ERX TF - Process

[leo vegoda <]

Dear all,

Here is the process description prepared by Andrei and the good
folks from ARIN.

We would like to be able to prepare a summary of your discussion 
for 29 October.

We appreciate all your input on this process.


ERX of v4 address space
-----------------------

INTRODUCTION

When ARIN began operations, it inherited classful blocks of 
addresses ("legacy" space) that were issued to organisations not 
in ARIN's region. The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) are 
co-ordinating the transfer of these records from the ARIN Database 
to RIPE Database or APNIC Database, as appropriate. This is based 
on geographic location of each resource holder. The affected 
records include class B networks and class C ranges, particularly 
those issued from 192/8. ARIN also maintains reverse delegation 
for all legacy address space. Once the transfer is complete, this 
responsibility will be distributed among the RIRs according to 
their respective regions.

BENEFITS

This will enable resource holders to maintain all their records 
in one database and End Users to interface with just one RIR for 
all database and reverse delegation matters. This effort will also 
help to locate address holders and recover unused or underutilised 
address space.

IMPACT ON RESOURCE HOLDERS

Entities holding legacy space to be transferred can expect the 
process to be largely transparent. While it will not affect network 
status in any way, resource holders might be required to create 
contact identifiers with the proper registry if they do not already 
exist. Queries made in WHOIS for an IP block that has been 
transferred to another RIR will be directed to the appropriate RIR.

APPROACH

The plan is to perform the transfer by /8. For each /8 the following 
tasks have to be performed:

1.  Conflicts (contacts and description) to be resolved
2.  Records and associated documentation to be transferred
3.  Reverse delegation to be set up

A total of 47 /8's with 8030 records have to be transferred.

CONFLICTS

The following types of conflicts have been identified:

C1.  Record exists in ARIN DB only. There is no exact matching (range 
     wise) record in the RIPE DB.

Proposal: to update internal documentation, create the record in the 
RIPE DB and protect with a unique generated mntner.

C2.  Range matches records in both ARIN and RIPE DBs. Meaning that 
     contact and description may be different. Most cases indicate out 
     of date information in one of the Databases, not real conflicts 
     or attempts to hijack address space. What happened in most 
     cases is that people started maintaining their allocation or
     assignement in the RIPE DB, especially since RIPE DB started to 
     support the Routing Registry.

Proposal: Notify conflicts and give time to reach consensus. After 
the deadline merge those who haven't responded, but _do_not_lock_ 
(keep the same mntner).

C3.0  Record exists in the RIPE DB only.

C3.1. One reason why such situation may exist is that this is a valid 
      RIPE NCC allocation.

Proposal: To preserve information in the RIPE DB.

C3.2 Another situation is that the registration data are simply garbage.

Proposal: Notify, give time for explanations and clean up in the end.

PROCEDURE for a /8

1.  Pre transfer
1.1 Initial dump is prepared for transfer by ARIN
1.2 Announcement is sent to ARIN's contacts
1.3 Reverese delegation domain space is cleaned up in the RIPE DB 
    (reverse domain objects for which no delegation was provided are 
    deleted)

2.  Transfer
2.1 Final dump is prepared by ARIN
2.2 C1 group: database records are imported, documentation is updated,
    contacts are notified
2.3 C2 group: contacts (ARIN+RIPE) are asked to reach consensus.
2.4 C3.2 group: contacts are notified of possible deletion.
2.5 DNS is updated: domain objects are generated, zone (full or partial) 
    is generated.

3.  Conflict resolution
3.1 C2 group: non responding records are merged but _not_locked_.
3.2 C3.2 group: records without good reasons are deleted.

TIMELINE

1   Happens at day X
2   Happens on day Y=X+30 and only takes 1 day. At this point we are 
    done with this /8 from ARIN's point of view.
3   Happens on day Y+M

X, Y and 30 can be determined when we have agreed on the procedure 
and have better understanding of resources requiered.


Best regards,

-- 
leo vegoda
RIPE NCC
Registration Services