[address-policy-wg] IPv6 PI assignment policy

Anno domini 2015 Ondřej Caletka scripsit:

Hi Ondřej, hi list,

> I'm not sure what networks typically a freifunk community network
> oparates. But if it can be compared to a very small "ISP" with tens to
> hundreds customers, than the PI assignment is not an option due to its
> fixed size of /48 which is simply not enough. You are not going to give
> a single /64 to customer, are you?

God no :)

A Freifunk network is a mesh network (build upon a BATMAN Layer 2 mesh
in most cases, but other solutions exist, OLSR based f.e.) where
interested individuals can connect their Freifunk node to and become
part of that independent "peoples network".

So a /48 allocation/assignment would be totally enough to fulfill this
scenario(s).

> On the other hand, if the freifunk only operates a few hot spots,
> comparable to some Wi-Fi service in a restaurant, etc. then all
> addresses can be in my opinion counted as a part of organisation
> infrastructure so the PI rules would not be violated.

What definition would be required for "organization"? Usually a local
Freifunk community is organized as lose group of interested people who
may or may not have set up a registered association to have a legal entity.

The goal behind Freifunk is that everyone can participate in a free
and open wifi network by just bying some wifi hardware, installing
some pimped OpenWRT software on it and connecting it to the wifi cloud
(or via VPN to central network points). There is no central management
of all nodes, membership requirement or anything the like.

> > Small Hotspot providers and especially Freifunk communities typically
> > can not afford a LIR Membership to be independent. In my opinion the
> > current policy makes it hard to adopt IPv6 in such cases.

> Everybody would like to be independent to have some back-up scenario if
> something happen to their main uplink ISP. However, every new PI
> assignment have a permanent negative impact on the global routing table.
> I therefore think it is reasonable to have some limit for obtaining
> independent resources such as the RIPE NCC membership fees.

> What if the freifunk communities formed an alliance and become a LIR as
> a part of the alliance? It would lower the costs of becoming a LIR and
> at the same time allow communities to get enough independent IPv6
> addreses that could be assigned to customers.

Well that's basicly the idea behind Freifunk Rheinland :)
Which is fine for legacy IP 'n stuff but for larger Freifunk networks
raises some problems and limitation as Thomas mentioned.

> > I'd like to propose a change of the policy to allow PI addresses to be
> > used for clients which don't belong the assigment-holder. This clients
> > are connecting to networks which use address space of the holders PI
> > assignment e.g. via wifi.

> I don't think it's a good idea. There is a reason why the usage of PI
> addresses is restricted. I think your proposal would lead to a situation
> where everybody uses PI addresses just-in-case even if they don't really
> need them, thus flodding the global routing table.

Although I get your points, there's an operational downside to this:

As every Freifunk community which exists or pops up in any major and
minor city around Germany operates on their own, each community would
need to have a /32 assignment to be able to set up local peerings.
Some local ISPs would sponsor peerings and provide IPv6 transit for
free if we were able to announce our own prefix to them which we can't
today even if we have a /48 assignment from "our" Freifunk alliance LIR
(as this would probably be filtered away by most of you as it's from
 the PA pool).

As communities don't have money for leased lines/dark fiber/etc. to
connect to one or better two of those central LIRs only VPNs/GRE tunnel
to central nodes are in the cards and local peerings are out of the
picture. I'd really like to leverage the offers of our local ISPs to
peer with us and provide IPv6 upstream for more stable connectivity,
less latency and more bandwidth.

So our only hope would be to get a /48-PI prefix (or a /32 PA one
which would be hugh waste of addresse space in my opinion) and
wouldn't make a difference in number of routes in the DFZ anyway.

Kind regards
Max
Freifunk Paderborn (+Freifunk Rheinland associate)