[address-policy-wg] 2023-01 New Policy Proposal (Reducing IXP IPv4 assignment default size to a /26)

Gert Doering wrote on 09/02/2023 08:28:
> OTOH, without this clause, IXPs will notice "there is no more IPv4 space,
> so maybe we need to do something else", and then it will be a bit late
> to start researching - so maybe this is something people from the IXP
> community (EuroIX?) can start working on, *together with the usual
> vendors*, to make sure this stuff actually works when the IXPs need it,
> and there is good documentation for the IXP members "how to make it
> work on their gear"...

No doubt at some point in the future, this will work reasonably well. 
In the interim, it will be fertile territory for difficult-to-diagnose 
forwarding bugs, i.e. the class of bugs that gives the night terrors to 
both device software/firmware developers and network operators.

We're no longer in a world where it's viable to deploy untested and 
experimental L3 packet forwarding features in IXPs.  NISD2 is just 
around the corner, which will categorise all IXPs in the EU region as 
Essential Entities - the equivalent of Operators of Essential Services 
in NISD1.  I.e. IXPs will shortly be regulated entities.

If enabling rfc8950 caused an IXP to blackhole traffic for a couple of 
million people, how would it work explaining it to a regulator that the 
root cause for this outage was an experimental baseline forwarding 
feature, mandated by an addressing policy and enforced by the RIPE NCC?

RFC8950 will have its place in the toolbox, but we're not there yet.

Nick