is the one I am referencing: https://www.arin.net/resources/agreements/nda.pdf 

Yeah their NDA is pretty wishy washy.

 

[drmike]

You mean the NDA that states they aren't responsible for anything that happens with the information you provide?

That bullshit NDA at last check offers no disclosure liability of your customer data.

Unsure what ARIN may long be doing with such and don't like that irresponsible approach to things.

Also...

Many markets are springing up for IPv4 sales, leasing, rentals, etc.  Those late to the IP party or who didn't plan accordingly are going to find themselves at the mercy of their upstreams.  Upstreams that I should point out are increasingly targetting the same market as their colo/dedi rental customers - the VPS niche.

So, someone in the VPS world of the future is going to find many providers that are unpalatable since they'll be directly competing and where the IPs cost much more than today.

That will force those small businesses to find other arrangments.  Like those IP swap markets.

For the most part, IPv4 scarcity is a nerd-made problem and doesn't reflect actual IPv4 usage.

 

[Francisco]

Curious as to your viewpoint on this... In our experience ARIN is extremely policy driven. As long as you are meeting said policies, they cannot discriminate on the purpose of use. Be it, VPS, dedicated servers, cable, xDSL connections etc...

Right.

The way ARIN operates is that they don't trust new blood very much but the more space you have, the more

they trust you.

There is a fairly small provider that floats around the LE pricing and such that has probably 100k+ IP's

in their name and just got a /17 the other day, yet the DB leaks for one of their brands shows they were

< 1000 active VM's, total.

It's easy to visit some online 'census data generator' DB and populate your SWIP/justification

forms with it. I know for a fact that one company with 900k IP's was doing exactly that. Said

company has all of < 130 racks globally and yet... 900k IP's? No...

I guess they all luck out that ARIN doesn't make their SWIP database public. I'm pretty sure they have

a datafeed you can request access to. If someone went ahead and looked that over, they would find tons

of fake data.

Minus Alphared, I don't think ARIN is one to revoke space. If all of that space was false but is now

filled? Well... All they'd have to do is now send "proper" justification and things would be kosher.

I say wait to see what hoarders make big moves once this last /8 is dry. I expect movement out of

San Jose and a few other key points.

Francisco

 

[Francisco]

That will force those small businesses to find other arrangments.  Like those IP swap markets.

For the most part, IPv4 scarcity is a nerd-made problem and doesn't reflect actual IPv4 usage.

That's not going to easily happen.

Most VPS hosts aren't going to have that kind of floating capital to pay for it. Going rate

is like $10/IP on /20's and above. There aren't many VPS brands that are going to have $40,960

sitting around to invest in IP's alone.

You probably aren't going to find many banks that are going to give you a loan for something

that is imaginary. You might find some IT leasing groups, but I expect them to want to force

you into a lease on that space, and not a buy out.

As I said in other threads, you aren't going to see the market suddenly grind to a halt once

the last /8 runs out. What will happen, though, is companies are going to look into

how they can make whatever IP space they have last. While some DC's are getting into

cloud, the margins aren't great on that either when they could be renting out some big gear

on a simple /30, compared to the /25 they may need per 6U of space.

Francisco

 

[willie]

How do cloud hosts with hourly billing handle the issue of client identification?  For that matter, if I spin up a cloud instance, do some stuff with it, and spin it back down an hour or two later, do they re-use the IP for someone else's newly spun instance right away, or do they let it cool down for a while?

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

It's likely automated/randomized assignment - they'll have a large enough available pool that even if the IP was reusable immediately, the chances of it being reassigned again that soon are slim-to-none.

 

[willie]

Thanks... it's still something like a dynamic address though: does the host likely notify ARIN the minute I spin up the instance?  If not, does it likely notify once I've had the instance for a while, like a month?  Do justifications currently have to be updated every so often, or only when applying for new addresses?  Once there are no new addresses available I also wonder what will happen wrt existing addresses.

Fran is that $10/IP figure for non-legacy ARIN IP's?  So Akamai got a $40 MILLION (Dr. Evil voice) dollar asset by filling out some forms?  Wow!  And I think my old school has a legacy /8...

 

[mhosts]

As of right now, their public policy states the following:

4.2.4.1. Utilization percentage (80%)
ISPs must have efficiently utilized all previous allocations and at least 80% of their most recent allocation in order to receive additional space. This includes all space reassigned to their customers. Please note that until your prior utilization is verified to meet the 80% requirement, ARIN can neither process nor approve a request for additional addresses.

In the event that any ISP requests additional resources, ARIN is required to verify that you meet the 80% use requirement.

If what a lot of people are saying on this forum is true (that the amount of justification in order to be approved for additional resources is different to each provider for the sole reason as being discriminatory to the services they provide) that could have some pretty negative effects.

I know they look at past requests and timelines as part of their process (IE, if you requested an allocation before and predicted it would last x months, and now you're asking for more and it's been less than the original x months, they may ask why). But to go to the extent of asking for all personal information of users including banking transaction numbers... I really don't see the benefit of this other than potential privacy issues.

In fact, challenging the motive behind it would even be justified... They should come clean with their process as to what it takes to "prove" a provider is at 80% utilization. If everything is assigned as a /32 for example, and their check shows that there are no SWIP's, it doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have the utilization you're still following policy as it dictates you only need to SWIP greater than a /29... So it just seems that a lot of assumptions are made, and possibly some differences in service experience depending on the agent answering the ticket, which on a whole, shouldn't be. 

Especially now that they're down to the last /.8, imagine they get accused of giving out the last IP's according to bias and preferential treatment. Whole can of worms there. I guess overall, they're trying to bridge the gap between allocating to ISP's who are looking to try and abuse the last allocations solely for financial gain, which is understandable. Their policies make that pretty difficult to police however in it's current state.

 

[SkylarM]

Information is assumed to be maintained as arin can technically ask you for justification anytime they want. Most providers will organize their data at the time of request so it's not likely if you spin up a container for a day then cancel that you'd be in their customer data list for a new allocation the following month.

 

[sean]

We've recently had to increase IP prices for new orders (inevitable) but wouldn't dream of increasing it for existing services as I think most of our client base would get upset and leave! I know I would...

 

[zionvps]

Most providers are giving away ips for throwaway prices because they showed the need to ARIN and since they have to utilize 80% of the allocated ip or the block might be taken back, which they are afraid of.

 

[willie]

I'm creeped out by this ARIN database.  It seems like a sure thing that the NSA has got a copy of the database, giving them a mapping between IP's and user names for the whole IPv4 VPS user population among other things.  Of course they could get the info for specific addresses before, but it may well have been more hassle to not have it all in one place.  This lets them track what everyone is doing in real time.

How many hosts with ipv6 capability would be receptive to VPS requests saying "i don't need ipv4 and want to stay out of that database, please just give me an ipv6 and don't use my name for ARIN justification"?

 

[Francisco]

How do cloud hosts with hourly billing handle the issue of client identification?  For that matter, if I spin up a cloud instance, do some stuff with it, and spin it back down an hour or two later, do they re-use the IP for someone else's newly spun instance right away, or do they let it cool down for a while?

I think a lot of them mark an IP to an account with a cooldown of when it goes back to their reserve pool, that way spammers can't burn up a /20 in a matter of days. Digitalocean had a real spam issue when they originally opened and had to put something like this in place I think.

I'm sure there are many others with the same.

Francisco

 

[GelHost]

Just to say the IP in US are counted pretty cheap to say the least.

 

[matteob]

Most provider that do it (except some few big companies) that give ips like candy attract lot abuser and spammer and in few months most ip block will be included in spam lists. This will discourage legitimate customers to buy from them and some companies will be forced to be an "ecatel clone" and others will do out of business. 

Giving huge amount of  IPS is very risky business plan... but i think that most companies are in serious economic difficulties and need to scrape the bottom of the barrel to stay in business,others are probably not skilled competitors and will not remain on the scene for a long time.

 

[nunim]

I'm not involved at this level of business, but I've always wondered about Legacy allocations, are they able to be leased out or are there rules prohibiting this?

If I was Ford, or HP, IBM, Xerox, etc.. seems like there's a lot of money to be made and it would make IPs a whole lot less scarce when the final /8 is depleted.

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

ARIN can't actually touch the legacy IP space.  Otherwise they would've reclaimed a LOT of that by now.

The aforementioned companies are already worth billions, and the turnover from leasing IPs isn't really enough to be of interest.  From the IBM/Lenovo perspective - "Would you rather deal with hundreds of high-value contracts, or have to try and manage hundreds of thousands of small ones?"