On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 3:22 AM, Nick Hilliard <nick@inex.ie> wrote:
On 11/03/2015 09:38, Tore Anderson wrote:
Indeed, that's how I understood Paul Wilson's mic comments after Andrea's APRICOT 2015 presentation, i.e., even though ARIN and APNIC transfer policies are compatible to begin with, the worry is that if transfers between the APNIC and RIPE regions commence without demonstrated need, than this fact would somehow «infect» the APNIC policy such that ARIN would no longer consider it to be sufficiently «needs based» and thus incompatible (even though the APNIC policy text would not change at all).
that is also my understanding - this should be fixed with the current transfer proposal. Although I found the statement from Einar Bohlin (policy analyst at ARIN) disturbing:
ARIN does not have policy regarding the relationship between RIPE and APNIC. So we don't have -- there is no policy text in our policy manual regarding that relationship. There could be in the future but there is no such thing at this time.
The RIPE policy operates on the principal that once address space is transferred in or out of a RIR, that for the duration of the transfer (whether temporary or permanent), the receiving RIR policy applies and that the sending RIR has no input on the resources.
Unfortunately, this is not respected in the ARIN inter-rir transfer policy:
https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#eight4
which includes the text:
"Recipients within the ARIN region will be subject to current ARIN policies and sign an RSA for the resources being received."
In other words, multinational organisations headquartered in the ARIN region who receive resources transferred to another RIR will be subject to ARIN policies.
That was not the intent of the policy language as drafted. Rather, than clause was meant to apply to 8.4 inter-RIR transfers inbound to the ARIN region from a source outside the ARIN region. So if someone in the RIPE region decides for some reason to transfer resources to someone in the ARIN region, and the addresses end up registered in the ARIN database, then the recipient must sign an RSA and will be subject to current ARIN policies. This was *not* intended to apply to a transfer from the ARIN region to an organization in the RIPE region, where the addresses will end up registered in the RIPE NCC database. So it shouldn't matter whether the recipient also has a presence in the ARIN region, or has an ARIN account. The actual recipient should be considered to be in the RIPE region (not the ARIN region) if the addresses are going to end up registered in the RIPE NCC database. ARIN staff can comment on their interpretation of the language, but hopefull it matches our original intent as summarized above. -Scott (speaking for myself, as someone involved in passing the ARIN draft policy that became NRPM 8.4)
This is potentially a serious problem because transferring policy encumbrances is likely to cause policy problems in future, if RIR policy differences crop up.
So the question is: can the RIPE NCC accept transfers from ARIN if the receiver organisation has signed the ARIN RSA for these resources? And if transfers are accepted within these terms and there's a conflict between RIPE NCC policy and ARIN policy, whose policies takes precedence? RIPE's or ARIN's?
Nick