[ipv6-wg] RIPE Policy vs IETF RFC

Dear colleagues,

As you might know, the current IPv6 policy states very clear that assignments to customers must be a minimum of a /64.

5.4.1. Assignment address space size

End Users are assigned an End Site assignment from their LIR or ISP. The size of the assignment is a local decision for the LIR or ISP to make, using a minimum value of a /64 (only one subnet is anticipated for the End Site).

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-655

On the other hand, a while ago, RFC7608 (BCP198) was published, stating:

2.  Recommendation
   IPv6 implementations MUST conform to the rules specified in
   Section 5.1 of [RFC4632].

   Decision-making processes for forwarding MUST NOT restrict the length
   of IPv6 prefixes by design.  In particular, forwarding processes MUST
   be designed to process prefixes of any length up to /128, by
   increments of 1.

In practice, this means that the RFC suggests that a customer can get an IPv6 assignment of any size, while the RIPE policy says the minimum should be a /64.
I’m interested to know what the community thinks about this and if alignment between this RFC and the RIPE policy is needed. 


Nathalie Künneke-Trenaman
IPv6 Program Manager
RIPE NCC