IPNL

Abstract

This paper presents and analyzes IPNL (for IP Next Layer), a NAT-extended Internet protocol architecture designed to scalably solve the address depletion problem of IPv4. A NAT-extended architecture is one where only hosts and NAT boxes are modified. IPv4 routers and support protocols remain untouched. IPNL attempts to maintain all of the original characteristics of IPv4, most notably address prefix location independence. IPNL provides true site isolation (no renumbering), and allows sites to be multi-homed without polluting the default-free routing zone with per-site prefixes. We discuss IPNL's architectural benefits and drawbacks, and show that it comes acceptably close to achieving its goals.