Fwd: [address-policy-wg] 2007-02 New Policy Proposal (Change in IP Assignments for Anycasting DNS Policy)

> No, I don't say that. I'm not happy with these "numerical"
> requirements. But I'm *more* happy with the SOA count (in our case)
> then the 512 byte limit.

It is hard to do this kind of policy without numerical requirements. But
we need to agree on what will be counted before deciding on the numbers.
As you say, it seems bad to count bytes per DNS packet. Counting SOA
records seems more reasonable but is still DNS specific and can be
spoofed easily.

However, counting data centre locations is harder to spoof and is more
in line with IP addressing policy. We already allow physical locations
as a justification for a subnet. Normally, we also count hosts within
the location, but for IPv4 Anycast, multiple hosts hide behind a single
IP address so host counting is problematic.

Currently, the IPv4 Anycast policy seems to accept 99.6% wasted address
space as OK. I am suggesting that the policy should try to reduce that
waste, by offering a /24 to organizations which provide Anycast hosting
services. Since you can't legitimately offer such a service without
having some minimum number of data centre locations, then the policy
could specify a minimum number. And if you gain more than 250 or so
customers and need another /24 then that should be easy to get.

People who want to anycast their DNS, then have the option to set up a
generic anycast hosting service, or contract with a service provider who
offers such a hosting service. And people who want to anycast something
else, like map data or satellite photos, or financial data, can also use
IPv4 anycast without chasing the RIR to change policies or pretending to
be a DNS hosting service. And people won't complain that RIPE is
anti-competitive.

Technically, it seems to me that any hosting application which sends out
predictable replies to queries from a static database could potentially
benefit from anycasting. In any case, RIPE shouldn't tell people what to
do, just make it possible for people to do things.

--Michael Dillon