Dear all As AfriNIC-6 meeting in Abuja is very close, we are sending a summary of the IPv6 ULA-Central Policy from Jordi Palet Martinez (1 April 2007)
Below is a summary of discussions with regards to this policy Geoff Huston (2 April 2007) When this was under consideration within the IETF some years back I performed an evaluation of the draft from the perspective of the RIRs as a potential operator of this service. In reading through this proposal these considerations appear to remain relevant today, and it may be useful to consider these issues when considering the operational aspects of provision of such a registry service. Alain Aina (3 April 2007) Is NRO going to be the allocation authority ? The draft does not say anything about that "allocation authority" The RFC mentioned has expired Jordi (3 April 2007) in response to above The proposal suggest that this (AfriNIC) RIR do it for this region, and the same for each one of the other RIRs. I guess it may happen that the NRO could decide, if the proposal goes thru all the regions to implement a central registry instead of 5 "distributed" central registries for this purpose, but I guess this is out of the scope of the proposal, and could be a "next step". I'm not sure if this could work, but I can imagine that if we reach consensus in every region, it may made sense to have a single registry, if it reduces the cost, and this being funded by the NRO common funds. I believe there has not been a similar case before. Anyway, as said, the proposal here is to talk about the *AfriNIC* scope, at least at this stage. The draft is expired, but as you know can be revived at any time, just with a new submission. The goal is to do so, in parallel with the advancement of the PDP in the different regions. The important think here is also to realize that the space is already allocated to IANA by RFC4193. Alain Aina (3 April 2007) in response to above The draft proposes a unique central authority, which differs from your proposal. RFC4193 only defines L=1 IETF does not define yet L=0, and i guess we need L=0 defines before we move forward. Jordi (3 April 2007) in response to above 1) The draft introduces the concept and one way to manage this, however, in section 7.0, IANA considerations, is already indicated "... If deemed appropriate, the authority may also consist of multiple organizations performing the allocation authority duties". 2) Even if only L=1 is defined, the entire block is on IANA hands, as it is a /7, not /8. 3) The definition of L=0 is done by this document. We just need to move it forward again, which as said before, can be done in parallel with the PDP in the RIRs. I don't think there is any rule that says "must be done in serial mode" and if this helps to win time, why not ? Alan Barrett (4 April 2007) The whole point of centrally-assigned unique local addresses is to get addresses that are guaranteed to be globally unique (as opposed to locally-assigned unique local addresses, which are generated in a way that is likely to be unique, but not guaranteed to be unique). The expired draft draft-ietf-ipv6-ula-central-01.txt (available from <http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipv6-ula-central-01>) talks about an escrow function to ensure uniqueness. It seems to me that a "central" ULA registry operated by AfriNIC (presumably in parallel with other similar registries operated by other RIRs) would not satisfy the requirement for guaranteed global uniqueness. There would be a possibility of collisions in the assignments made by different registries, unless there was a way of performing some kind of cross-registry uniqueness check. I think that a realistic proposal to establish a central ULA registry should address the mechanism for performing the uniqueness checks. The proposal on the table does not do so. I'd also like to see some consideration of mechanisms to prevent hoarding of addresses. Jordi (4 April 2007)in response to above I understand your point, but in my opinion, policies should not enter into details of how they become actually implemented from an operational perspective. This is also what I've heard several times from the staff en many RIRs. For example, it may be the case that the RIRs (those where the policy get approved by the membership) may decide (via the NRO or other means), to implement a single central register, instead of different registries. One more possibility could be to breakdown the ULA-central prefix in several smaller chunks to be allocated by IANA to each RIR. Again, operational details should be left on the hands of the RIRs (otherwise, we should do the same in all the policies, define all the operation instead of trusting the RIR staff capabilities). Alain Aina (4 April 2007) the same IANA session also says: "The IANA is instructed to designate an allocation authority, based on instructions from the IAB, for centrally assigned Unique Local IPv6 unicast addresses. This allocation authority shall comply with the requirements described in Section 3.2 of this document, including in particular allocation on a permanent basis and with sufficient provisions to avoid hoarding of numbers." Yes "if deemed appropriate". And if "we" think RIRs can do this do, we need to make sure it is done accordindly to established rules. others on this list have made some good points on this isssue. and you need to get the desired block(L=0) from IANA to the designated authority(ies). I am not confortable with AfriNIC adopting "the policy as proposed" without clarifications the issues mentionned. Alan Barrett (4 April 2007) That goeas against the original idea that ULAs would not have any kind of geographical or topological significance. Jordi (4 April 2007) If I'm not wrong, there are two possible scenarios if we adopt this proposal: 1) IETF moving this document to RFC, which is the original idea (and this can include specific text about the RIRs if needed). This can be considered equivalent, I think to the original IPv6 /23 allocations to the RIRs ? 2) One more global policy for the ULA-central block, in order to get it from IANA, similar way as the actual IPv6 /12 allocations to the RIRs. In both cases it is clear the cooperation among the RIRs so I don't see how it could happen that "they don't talk each other". I believe the board could decide, in order to avoid any problem if the proposal passes the PDP, to hold the proposal implementation until either 1 or 2 are done. In fact is not possible otherwise. Andrew Dul (4 April 2007) I actually think we are approaching this issue from the wrong side. This policy would be implemented based upon an expired Internet-Draft, with no new draft currently being sponsored or even under discussion. Before any RIR should consider this issue the issue needs to be discussed again in the IETF. I'd agree that the work can happen in parallel but we at least need an active draft in the IETF, such as what happened with the 4-byte ASN. I would discourage any RIR from adopting any policy based upon an expired draft. As far as I know there hasn't really been a lot of discussion in the IETF since the last draft expired. (Although I might not be on the right mailing list.) I haven't seen any new text proposed to update the last draft to deal with the issues that were raised by the RIR community after the initial draft was published. Thanks to Geoff Huston for reposting a summary of the issues after the last round of discussion. Alain Aina (4 April 2007) I don't see how this policy will oblige IETF and/or IANA to give this job to RIRs. If we want the RIRs to this job, then let talk about the operational issues regarding adding the ULA-central registry services to the current ones. Geoff raised some interesting points, we can use as starter. And if we don't have to, i will like to hear from the RIRs. Conclusion >From the above discussions on the mailing list, it seems that at the moment there are more people against the current formulation of the proposed policy than those for. Best Regards Hisham _______________________________________________ rpd mailing list [email protected] https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rpd
