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<rfc xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" ipr="trust200902" docName="draft-carpenter-6man-addr-assign-00" category="bcp" consensus="true" submissionType="IETF" tocInclude="true" sortRefs="true" symRefs="true" version="3">
  <!-- xml2rfc v2v3 conversion 3.21.0 -->
  <front>
    <title abbrev="IPv6 Address Assignment Policy">Clarification of IPv6 Address Assignment Policy</title>
    <seriesInfo name="Internet-Draft" value="draft-carpenter-6man-addr-assign-00"/>
    <author initials="B. E." surname="Carpenter" fullname="Brian E. Carpenter">
      <organization abbrev="Univ. of Auckland">The University of Auckland</organization>
      <address>
        <postal>
          <postalLine>School of Computer Science</postalLine>
          <postalLine>The University of Auckland</postalLine>
          <postalLine>PB 92019</postalLine>
          <postalLine>Auckland 1142</postalLine>
          <postalLine>New Zealand</postalLine>
        </postal>
        <email>brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com</email>
      </address>
    </author>
    <author initials="S." surname="Krishnan" fullname="Suresh Krishnan">
      <organization>Cisco</organization>
      <address>
        <email>suresh.krishnan@gmail.com</email>
      </address>
    </author>
    <date year="2024" month="May" day="17"/>
    <area>Internet</area>
    <workgroup>6man</workgroup>
    <keyword>Internet-Draft</keyword>
    <abstract>
      <?line 58?>

<t>This document clarifies the approval process for changes to the
IPv6 Address Space registry.</t>
    </abstract>
    <note removeInRFC="true">
      <name>About This Document</name>
      <t>
        Status information for this document may be found at <eref target="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-carpenter-6man-addr-assign/"/>.
      </t>
      <t>
        Discussion of this document takes place on the
        6MAN Working Group mailing list (<eref target="mailto:ipv6@ietf.org"/>),
        which is archived at <eref target="https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/ipv6/"/>.
        Subscribe at <eref target="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6/"/>.
      </t>
    </note>
  </front>
  <middle>
    <?line 63?>

<section anchor="intro">
      <name>Introduction</name>
      <t>Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) and its address space are
currently defined by <xref target="STD86"/> and <xref target="RFC4291"/>.
The management of the IPv6 address space was delegated to IANA
by <xref target="RFC1881"/>. Occasionally, allocations are performed outside
the scope of routine allocations to regional address registries.
For example, recently a substantial allocation was requested
by an IETF document approved by the IESG <xref target="I-D.ietf-6man-sids"/>.</t>
      <t>The present document clarifies the status of RFC 1881 and the
approval level needed for non-routine address allocations.</t>
      <t>This clarification is necessary because RFC 1881, a joint
publication of the IAB and IESG, is incorrectly listed in
the RFC index at the time of writing as "legacy", whereas
it remains current. Also the allocation policy in the IANA
IPv6 Address Space registry <xref target="IANA"/> is shown as "IESG approval",
whereas for major allocations a more stringent policy
is appropriate.</t>
    </section>
    <section anchor="approval-level-of-ipv6-address-allocations">
      <name>Approval Level of IPv6 Address Allocations</name>
      <t>Portions of the IPv6 address space are shown in the registry
as "Reserved by IETF". This is the address space held in reserve
for future use if ever the current 125-bit unicast space (2000::/3)
is found inadequate or inappropriate.</t>
      <t>RFC 1881 did not specify an allocation policy for this. At some
point, IANA listed "IESG approval". This is defined in <xref target="BCP26"/>
as a rather weak requirement ("Although there is no
requirement that the request be documented in an RFC, the IESG has
the discretion to request documents...") and as "a fall-back
mechanism in the case where one of the other allowable approval
mechanisms cannot be employed...".</t>
      <t>For something as important as the majority of the spare IPv6 address
space, this is clearly insufficient. The present document replaces
this by the "IETF Review" process as defined by BCP 26. It is not 
considered necessary to require the stricter "Standards Action"
policy, because there might be cases where opening up a new range
of address space did not in fact require a new protocol standard.</t>
      <t>It may be noted that the recent allocation for <xref target="I-D.ietf-6man-sids"/>, which
was processed as a working group document, did indeed follow the more
stringent "IETF Review" process proposed by this document.</t>
    </section>
    <section anchor="rfc-editor-considerations">
      <name>RFC Editor Considerations</name>
      <t>The RFC Editor is requested to update the "Stream" information
for <xref target="RFC1881"/> to "IAB" in place of "Legacy".</t>
    </section>
    <section anchor="iana-considerations">
      <name>IANA Considerations</name>
      <t>IANA is requested to update the "Registration Procedure(s)" section
of the Internet Protocol Version 6 Address Space registry to show
the policy as "IETF Review".</t>
    </section>
    <section anchor="security-considerations">
      <name>Security Considerations</name>
      <t>Carefully reviewed address allocation mechanisms are necessary for any form of address-based security.</t>
    </section>
    <section anchor="acknowledgements">
      <name>Acknowledgements</name>
      <t>Useful comments were received from [TBD] ...</t>
    </section>
  </middle>
  <back>
    <references>
      <name>References</name>
      <references anchor="sec-normative-references">
        <name>Normative References</name>
        <referencegroup anchor="STD86" target="https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/std86">
          <reference anchor="RFC8200" target="https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200">
            <front>
              <title>Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification</title>
              <author fullname="S. Deering" initials="S." surname="Deering"/>
              <author fullname="R. Hinden" initials="R." surname="Hinden"/>
              <date month="July" year="2017"/>
              <abstract>
                <t>This document specifies version 6 of the Internet Protocol (IPv6). It obsoletes RFC 2460.</t>
              </abstract>
            </front>
            <seriesInfo name="STD" value="86"/>
            <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="8200"/>
            <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC8200"/>
          </reference>
        </referencegroup>
        <referencegroup anchor="BCP26" target="https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp26">
          <reference anchor="RFC8126" target="https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8126">
            <front>
              <title>Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs</title>
              <author fullname="M. Cotton" initials="M." surname="Cotton"/>
              <author fullname="B. Leiba" initials="B." surname="Leiba"/>
              <author fullname="T. Narten" initials="T." surname="Narten"/>
              <date month="June" year="2017"/>
              <abstract>
                <t>Many protocols make use of points of extensibility that use constants to identify various protocol parameters. To ensure that the values in these fields do not have conflicting uses and to promote interoperability, their allocations are often coordinated by a central record keeper. For IETF protocols, that role is filled by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).</t>
                <t>To make assignments in a given registry prudently, guidance describing the conditions under which new values should be assigned, as well as when and how modifications to existing values can be made, is needed. This document defines a framework for the documentation of these guidelines by specification authors, in order to assure that the provided guidance for the IANA Considerations is clear and addresses the various issues that are likely in the operation of a registry.</t>
                <t>This is the third edition of this document; it obsoletes RFC 5226.</t>
              </abstract>
            </front>
            <seriesInfo name="BCP" value="26"/>
            <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="8126"/>
            <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC8126"/>
          </reference>
        </referencegroup>
        <reference anchor="RFC4291">
          <front>
            <title>IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture</title>
            <author fullname="R. Hinden" initials="R." surname="Hinden"/>
            <author fullname="S. Deering" initials="S." surname="Deering"/>
            <date month="February" year="2006"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>This specification defines the addressing architecture of the IP Version 6 (IPv6) protocol. The document includes the IPv6 addressing model, text representations of IPv6 addresses, definition of IPv6 unicast addresses, anycast addresses, and multicast addresses, and an IPv6 node's required addresses.</t>
              <t>This document obsoletes RFC 3513, "IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture". [STANDARDS-TRACK]</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="4291"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC4291"/>
        </reference>
      </references>
      <references anchor="sec-informative-references">
        <name>Informative References</name>
        <reference anchor="RFC1881">
          <front>
            <title>IPv6 Address Allocation Management</title>
            <author>
              <organization abbrev="IAB">Internet Architecture Board</organization>
            </author>
            <author>
              <organization abbrev="IESG">Internet Engineering Steering Group</organization>
            </author>
            <date month="December" year="1995"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>The IPv6 address space will be managed by the IANA for the good of the Internet community, with advice from the IAB and the IESG, by delegation to the regional registries. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.</t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="1881"/>
          <seriesInfo name="DOI" value="10.17487/RFC1881"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="I-D.ietf-6man-sids">
          <front>
            <title>SRv6 Segment Identifiers in the IPv6 Addressing Architecture</title>
            <author fullname="Suresh Krishnan" initials="S." surname="Krishnan">
              <organization>Cisco</organization>
            </author>
            <date day="15" month="February" year="2024"/>
            <abstract>
              <t>   The data plane for Segment Routing over IPv6 (SRv6) is built using
   IPv6 as the underlying forwarding plane.  Due to this underlying use
   of IPv6, Segment Identifiers (SIDs) used by SRv6 can resemble IPv6
   addresses and behave like them while exhibiting slightly different
   behaviors in some situations.  This document explores the
   characteristics of SRv6 SIDs and focuses on the relationship of SRv6
   SIDs to the IPv6 Addressing Architecture.  This document allocates
   and makes a dedicated prefix available for SRv6 SIDs.

              </t>
            </abstract>
          </front>
          <seriesInfo name="Internet-Draft" value="draft-ietf-6man-sids-06"/>
        </reference>
        <reference anchor="IANA" target="https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv6-address-space/ipv6-address-space.xhtml">
          <front>
            <title>IPv6 Address Space registry</title>
            <author>
              <organization/>
            </author>
            <date>n.d.</date>
          </front>
        </reference>
      </references>
    </references>
    <?line 131?>

<section anchor="change-log-rfc-editor-please-remove">
      <name>Change Log [RFC Editor: please remove]</name>
      <section anchor="draft-00">
        <name>Draft-00</name>
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          <li>
            <t>Original version</t>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </section>
    </section>
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