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IP Addresses
trycatchthis
Member
I have been curious about IP addresses for a while. And I have a few questions.
I understand subnetting and the basics of routing but they are a few gaps in my practical knowledge.
[IPv4]
How does a hosting provider get an IPv4 address? [I know IPv4 is exhausted but I think there me some kind of after market for IPv4]
Can an individual get an IPv4 address or only a company/organization?
Can you sell IPv4 addresses?
How much does it cost to get an IPv4 address, is this a one off fee or is this yearly/monthly?
[IPv6]
How does a hosting provider get an IPv6 address?
Can an individual get an IPv6 address or only a company/organization?
Can you sell IPv6 addresses?
How much does it cost to get an IPv6 address, is this a one off fee or is this yearly/monthly?
[Both IPv4 and IPv6]
How is an IP address associated with a physical machine on the public internet.
Can you buy your own IP address and tell your hosting provider I want to use this address instead of the ones they give you? Is this difficult, what would be involved?
May have some follow up questions based on your responses.
Thanks in advance.
Comments
You are correct, there is a large "after-market" for IPv4, auctions for larger prefixes aren't too uncommon. Some RIRs (APNIC comes to mind) still have some free space and are allocating to their members. IPv6 is widely available.
In theory - yes, an individual can have their own IPs, I know many people who do. For IPv4 it's unlikely somebody will spend that money though and probably stick to keeping it for their business interests.
The cost for IPv6 is usually fairly low, depends on where you get them from and I believe that rental of that space is uncommon. IPv4 can vary greatly depending on the size of the space and if you are purchasing or renting. This thread will give a bit of a better picture of what is available.
As far as using your own IPs with another provider - you can do that providing they support it, there are multiple ways of going about this though.
To get the IP address "associated" with a physical machine on the public internet, you will need to have traffic routed to it. You typically do it using BGP announcements, which usually requires a block of /24 for IPv4 and /48 for IPv6. To participate in BGP, you will need a ASN and configure a BGP session using a hardware router or software based router such as bird or frr. If you do own an ASN, you can do so with some providers which will announce the IP for you instead (e.g. Vultr) and have them routed to you.
For IPv6, it is possible to get an /48 assignment from https://tunnelbroker.net/ or https://tunnelbroker.ch/ which can provide a sit tunnel for free.
For IPv4, I don't know of free services which provide IPv4 for free. If you are looking for a single IPv4, there are providers out there which offers routed single IPv4 (at cost; usually sold as VPN with static IP address), or you can setup your own tunnel using VPS.
Thanks the both of you I'm getting a little closer to the answers.
It sounds like you need an ASN in order to manage your own IP address [outside of renting one from a provider].
How hard is is to get an ASN and what are the requirements. [Can an individual get one, does it need to be a company or other organization, do you need to pay monthly/yearly or is there a one off fee or is it Free? ]
Please note I am trying to have control of the IP and ASN outside of any hosting provider, straight from the agency that assigns them who ever those may be.
I got an ASN from vmhaus (before they gone ooof) on APNIC. For APNIC, you have to contact the hosting provider to edit details for the ASN. However, afaik you can have direct access to the management panel if you go with RIPE ASNs and IPs. That can cost you 1400EUR/year + 2000EUR signup fee as per this if you go directly with RIPE, and usually seems to be around 50 USD ish (per year)
Not hijacking from OP... any providers offering ASN in ARIN for individuals?
Also, any reputed IPv4 market places to check for small assignments?
For IPv4, I don't think you can go lower than a /24 if you're doing BGP. For non-BGP, the traffic will have to traverse from the upstream to your end, so unless your node and the upstream are close, latency could become an issue.
For RIPE, you can sign up an account with them and manage your own records (provided your upstream LIR delegates control to you). ARIN will also allow inetnum and routes to be updated by end-user with IP allocations. RIPE has a website with pretty good learning resources: https://academy.ripe.net/
From what I know, you can sign up as an individual, but you need to be in the region and you need to justify why you need the resources and how they will be deployed. It's probably easier to just register a company for that purpose. Cost-wise, if you meet the requirements, it's probably cheaper than what some providers are selling IPv4 for.
[1] https://www.ripe.net/participate/member-support/payment
[2] https://www.arin.net/resources/fees/fee_schedule/#annual
[3] https://www.apnic.net/get-ip/apnic-membership/how-much-does-it-cost/
The smallest possible assignments are /24-blocks due to limitations with BGP. Those are about ~6400$ per block (and thus about 25$ per IP address), but you will need to become a LIR (such as through RIPE NCC membership) to be able to hold any PA-blocks. If you only need one block, you are usually better of renting one from a LIR.
But, if you‘re still convinced you would want to buy a /24-block, checkout Hilcos auction and broker service: https://auctions.ipv4.global/
Do note that the RIPE NCC still hands a single /24 to members who have not had their last allocation made to them. You do not have to resort to brokers/aftermarket, if all you need is a single /24 with the RIPE NCC. You might want to check the leasing offerings by the awesome @Admiral_Awesome : https://go.prager-it.com/cart.php.
You do not need to have a company to register with the RIPE NCC. As a matter of fact, the RIPE NCC somehow didn't acknowledge my company at first - meaning I registered as my natural person. No further hassle or questions asked.
Some things I always wondered:
Can you run your own ASN from home over a fiber or DSL connection?
When you distribute some Lennix isos or start supporting communism in other more nefarious ways what will happen if you announce your IP's from some provider?
Will they still kick you or will they just forward any complains to you?
An ASN isn‘t something you just run like an Apache2 or Postfix server. An ASN (Autonomous System Number) is a globally unique identifier for an AS (Autonomous System) which is necessary to identify your system against other AS. Thus, a ASN only comes in handy if you use it to peer your AS over BGP with other AS, such as Internet Exchanges or IP Transit Carriers. Your ISP maybe provides IP Transit services too, but your residential fibre or DSL connection isn‘t its own AS, just a single node inside the ISPs AS.
Yes, given the ISP supports it.
Depends, I would normally think most upstreams would not care to stop an entire block from being announced from some abuse complaint.
Most likely forward complaints, and if they are not replied to, then kicked.
I just registered to the forum. We operate in Turkey. Really, such resources are negligible. This place is really high quality. The answers are very informative.