[address-policy-wg] Easy to remember IP-address

Gert,

On 2010-03-29 12:58, Gert Doering wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 04:41:35PM +0600, Sergey Gotsulyak wrote:
>> Is it possible to modify current Address Policy?
> 
> Yes.  RIPE has a well-defined policy development process, which can
> be used for that - it's documented here:
> 
> http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/pdp.html
> 
> Now, there's of course a catch - the PDP takes a while to run through
> (a couple of months at best, some times much longer), and you need 
> *consensus* for a proposed policy change to become policy - so you need
> to convince the RIPE community that it's of common interest to change 
> this.
> 
> Since we're running out of addresses quickly, even if you succeed in 
> changing the policy, the subnet containing 2.2.2.2 might already be 
> handed out to someone else.  So I wouldn't bet the success of my
> company on the chance of receiving 2.2.2.2 - you might succeed, but 
> you might as well not.

All true.

Still, there are other easy-to-remember blocks, like 2.3.4.0/24 or
2.22.22.0/24, and so on. Geoff Huston and George Michaelson at APNIC
have been doing some research into what "interesting" addresses there
are, since APNIC had the bad (?) luck to get allocated 1.0.0.0/8
recently. You can ask them for some hints as to what people tend to use. :)

I note that there is some precedence for this kind of request, at least
at ARIN (I hear AS42 was assigned when asked for, although I was not
involved with this so it is just a rumor).

As for actually getting the RIPE NCC to issue a resource based on a
request... I think there are two ways to go about this. One is making it
a POLICY matter, and going through the PDP and updating the relevant
documents. The other is solving it PROCEDURALLY, which basically means
convincing the RIPE NCC to accept special requests and handle them when
possible.

I generally think it is in everyone's best interest to keep the policies
as simple as possible. I think it is especially in the RIPE NCC's
interest to handle requests for specific resources procedurally and not
have a policy, because if there is a policy then every new LIR will see
this and of course they will look for "interesting" numbers to request,
meaning lots of extra work for everyone involved.

In summary:

* I support allowing people to request specific unused resources
* I hope that can be done without a policy change

--
Shane