[address-policy-wg] 2013-06 New Policy Proposal (PA/PI Unification IPv6 Address Space)

* Gert Doering

> The proposal aims to unify IPv6 PA and IPv6 PI space into one kind of
> address space, "IPv6 addresses".  This is the goal.

A goal which I support. However, the proposal does go a bit further than
just this. For example, it:

- unifies [PA] allocations and [PA] assignments
- unifies the LIR and End User roles
- allows an infinitely deep hierarchy of LIR+EU organisations
- in doing so, significantly changes the structure of the Internet
Registry System
- dramatically increases the maximum undocumented delegation size from 1
/29 per LIR to $NUMSITES * /29.
- codifies particular mercantile/contractual arrangements into internet
number policy

I think it would benefit the proposal's journey through the PDP if it
tried to do fewer things at once, perhaps by splitting it into multiple
proposals.

> The idea to go there came from various people in the community, mostly
> for one reason - having two differently "coloured" addresses that do 
> the same thing, routingwise, but follow different policies and have
> different strings attached, creates quite some confusion for the folks 
> out there that can no longer be nicely separated into "ISPs" (->become 
> RIPE members, use PA) and "end-users" (->use PI, if BGP-based multihoming
> and/or upstream independence is required).
> 
> Most notably, "garage style hosting providers" seem to have issues 
> with the requirement of the IPv6 PI policy that PI space MUST NOT be 
> sub-assigned, which the NCC interprets most strictly (because the vast
> amount of "grey" between "ok" and "not ok" is hard to codify into 
> hostmaster guidelines).  OTOH, I have not heard that complaint from
> actual hosting providers for a while, so maybe the issue is not that 
> big anymore.

Is this concern really specific to PI? I'd say this is more a
problematic property of IPv6 *assignments* - regardless of them being PI
or PA. Being a data centre operator and LIR, I believe I cannot
currently make an IPv6 PA assignment to a customer of mine who wants to
run a cloud service where their customers can rent virtual servers in
turn. (A customer of theirs may in turn run some sort of web hotel for
another set of customers on those VMs, and so on and so on.) I do have
such customers today. "Luckily" they've not yet taken an interest in
IPv6. In IPv4, on the other hand, I may (ab)use the "single address
loophole" to assign them the addresses they need.

In any case, this particular concern could be resolved by relaxing the
requirements on assignments somewhat. For example by allowing End Users
to use the addresses for providing services to other entities (who may
in turn do the same and so on), as long as the End User the assignment
is registered to retains operational responsibility for the network in
question.

Of course, this wouldn't by itself yield PI/PA unification. However I
think that too may be accomplished in a less intrusive way than 2013-06
currently proposes: Delete section 7, and add a new section to the
appendix or even just the supporting notes saying that it should be
possible to obtain become an LIR and hold PA space without being a
direct member of the RIPE NCC, and that this should cost about the same
as holding PI does today, and that all pre-existing PI holders and their
blocks/inet6nums should be automatically converted to this new arrangement.

Just my €.02

Tore