Catalog of IPv4 literals

[Cameron Byrne <cb.list6@gmail.com>]

Folks,

It has been suggest several times to me that IPv4 literals be
cataloged in a central location so that those working to develop
IPv6-only networks and services can know the impact of IPv4 addresses
that are hard-coded into content and protocols.  So, i created this
Google Groups http://groups.google.com/group/ipv4literals and provided
an example template for reporting found IPv4 literals.  Right now, the
threat of IPv4 literals on IPv6-only networks is small from the
network operator perspective, it is not a blocking issue.  But, for
the content owners who knowingly or unknowingly have IPv4 literals as
part of their service, this is major breakage.  That said, they have a
right to know how their service will break so that they can accept the
risk of having their content unavailable on major networks or work to
use DNS names that will function correctly.  Extra bonus points if
they resolve this issue of inter-operating with IPv6-only networks by
producing native IPv6 content!

In my own efforts, i have found content owners very happy to receive
this proactive notification.  Explicitly, myspace and Yahoo! have been
very good partners in finding and resolving issues of this nature and
removing IPv4 literals from their production services.  Also, over the
course of my work I have seen Hulu.com independently move to using DNS
names.  The issue is most commonly found with streaming services on
the Internet, especially ones involving CDNs.


Best regards,

Cameron