]> Clarification of IPv6 Address Assignment Policy The University of Auckland
School of Computer Science PB 92019 Auckland 1142 New Zealand brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com
Cisco Systems, Inc.
suresh.krishnan@gmail.com
University of Minnesota
Office of Information Technology Minneapolis MN 55455 United States of America farmer@umn.edu
Internet 6man Internet-Draft This document specifies the approval process for changes to the IPv6 Address Space registry. It also updates RFC 7249. About This Document Status information for this document may be found at . Discussion of this document takes place on the 6MAN Working Group mailing list (), which is archived at . Subscribe at .
Introduction Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) and its address space are currently defined by and . The management of the IPv6 address space was delegated to IANA by , some years before the current relationship between the IETF and IANA was formalized and registry details were clarified , . Occasionally, IPv6 address space 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 . The present document clarifies the status of RFC 1881 and the approval level needed for non-routine address allocations. 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 is shown as "IESG approval", whereas for major allocations a more stringent policy is appropriate.
Approval Level of IPv6 Address Allocations 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. RFC 1881 did not specify an allocation policy for this. At some point, IANA listed "IESG approval". This is defined in 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...". 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. It may be noted that the recent allocation for , which was processed as a working group document, did indeed follow the more stringent "IETF Review" process proposed by this document. Indeed, the other two related registries do cite the "IETF Review" policy, consistently with RFC 7249. This document therefore extends the first paragraph of section 2.3 of as follows: OLD:
The vast bulk of the IPv6 address space (approximately 7/8ths of the whole address space) is reserved by the IETF [RFC4291], with the expectation that further assignment of globally unique unicast address space will be made from this reserved space in accordance with future needs.
NEW:
The vast bulk of the IPv6 address space (approximately 7/8ths of the whole address space) is reserved by the IETF [RFC4291], with the expectation that further assignment of globally unique unicast address space will be made from this reserved space in accordance with future needs, through "IETF Review" as defined in [BCP26].
RFC Editor Considerations The RFC Editor is requested to update the "Stream" information for to "IAB" in place of "Legacy".
IANA Considerations 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".
Security Considerations Carefully reviewed address allocation mechanisms are necessary for any form of address-based security.
Acknowledgements Useful comments were received from Bob Hinden, Philipp Tiesel, and others.
References Normative References Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification This document specifies version 6 of the Internet Protocol (IPv6). It obsoletes RFC 2460. Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs 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). 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. This is the third edition of this document; it obsoletes RFC 5226. IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture 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. This document obsoletes RFC 3513, "IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture". [STANDARDS-TRACK] Informative References IPv6 Address Allocation Management Internet Architecture Board Internet Engineering Steering Group 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. Memorandum of Understanding Concerning the Technical Work of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority This document places on record the text of the Memorandum of Understanding concerning the technical work of the IANA that was signed on March 1, 2000 between the IETF and ICANN, and ratified by the ICANN Board on March 10, 2000. This memo provides information for the Internet community. The Internet Numbers Registry System This document provides information about the current Internet Numbers Registry System used in the distribution of globally unique Internet Protocol (IP) address space and autonomous system (AS) numbers. This document also provides information about the processes for further evolution of the Internet Numbers Registry System. This document replaces RFC 2050. This document does not propose any changes to the current Internet Numbers Registry System. Rather, it documents the Internet Numbers Registry System as it works today. Internet Numbers Registries RFC 7020 provides information about the Internet Numbers Registry System and how it is used in the distribution of autonomous system (AS) numbers and globally unique unicast Internet Protocol (IP) address space. This companion document identifies the IANA registries that are part of the Internet Numbers Registry System at this time. SRv6 Segment Identifiers in the IPv6 Addressing Architecture Cisco 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. IPv6 Address Space registry n.d. IPv6 Global Unicast Address Assignments n.d. IANA IPv6 Special-Purpose Address Registry n.d.
IPv6 Registry Title Inconsistencies The authors would like to draw attention to inconsistencies in the titles for two of the IPv6 Address Registries: the "Internet Protocol Version 6 Address Space" registry and the "IPv6 Global Unicast Address Assignments" registry . These two titles are inconsistent with the titles for the "IANA IPv6 Special-Purpose Address Registry" and the similar IPv4 registries, the "IANA IPv4 Address Space Registry" and the "IANA IPv4 Special-Purpose Address Registry." While these are mostly editorial issues, likely within IANA's control, confusion caused by these different titles could have easily contributed to not updating the Registry Procedures for the "Internet Protocol Version 6 Address Space" registry at the time of RFC 7249. The "IANA IPv6 Address Space Registry" and the "IANA IPv6 Global Unicast Address Space Registry" are possibly more consistent titles for these registries.
Change Log [RFC Editor: please remove]
Draft-00
  • Original version
Draft-01
  • Added author
  • Added citations
  • Small update to RFC 7249
  • Added appendix on registry names
Draft-02
  • Clarified some details