[ale] 5.x.x.x IP range

[Michael B. Trausch]

On 12/13/2013 09:55 PM, Edward Holcroft wrote:
> Came across this from which  glean that 5.0.0.0/8 <http://5.0.0.0/8>
> was not always publicly allocated:
>
> http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archived_issues/ipj_10-3/103_awkward.html
>
> The literature says it was used until recently by Hamachi
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi_(software)
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi_%28software%29>. I am wondering
> if one of my colleagues sneaked in a Hamachi server somewhere on the
> network that is handing these IP's to the PPTP clients.

This is correct.  Until IANA ran out of allocations, there were entire
large networks that were not allocated.  1.0.0.0/8 and 5.0.0.0/8 are the
ones I remember, though it is interesting that 42.0.0.0/8 was used that
way as well.  Oops.  Bad form on the vendors that did that; unallocated
IP address space is specifically reserved and must not be used.

It sounds like the VPN software that you're using learned that this was
at some point used by another vendor for the same purpose and figured
"If they're doing it, why don't we?" and so did so.  That be my guess,
anyway.

Thankfully, there is no need for such things today; we can throw up
organization-scope IPv6 networks and network islands very easily and
there is no need to dig into IPv4 space at all; if you have devices on
that network that are IPv4-only, and it's an island, and you don't want
to use RFC1918 space, then you can always use TEST-NET-1, TEST-NET-2 and
TEST-NET-3, which are more-or-less intended for such use.

I would reconfigure that VPN server posthaste, however; the first time
someone gets a link to a DNS name which unexpectedly resolves to a
5.0.0.0/8 address, Bad Things^(TM) will happen.

    --- Mike

-- 
Naunet Corporation Logo 	Michael B. Trausch

President, *Naunet Corporation*
? (678) 287-0693 x130 or (855) NAUNET-1 x130
FAX: (678) 783-7843

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