Can OpenWrt Route 240.0.0.0/4?

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
15

Hi, Jeff:

  1. "tunneling scheme":

Honestly, I do not classify the EzIP scheme as anything significant enough worth being given a fancy name like this. EzIP is just a specific use of the Option Word within the RFC791 design, already used by various applications, at least one RFC and one Draft for address improvements. EzIP is just one specific case that happens to touch a rather sensitive topic.

  1. "IPv6 is well on the way to adoption .... ":

I am not surprised that you bring up this statistics. A simple keyword search on Google normally brings this up as the first hit. This is part of the hidden push for IPv6. I wonder if you noticed a subtle phrase at the end of the description " users that access Google over IPv6 "? Google is very careful with consequences of legal implications.

  1. I was no exception. When I was studying this topic, I came upon this initially. It was through a tip from a senior Internet staff that led me to the AMS-IX statistics which he stated clearly that it was one of a few places that such information was accessible. With regulate update of about every 15 minutes continuously for the past few years since I started monitoring it, I will be hard pressed to trust another data, unless you can show me the diligence.

  2. By the way, if you trace the history back, this ongoing set of stats started at least back to 2012 when it was presented to the "IPv6 Day". It is rather serious effort, as far as I could tell.

https://ripe65.ripe.net/presentations/122-ams-ix_ipv6_day_2012.pdf

Abe (2018-10-02 15:43)

16

Hi, lleachii:

  1. "I wasn't aware that the ITEF was looking ... ":

Please try following the events related to IETF SunSet4 WG Conclusion. You will find that there was a setup to watch for future IPv4 topics, "just in case". Plus, there was an article about whether to call IPv4 "Historical" that touched the regret of IETF neglecting NAT development. Putting these together, I hope that you can see the unusual events that may be going on. If you can not figure the above out, I will be glad to supply you the URLs.

  1. " No one [here] ":

I was not referring to colleagues here, because I hinted that EzIP is being reviewed by quite a few parties. Bing sensitive, I can not disclose their identities at this juncture. We have to discuss on its own merits as I could help you to see them.

  1. "You must get the blessing of the IANA.. ":

Not if I can find a never existed frontier cyberspace to implement the EzIP scheme.

  1. " The paper appears to be about 22 months old. ... ":

Where did you decipher this information from? The latest version of the Draft as I referred to from this forum was posted in 2018 June.

  1. " What does marketing have to do with a IPv4 exhaustion technology!?!? ":

You are wrapping around the IPv6 issue to EzIP. It is getting confusing.

  1. "Wouldn't ISPs have to implement EZIP too ... ":

In a Kosher sense, yes. In practice, no. This is because anyone can start a RAN from an IPv4 address to begin a regional Internet-like service in parallel / overlap the existing global Internet.

  1. " ... I'm not quite understanding how you maintain an end-to-end principle? ":

Simply look at SPR as a CG-NAT with bypassing plain router path setup for packets with EzIP header, then you have end-to-end connectivity.

  1. " ... port exhaustion at the Public Border??? .... ":

I am not sure what specific Internet element that you are referring to. But, with so many IPv4 addresses becoming spares due to the expansion of assignable (semi-) public addresses, Do we need to worry about this subject? Won't it become moot issue?

  1. "It's also difficult to hold discussion when you refer to this technology as if it is already released and ubiquitous. ":

Sorry about the grammar issue. I believe that in writing specification, or similar, it is preferred to write it in present tense. Otherwise, it will be awkward in the future to read something already working for a long time. Or, all the documentations have to be re-written or tense adjusted at certain point of time. If it helps, please just treat any present tense of every sentence as future tense when you read it. Thanks.

  1. " ... please refrain from signing posts. ... ":

As an old timer, I believe attempting to stay anonymous or private is another odd behavior these days from being upfront to others in the past. However, I am not going to start a distracting debate on this. I will try not to sign off on this forum and see what happens.

17

Hi, dlakelan:

  1. " ... OpenWRT and any Linux based system can be told to route your desired netblock ... ":

Thanks for the clarification. But, you still did not address my basic dumb question. That is, is 240.0.0.0/4 inherently routable in OpenWRT as the three common private network blocks? Do I need to specifically specify it?

  1. " The merits of your proposal should be discussed elsewhere. It's just not relevant to OpenWRT ":

Basically, I agree. Well, if I could get a straight answer without being looked upon as crazy, I would do so. This was actually how I started this thread. I condensed the EzIP work to the simplest metaphor that I can come up with after learned from the reactions on quite a few fora. Look what is happening. Some colleague wants to know what is going on behind the EzIP. It would be impolite to not respond such valid inquiry.

18

:open_mouth:

Each IP uses about 65,000 TCP and UDP ports, if you alter either the IP/port of the SRC or DST, you have broken the end-to-end principle.

So, no, it won't become moot. That's the concept of the end-to-end principle; and why there's IPv4 exhaustion.

Yes, we need to worry. If we didn't, why are you discussing your EzIP???
Just use the "spares."

I think this question has been answered multiple times. OpenWrt doesn't have a concept of "private," they're just IP addresses. You have to specify all IP blocks, so this question is confusing.

You issue is with devices in this "new found cyberspace" you're refering to. But, I assume this "space" will be controlled by ISP routers, they need to be able to route 240.0.0.0/4 as well.

Also, you don't have to make a reply to each person.

:+1:

This is no longer related to if it works with OpenWrt.

19

Hi, lleachii:

  1. "I have successfully routed all valid CIDR ranges I've tested on an OpenWrt router.":

I spotted this earlier response from you. Since the 240.0.0.0/4 block was "condemned" for a long time, it must be outside of the "valid CIDR ranges". So, you have not tested the netblock that I am interested in. Correct?

20

@lleachii is correct, there is nothing special within the kernel about this address range, it's treated like every address range. To be sure I just created a dummy device and gave it 240.0.0.1/4 as an address and then pinged it... it worked fine on my linux desktop machine. At this point I think you need to just get yourself a device and install OpenWRT on it and start playing with it. Just give one of your interfaces a 240.0.0.1 or similar address in the configs and see what happens. I don't anticipate any problems when all devices are under your control.

21

I just did. ACTUALLY, IT DOESNT WORK:

Screenshot%20from%202018-10-02%2017-08-40

Nor is ping permitted to this device from another:

root@OpenWrt:~# ping 240.0.0.1
PING 240.0.0.1 (240.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: No error information
22

Does it not work because OpenWRT won't initialize the devices correctly (due to restrictions in the config file stuff) or because the devices are initialized correctly but the kernel prevents it from working?

If you manually set up the device with "ip" does it work?

1 Like
23

Hi, lleachii:

  1. "Each IP uses about 65,000 TCP and UDP ports, if you alter either the IP/port of the SRC or DST, you have broken the end-to-end principle.":

If you are referring to this, my answer is No. SPR does not alter TCP / UDP port numbers as shown by the examples in the EzIP Draft Appendices.

  1. "End-to-end principle":

I came from the old telephony discipline where this principle was even more carefully observed than in the Internet, because the analog signals were more prone to degradation. So, I believe that EzIP has seriously carried such disciplines on.

  1. "But, I assume this "space" will be controlled by ISP routers, they need to be able to route 240.0.0.0/4 as well. ":

No for sure. The RAN as I described looks like a private network to the ISP (Internet), because it appears like a few IoTs tethering off a mobile phone on one IPv4 address. I hope you agree that the ISP has not much to say about those IoTs in such configurations. Then, when the number of these IoTs becomes huge (256M), the ISPs still should not have anything to do about how they are interconnected. But, this RAN can physically cover a lot of area overlapping the existing territories of the ISP. Essentially, the current Internet will be "marginalized" to only serve traffic between RANs, This is very much analogous to how electric utility grid providing the backup to islands of renewable energy generated by businesses and homes.

24

Hi, Colleagues:

Great! I am glad that you are getting into the actual test with your own equipment.

It seems that dlakelan says that it works while lleachii is getting no.

Allow me staying on the sideline to monitor your interactions. When your reach a definitive approach, I should dive into trying your recommendation.

Thanks a lot.

1 Like
25

it works at the kernel level. I added 240.0.0.1/4 to my ethernet device and it tries to ping (but finds nothing, because there is no other device on that network to respond). I can ping 240.0.0.1 since it's local. This is all on a desktop linux machine running Debian and kernel 4.16.0 and adding the addresses as "ip addr add 240.0.0.1/4 dev eno1" and "ping 240.0.0.2" (arp doesn't work because this device doesn't exist) or "ping 240.0.0.1" (works fine, since it's a local address) i'm using "iputils-ping" for pinging.

EDIT: Behavior is the same when I log into an OpenWRT router and manually add a 240.0.0.1/4 address using ip. I am not willing to reconfigure my in-use access points etc. and I don't have a test device to test it on, but if @lleachii is seeing some other behavior it's probably due to some UCI config checking and refusing that address range rather than a fundamental problem in the kernel or other binaries.

1 Like
26

Why don't you spend $20 and buy a device yourself?

Long ago you were told that OpenWrt ran a Linux kernel, along with how to modify that kernel and standard Linux-based OS networking utilities.

If you (signed as "VP of Engineering") and your "seasoned IT professionals" can't configure a basic Linux-based OS to test, then I am going to consider this all link and keyword spam in an attempt to promote your commercial efforts.

Edit:

That your firm's website basically only includes 2001, 2002 press releases, your firm's "about" page provides a Sunnyvale location (not Milpitas), and you have no viable physical products listed, and that the technology products listed link to broken pages (404 on the page itself, as well as within your document handler) on your firm's website adds to the belief that that this is little more than marketing or SEO attempts, attempting to leverage the high reputation of the OpenWrt domain.

Edit:

Funny, Manta lists Abraham T Chen as the Chief Executive Officer of your firm, not the "VP of Engineering". Your own words, "my two coauthors" on the draft pretty clearly identify that name with you.

Edit:

Even more interesting, in the metadata of your company's products page is "[your company] is a systems engineering company specializing in voice and data networking technologies and system architectures. [your company] licenses intellectual properties for products that enhance consumer's networking experiences"

So, you don't really build anything, do you?

2 Likes
28

If the end-to-end principle is never broken, I misunderstand the need for your EzIP technology.

   a new category named Semi-Public Router (SPR). By inserting an SPR
   between an ER and a private premises that it serves, each publicly
   assignable address is expanded by 256M fold.
  • How do you do so, without breaking the end-to-end principal?

You examples never show how:

  • the packet returns to the unmodified host from a downstream EzIP enabled server

Assume - I'm a customer in your EzIP "cyberspace" - trying to reach standard Global IPs:

  • How do I run a standard webserver on port 80 when there are 256M others running webservers on the same Public IP "NATed" to 240.xxx.xxx.y IP at TCP 80 (EXPLAIN ONLY USING LAYER 3 OF THE OSI MODEL)!?!?
  • In the inverse...how does a client running a protocol requiring a TCP or UDP packet be sent with SRC port x - enter and exit your SPR to the Global Internet if that TCP port is in use? (assume all clients are trying to reach the same Global IP using the same protocol/port combination)

by manually making the selection from the main web server.

  • This is at least a Layer 7 function, why does this protocol break the OSI and DARPA network models???
  • This is solved in large web operations all the time, with Private IP networking and proxy servers

@OugCPC, all the best in your endeavor!

1 Like
29

As if there wasn't enough already, the address given for the OP's "company" is a UPS Store in a shopping center.

Yes, the storefronts are individually numbered, check "Nail Nook, Milpitas", for example.

30

@jeff, I wondered how they came to be in the same place as:

31

Condemned!?!?

I must indulge...I missed that...I really think you need to read the RFCs, starting with:

eventually you wil get to: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1112

You will find:

4. HOST GROUP ADDRESSES Host groups are identified by class D IP addresses, i.e., those with "1110" as their high-order four bits. Class E IP addresses, i.e., those with "1111" as their high-order four bits, are reserved for future addressing modes. In Internet standard "dotted decimal" notation, host group addresses range from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255. The address 224.0.0.0 is guaranteed not to be assigned to any group, and 224.0.0.1 is assigned to the permanent group of all IP hosts (including gateways). This is used to address all multicast hosts on the directly connected network. There is no multicast address (or any other IP address) for all hosts on the total Internet. The addresses of other well-known, permanent groups are to be published in "Assigned Numbers".

You will then eventually find:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3232 which tells you how to find the current publication of "Assigned Numbers."

You then find yourself BACK HERE: https://www.iana.org/assignments/iana-ipv4-special-registry/iana-ipv4-special-registry.xhtml

I was very serious when I said:

:thinking: Do you wonder why you haven't been issued a number???

Understatement. You have something that is blatantly false in your draft!

   7. IANA Considerations

   This draft does not create a new registry nor does it register any
   values in existing registries; no IANA action is required.
1 Like
32

@OugCPC ...you are aware that the IETF mostly controls the RFCs...with the ISOC...which I'm a member...???:

The IETF is overseen by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), which oversees its external relationships, and relations with the RFC Editor.[6] The IAB is also jointly responsible for the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC), which oversees the IETF Administrative Support Activity(IASA), which provides logistical, etc. support for the IETF. The IAB also manages the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), with which the IETF has a number of cross-group relations.

See:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Engineering_Task_Force#Organization

EDIT: All peoples can become a member of the ISOC https://www.internetsociety.org/become-a-member/

33

Hi, Jeff:

  1. " Why don't you spend $20 and buy a device yourself? ":

Now we are talking basics. My dumb question should have been

A. "What lowest cost retail router(s) that you could recommend that would route the 240.0.0.0/4 netblock?

B. To make the result available to the largest possible group of dummies, could you correlate your recommendation to the offering from two lowest cost CE outlets that we know of?

https://www.frys.com/

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/

  1. "your firm... ":

This is getting interesting. I am learning the culture of this forum, because certain member seems to push anonymity. Yet, you are now digging into our company's details. To clear the subject once for all so that we can focus on the task on hand, Avinta was a SOHO product manufacturer. You should find a product called VN100 / DP100 with sufficient information to tell you what it is. (By the way, we stopped making it quite sometime ago because the price/cost ratio. But, we continue to get calls for it. Some customers even came back to ask for more. .... ) We then evolved into an international R&D organization, maintaining the registration in California, USA. What you found is our mailing address. Our main efforts in recent years led to the EzIP proposal. The other information that you read were accumulated there for various past situations. It will be wasteful for me to go through the details.

34

Shame...I really want to know why:

  • A company in Milpitas
  • Which is listed on a draft RFC
  • Proposes an IPv4 exhaustion technology other than CGN or;
  • IPv4's replacement, IPv6
  • Deflects all comments as: "marketing" IPv6, etc...
  • Why this person seem to not understand the end-to-end principle
  • And then gets quite despondent
  • And doesn't seem to understand he filed an RFC, and just received "Comments"

:confused:

35

Hi, lleachii:

  1. "How do you do so, without breaking the end-to-end principal? ":

The SPR is a plain inline router that provides clear channel for either direction of a session setup request.

  1. " You examples never show how: the packet returns to the unmodified host from a downstream EzIP enabled server ":

It is explained in Appendix A. 3. that the initiating IoT determines which mode of operation that SPR will provide. If it does not send out a packet with EzIP header, everything (including those EzIP-capable) in the loop uses IP header.