- lir-wg - mailman.ripe.net

RE: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments
by Bjarne Carlsen 12 Feb '01

12 Feb '01

> -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- > Fra: Hans Petter Holen [SMTP:hph@online.no] > Sendt: 8. februar 2001 23:15 > Til: lir-wg(a)ripe.net > Emne: Re: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments > > > > > why is dsl different, from an address allocation view, than e1, flame > delay, > > point2point, etc. it's just the layer 1 point-to-point technology used > for > > provisioning an end site. > > In my oppinion it is not at should not be different. But what is different > is that we > are rolling out mass marked "always on" products in a larger scale than we > have > seen before. [Bjarne Carlsen] But what is different about it? It is - as Randy said - just the layer 1 point-to-point technology used for provisioning an end site (blatant cut'n paste here). The only real difference from "the good old days" that I can see, is that we are dealing with customers as single persons/families with lesser need for address space instead of companies with comparatively greater needs. > What I don't think the poicies should do is to prevent products like home > lans. > I dont think policies should force providers or the customers to use NAT. [Bjarne Carlsen] I agree, but I still think that the customers should be required by policy to somehow justify their needs for addresses. > So going back to the original question, is it OK to assign a /29 to a home > network > (beeing connected with wathever technology) ? [Bjarne Carlsen] That was not the original question. The question was whether a standard /29 assignment to all DSL/cable/insert-your-own-new-technology users would be feasible. > > I belive the answer is yes. [Bjarne Carlsen] I heartily disagree: With a standard assignment, there is absolutely no justification for the used space. The proposed policy does not even assume that all addresses will actually be used - not even that they will be used eventually. > I also belive that it is probably not > reasonalble to > expect an average customer to fill in the RIPE form. I also have a > tendency > to think > that it is probably not usefull to demand the form to be filled out for a > /29... [Bjarne Carlsen] Right, but the administration will have to be done at some point - whether it is done via a RIPE-141 or it is done some other way. The administrator should be the LIR in my opinion. > So my opinion would be that: > - the policy should not encourage an ISP to make /29 the default product > - the policy should not prevent an ISP from making a product option to > have > more than one IP address in a home network. (enabeled by clicking on a web > page > or some such.) [Bjarne Carlsen] And in my opinion the policy should not even _allow_ a /29 as default product - no tickee, no launly; no justification, no addresses. > - I think it would be a huge vaste of resources if RIPE NCC hostmasters > were > to spend their time reviewing RIPE forms for /29 for dsl, 3G or whatever > connected home¨ networks... [Bjarne Carlsen] Yes, but the administration will still have to be done somewhere in the system... > On the even more general side, I think more and more that we should be > realy > carefull to > create to strong restrictions on the use of address space available to new > and smaller players > today, while there are no such policies in place for legacy address space. > [Bjarne Carlsen] Couldn't have said that better myself. > -hph > /Bjarne

4 5

IP Address Tracking Software
by Jan-Ahrent Czmok 11 Feb '01

11 Feb '01

Hi! After reading through all the mails at nanog and other forums, i am asking: why not we all together work on a software which works together with RIPE, ARIN, APNIC ? Isn't that what internet was build on ? People doing great things. So let's get all ideas together and work together with the registries to solve that "evil" and "old" problem. Just my .2 cents (or euros, whatever) Jan

1 0

Re: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments
by Javier Llopis 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

On Wed, 7 Feb 2001 09:04:15 -0700 (MST), David R Huberman wrote: >Hello everyone, > >It is my experience, both as a former RIR employee and as a former >employee of a large residential DSL provider in the United States, that by >affording all residential broadband provider the flexibility to make >address policy along a fixed /29 boundary will result in MORE conservation >of address space, not less. I appreciate your insight, David, but I fail to see this point. How do you save IP space by assigning 8 IP addresses instead of just one? > >Residential broadband is a market that is demand driven. The RIRs should >be seeking to take addressing out of the competitive side of the market, >and equal the playing field for all providers in the name of address >conservation. Absolutely agreed, however, in the rest of your message you seem to imply that fixed boundary assignments are a must if one wants to stay competitive. I don't doubt that. Although I don't see this happening down here, I appreciate that you share your experience as an indication of the scenario we are going to be facing shortly. >It has been my experience that customers will ask for MORE address space >(3+ usable, publicly-unique addresses), not less (I only have one PC, so >obviously I only need 1), when given a choice. Yes, just as when they take five ketchup bags at McDonalds and they use only one. >From a consumer point of view, MORE no-matter-what is BETTER. I think it is sad that some people are starting to use IP addresses as assets to make their offer look better. >If, other factors being equal, customers can shop broadband providers on >the basis of 'how much publicly unique address space will you provide me', >an imbalance will inevitably result - the long-term consequences of which >would be increased IP wastage. > >RIPE needs to allow providers to assign /29s to residential broadband >customers without question and apply its justification policies only for >residential assignments shorter than a /29. Mmmm... Disallowing automatic fixed boundary assignments for that purpose for everyone would work just as good in balancing the market. I wish IPv6 technology would be common enough between LIRS so we could give every residential customer 32 IPv6 addresses or 1 IPv4 address at their choice, so that woud skyrocket the demand of low-end IPv6 hardware and solve the address problem forever. Regards Javier Llopis BitMailer javier(a)bitmailer.com Juan Bravo 51, Dup. 1-Izq Tel: +34 91 402 1551 28006 Madrid Fax: +34 91 402 4115 SPAIN

4 4

Re: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments [ 1) missing]
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 09 Feb '01

09 Feb '01

I forgot to attach my footnote here... > However, we should accept the reality that another sizeable fraction of > the customers looking at those new services do indeed require "the real > thing". Pointing to NAT, masquerading, you name it is not going to work. > (see 1) Looking at _my_ "residential" requirements, I am hard pressed to work without a range of fixed addresses for waht I want to use without spending all my time to reconfigure boxes: - 1 ANT - 1 router (Ethernet and tunnels (v4,v6)) - 2 "full size PCs" - 2 Laptops (my wife's and mine) - a WS with a "traditional" operating system multiple boots and peripherals on the PCs and a mixture of Linux, W95, W/NT, (Solaris8/Intel, freeBSD to come) And no, this is not a university link, this is my link to a regular commercial service. But I want to talk my university, of course... Wilfried.

1 0

Re: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 09 Feb '01

09 Feb '01

=From: "Hans Petter Holen" <hph(a)online.no> =To: <lir-wg(a)ripe.net> =Subject: Re: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments =Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 23:14:53 +0100 = => why is dsl different, from an address allocation view, than e1, flame delay, => point2point, etc. it's just the layer 1 point-to-point technology used for => provisioning an end site. = =In my oppinion it is not at should not be different. But what is different =is that we are rolling out mass marked "always on" products in a larger =scale than we have seen before. Correct. And we are going to see other technologies than xDSL posing the same challenge (WLL, mobile, someone might find metered usage of ISDN dropping, so offer a 24x7 package). From my pint of view, the only thing that is "new" - if at all - is the fact that bigger players are going after the commodity Internet market. And this definitely is not a criticism! =What I don't think the poicies should do is to prevent products like home =lans. I dont think policies should force providers or the customers to =use NAT. Again, I fully agree. Address distribution policy is not the appropriate mechanism to develop operational or technical recommendations. The RIRs would be very ill-advised to get dragged into that tar pit. =So going back to the original question, is it OK to assign a /29 to a home =network (beeing connected with wathever technology) ? =I belive the answer is yes. I also belive that it is probably not =reasonalble to expect an average customer to fill in the RIPE form. I also =have a tendency to think that it is probably not usefull to demand the =form to be filled out for a /29... Again, I fully agree. However this is _not_ to be read as an endorsement for giving away an address block of whatever size as a _default_ approach. Also, I agree that a sizeable fraction of the customer base can be reasonably served by a mix of technical solutions as outlined by other contributions. However, we should accept the reality that another sizeable fraction of the customers looking at those new services do indeed require "the real thing". Pointing to NAT, masquerading, you name it is not going to work. (see 1) In particular, any art of dynamic address or port management is probably going to impede the deployment of IPv6 for the mass-market, simply accelerating the consumption of IPv4 address space instead of contributing to breaking the exponential trend. =So my opinion would be that: =- the policy should not encourage an ISP to make /29 the default product I agree. But again, this is outside the access policy and documentation policy to obtain IPv4 addresses. =- the policy should not prevent an ISP from making a product option to have =more than one IP address in a home network. (enabeled by clicking on a web =page or some such.) Whatever the accepted means of documenting the "request for real addresses by the customer" is, is what should be considered here. And how the mechanisms would look like for certain bands of address consumption. In the end, "wasting" a few addresses from a /29 (or /30) address block is not too different from allowing network growth claims over 12..24 month of the order of slightly less than 50% in the "regular" 141 process for, say a /25. =- I think it would be a huge vaste of resources if RIPE NCC hostmasters =were to spend their time reviewing RIPE forms for /29 for dsl, 3G or =whatever connected homeš networks... What we have (painfully) seen over the last 6(..8) month is that micro-management on the LIR's end is not going to work. And that fact hits *everyone*. In order to make the whole process survive, we have to face reality! And, unless *all of us* are prepared to spend a *lot* of money and a *lot* of time to do that, we should focus on a reasonable solution for the mass-deployment scenario. Whatever that solution in reality is, I really don't care too much. We can either go the path of setting a cut-off block size where we no longer require public registration and the keeping of individual records (e.g. a 141 or equivalent for every customer), or we can go towards "charging" those addresses to the ISPs own address space assignment. That approach would require us to revisit the interaction between incremental self-assignment and the AW (which we should do anyway - but that is a completely different thread ;-). I guess there are other approaches as well. =On the even more general side, I think more and more that we should be =realy carefull to create to strong restrictions on the use of address =space available to new and smaller players today, while there are no such =policies in place for legacy address space. While this certainly is true, I am more worried about the "message" we might be sending to the community: "the end-to-end approach in the Internet is no longer supported" Go for a shrink-wrapped package of 1 address (wait a minute: why do you even need that one? We are offereing you an application gateway anyway? You are using a web-browser most of the time anyway, and we do have a cache, so what?). And the Internet (plus competiton and technical development) would simply look very different in a short while... =-hph Wilfried. _________________________________:_____________________________________ Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at UniVie Computer Center - ACOnet : Tel: +43 1 4277 - 140 33 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4277 - 9 140 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : RIPE-DB: WW144, PGP keyID 0xF0ACB369 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 0

Re: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 09 Feb '01

09 Feb '01

=> IMHO, no. Why should the amount of address space assigned have anything to do => with the way that a network is connected to the outside world? = =I think the important bit is the word "residential" and not the =connection method. For the moment I cannot see clear-cut criteria to label one network as residential and another one as [implied from context] business, and to do so consistently over teh life-time of the connection/network. Which IMO makes that aspect useless to base address distribution policies on. Wilfried.

2 1

RE: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments
by Bjarne Carlsen 08 Feb '01

08 Feb '01

My $0,02: As I stated on the RIPE-meeting, one should consider the goal of preservation most carefully when contemplating any standard assignments for specific services. The proposed /29 assignment seems to me, (and I work for a cable provider), to be wasteful. I vote for the second option. Let the LIR ask for current and expected use. Rgds Bjarne Carlsen Fakse Municipality

6 6

Proposals on IPv6 Allocation policy
by Dave Pratt 08 Feb '01

08 Feb '01

Hiya all, Here are some thoughts on IPv6 allocation policy. Hopefully the resulting discussion will be active and constructive, resulting in appropriate feedback, policy, IETF-drafts, RFCs, etc. If the text below gets corrupted then you should be able to view it at: http://www.djp.net/ipv6/proposal.html This concerns the LIR and IPv6 WG at RIPE and I4ve sent to both lists accordingly. I suggest all replies/discussion be carried out primarily on the IPv6 list. Cheers Dave Viag Interkom GmbH ----------------------------- Proposals on IPv6 Allocation policy Hierarchy versus Address Conservation The RIR allocation policies for IPv6 appear to be based on the assumption that IPv6 addresses are a scarce resource that are about to run out. This assumption is totally untrue. Instead RIR allocation policies need to be focussed 90% on aggregation and hierarchy, and optimising the global routing table. One of the worst mistakes an RIR can make is to allocate too few addresses to an LIR, resulting in later subsequent allocations and pollution of the global routing table. Classbased versus Convenience: What is appropriate for an "alpine village" ISP is not appropriate for a large global ISP. LIR should not therefore all receive the same "standard prefix" but receive sensible allocations based on reasonable long term expectations on use. We should aim so that only 10% or so of LIR need to come back to ask for a second allocation within 5 years. Dividing on strange bit boundaries (eg. /35) in combination with the format of writing IPv6 addresses makes notation and calculation very hard for most people and will result in many mistakes over time. In such a large address space the benefits of always making allocations on a 4 bit boundary are greater than the resulting inflexibility. This is seen in the original TLA /16 and NLA /24 proposals. Allocations should be at /16, /24 or /32 - possibly /20 /28. Sub allocations by LIR to their customer ISPs should similarly be /32 /40, or possibly /36 /44. Present Allocation sizes: Bit usage density should be allocated evenly over the addressing hierarchy. I could use rfc1715's h-ratio here but refuse to use a measurement unit where everything is squashed between 0 and 0.301. At present a "site" has 80 bits (fixed at /48). Of these the average usage is likely to be 10 to 100 nodes (ranging from 10k for a medium corporation to 1-5 for the far more predominant home user). The usage density is therefore approx: 2^80/100 or well over 1 in 10^20 !!! can be certain there will not be more than around 100,000 top level routes. Accordingly the usage density is 2^35/100,000 or approx 1 in 350,000. An LIR with a present /35 and only a single customer (/48) has already reached a density of 1 in 8192 !!! Does anyone know why the service provider is treated differently ? The need for hierarchy within an LIR: In practise an LIR must introduce hierarchy to prevent excessive routes. Global LIRs must do this at multiple levels. Typically a Global LIR might have about 10 regions and about 10 areas per region - although hopefully these would not all be fixed in size. This hierarchy must be set at the outset, although a fraction (say up to 2/3) could be reserved to provide additional resources to areas/regions that grow faster than originally expected. In each of these approx. 100 areas, the larger LIRs (national or global) will have predominantly X customers who are small and/or medium size ISP's. The smallest of these would typically expect to have enough addresses to serve 256 customers - /40. Accordingly a minimum allocation for such an LIR forseeable at the outset is at least a /24. Minimal initial allocation based on registered IPv4 usage We must not allocate too few addresses to an LIR since this will cause problems for us all, and especially him and his customers now and in the future. Since addresses are not in short supply, and one of the worst mistakes an RIR can make is to allocate too few addresses, a minimum first allocation could be based on the customers current REGISTERED IPv4 usage. In fitting with the above sections a possible simple yet flexible approach would be to adopt the following table: Small - /40 Medium - /32 Large/National - /24 International - /16 These categories also fit extremely well with the present RIPE membership categories which could help reduce administrative checking of claims to be Large/National, etc. Until Multihoming issues are sorted (see also below) we must adopt a similar approach to corporate LIRs. With the category used calculated as if they were not a corporate LIR. A side effect of this rule is that it will encourage owners of historical non-registered allocations to register them with one of the RIRs (if they want an appropriate IPv6 allocation). These are minimum initial allocations. Larger initial allocations can be requested if appropriately justified. For example a new 3G UMTS consortium operating in a major european country but which has no LIR background would typically qualify for the same prefix as a large/national LIR Usage requirements for additional allocations: IPv4 addresses are in short supply, appropriately there is therefore a rule stating that 80% of addresses at each level must be "used" before additional addresses are "provided". In IPv6 this rule is not only invalid, it just does not make sense. Even more crazily, RFC2450 states 90% !!! In order to prevent stupid wastage and bad network design, this rule should not be relaxed below about 10% (I am reminded of a network I came across using RFC1916 addresses where a /16 was assigned to each of 100 sites - which varied from 5 to 10,000 nodes). In contrast 80% or 90% is unnecessary and unreachable in IPv6 where addresses are not a scarce resource. Multihoming and allocations to non-service providers: At the time of writing no fully satisfactory multihoming technique is available. We must therefore provide current owners of globably routed IPv4 address space with a TLA with an appropriate mask. Failure to do this will actively discourage organisations considering a move to IPv6. We must be pragmatic, and at the same time encourage IPv6 use.

1 0

SV: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments
by Bjarne Carlsen 08 Feb '01

08 Feb '01

> -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- > Fra: David R Huberman [SMTP:huberman@gblx.net] > Sendt: 8. februar 2001 01:34 > Til: Robin > Cc: lir-wg(a)ripe.net > Emne: Re: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments > > > > In my experience, most residential customers are quite happy to use > private > > IP addresses > > I must respectively disagree, and disagree vehemently. In my experiences, > residential broadband customers, paying high monthly fees, demand publicly > routable IP address space, citing both the very 'limitations' of private > address space you articulate (e.g. Napster and other IP-dependent > applications) [Bjarne Carlsen] This can easily be made with NAT or IP-masquerading. IME the average residential user does not give a hoot whether his address space is publicly routable or not, as long as he can run Napster or AGSatellite from all of his network, he is much more interested in IP-ports than in IP-addresses, since many providers block most IP-ports from their local network. > and sales pitches of other providers who are willing to give > them publicly unique address space just to close the deal. [Bjarne Carlsen] See answer to last para below. > > > For those customers requiring real IP addressing, I find that many of > these > > are businesses. As such, it is very limiting to leave them with a /29 > > We are not discussing commercial broadband customers. The fixed-boundary > assignment 'proposal' is exclusively for residential broadband customers. > > > My main object is with assignment based on usage requirements . I know > > people who run offices with dozens of people of a dual channel ISDN > line. > > Does this make them less worthy of IP addreses that a single home user > with > > a 3Mb DSL line? > > IP requirements for commercial customers are based on traditional address > policies - as such, organizations can obtain as much address space as they > require based on justification. No one is ever denied address space which > they can justify, right? [Bjarne Carlsen] Exactly - then why not let the users justify their actual needs instead of wasting up to 66% of the address space (this includes never-used IP's)? > > I know that IP conservation is now more important than ever, but > > surely this could be policed better by promoting the use of private IP > > addressing, rather than by restricting users who cannot afford to buy > > more bandwidth. > > Those who use private addressing schemes should certainly feel good about > themselves, but no one is being restricted. If you can justify address > space per the published criteria, you get it. > > More importantly, the conservationist's desire to promote the use of > private address space should not take precedence over real-world business > concerns. [Bjarne Carlsen] Maybe not, but the real-world business is trying to oversell a limited commodity. > Market demand for residential DSL is high, and in many markets, > IPs have become a selling point. By allowing fixed-boundary assignments, > RIPE effectively removes that facet of competition, equalling and opening > the playing field to all and reducing IP waste in the long-term. [Bjarne Carlsen] No way! RIPE will effectively remove that facet of competition by _enforcing_ the rules as they are today - not by wasting address space on the proposed /29-scheme. > /david > /Bjarne

1 0

Re: Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments
by Denesh Bhabuta 08 Feb '01

08 Feb '01

At 15:34 07/02/2001, leo vegoda wrote: >In my presentation to the Working Group at RIPE 38 [0] I brought up the >issue of assignment policies for ISPs wanting to assign all customers a >fixed size network (/29). Please let me thank you for that presentation.. it was very good and showed RIPE being aware of the issue that will potentially explode in the coming months. >Based on the above, we would like the Working Group to consider whether: > - a standard, fixed-boundary assignment is acceptable for residential > broadband connections? >Or > - should the requester (the LIR) be required to ask the subscriber how > many IP devices will be connected and base the assignment upon this? I believe that both should be done depending on the end customer scenario. What is certain is that a lot of LIRs, mainly the new ones - telcos with (or trying to market) IP services are currently on the Broadband bandwaggon.. in todays marketing language this translates as xDSL and whether it is right to consider this as a broadband solution or not is a matter for another discussion.. ;-) What needs to be considered first is the industry and what the 'big' guys are doing... and how this affects what the smaller companies and the start-ups offer. This is what I see happening right now... as an example: Large European Telco 'Alman Telecom' sells it's DSL product very well. The marketing of the product spec actually mentions that the customer will be getting 16 IP addresses. Customers know the Alman brand, and they see what it offers and hence they go for it. As a side note, RIPE need to be aware that telcos are mentioning right now how many IPs are given in a product, and do not mention RIPE anywhere in the contract or make the customer aware that there is that RIPE obligation. Small Startup Telco 'LastChoice Telecommunications' offers the same product, but is new in the market. It has to compete for market share and has to offer something better than Alman. One way of doing this... and remember product managers are not always IP literate, is to offer more IP addresses. This strategy is also fine by the marketing director and every other director in the organisation - as they are not concerned about RIPE... to them, they have paid RIPE and they have the IP addresses (note that AFAICS, a lot of the new LIRs are telcos with non-IP people or people who are not experienced with RIPE - and I really believe that RIPE need to acknowledge this). Today, number of IP addresses given to a customer *are* used as a market share gaining tool. So, IMHO, the main issue is to look at the industry itself and look at how the big players are acting first, and to bring them in line. Further on from this, we need to look at how DSL is being rolled out and how the telcos want to sell the product. A lot of the telcos I talk to want to be doing a minimum of 100 xDSL sales per day! Under traditional techniques, this would require each telco to have a large number of hostmasters/people to deal with 141 forms in an efficient manner... telcos do not want to spend money on getting more people.. So what do they do instead? Either 141 forms do not get filled or 'standard' RIPE forms are filled in, and/or the quality of the data in a 141 form falls. In addition, RIPEs auditing activities become more resource hungry. My proposal would be a change in policy, incorporating the points that Leo has raised, such that: 1) Standard 141 forms / standard details are allowed for xDSL assignments. These standard forms should allow an automatic assignment to the end customer of 4 IP addresses (instead of 8 as suggested by Leo. This can cover both residential and business customers. After all, ISPs should push NAT in the main ;) 2) For those customers who require that bit more, they can go through the standard 'what we have come to love' RIPE-141 procedure. :-) So the best of both worlds.. standard set up customers throughout Europe - RIPE knows what is happening and most ISPs/Telcos can be happier where they can spend more time earning their money.. and for anything else, the standard RIPE procedures are followed. ISPs/Telcos should be kept to this policy and they should be discouraged from advertising 'x number of IP addresses' with their products... Oh, and those ISPs that push NATd xDSL with 1 static IP for the customer.. maybe a pat on their back. ;-) Regards Denesh -- Denesh Bhabuta Chairman, CEO and Principal Consultant Cyberstrider Limited www.cyberstrider.net Internet and E-Commerce: Strategy, Consultancy and Solutions

2 1