Hiya, I've removed lir-wg@gblx.net from the distribution !!! Please see below. On Thu, 10 May 2001, David R Huberman wrote: ->> ->Exchange points need the ability to petition RIRs directly for address ->> ->space not for routability, but to ensure uniqueness. ->> ->> I think exchange point infrastructure - web servers,monitoring,test traffic ->> boxes, etc. need to be multihomed as well as globally unique. -> ->I don't understand. An exchange point, as I think about well-known ->implementations, is simply a means by which to organize participants in a ->common place. It's an island to which multiple participants connect with ->the explicit goal of interconnecting to one another. -> ->Exchange point address space should only be used to establish those ->interconnections with the routers - not for any ancillary services the ->exchange point might provide that require internet connectivity. Such ->services should *not* be part of any exchange point address policy ->considered by LIR-WG, imo. -> ->/david Looking at a couple of professionally run exchanges in Europe, I disagree. Exchange support infrastructure needs to be multihomed, and as Randy so succinctly pointed out, this cannot be achieved through a transit provider (or with their addresses). I would see an exchange being in control of a block (at least /48, although a normal LIR assignment would make more sense to me to ensure routability). This block would be globally routable and provide connectivity to support infrastructure. A more specific prefix of this could then be used for the exchange LAN itself. If the exchange requires two completely independent prefixes then I would also support that option. IPv6 addresses are not in short supply - a /60 compromise only complicates things and is against the "/48 policy". We could expand this discussion to cover multihoming in general - why would anyone switch to IPv6 from IPv4 if it means they can no longer multihome like they did in IPv4. Cheers Dave