[lir-wg] IPv6 assignments to RIPE itself

Hi,

On Tue, Jan 14, 2003 at 02:17:06PM +0100, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> > But the IETF in their infinite wisdom decided that this is not what 
> > people will want, so you're supposed to give them a /48.  Which, for
> 
> RFC 3177 explains in great detail the rationale behind this
> recommendation. I suggest to read it.

The recommendation is pretty useless as it doesn't define what a "site" 
(or a "single edge network") is.

I have been part of the discussions in the RIPE IPv6 WG, and have heard
all the arguments in favour of the way it's set up now.  Those arguments
are pretty convincing, indeed...

...until you start thinking about "large scale assignments to *huge 
numbers* of DSL users with 1-2 networks each" and "how big shall the 
network be that a company assigns to their employees for home use" and 
"how much address space shall a university give to each of their students 
for at-home usage".

None of those questions have any satisfactory answer under the current
model.  

Especially the second one is what we have here right now.  Shall a company
(being "a site") get a /48?  Or shall each of the individual employees
of that company (his home network being "a site") get a /48, thus making
the company need a /42?  How can we assign a /42 to something that's as
small (network-wise) as the RIPE NCC?

If we accept the argument that "there is no shortage of /48s" and hand
out /48s freely to all individual employees of a customer, or to each
individual student of a university, then this will deplete the LIRs /32
pretty quickly (a university with 35.000 students might easily use up 
a /32 on their own).  Which is not what people envisioned when the
current IPv6 allocation policy was made, obviously.

Also, this practice would be violating RFC 3177:

      -  Very large subscribers could receive a /47 or slightly shorter
         prefix, or multiple /48's.

- which makes it pretty clear that an enterprise should not receive a
/42 just because their employees want a /48 each.

Now how are you going to solve that riddle?

(A viable solution would be to give every LIR a /20.  But last time I 
proposed that, people were Not Amused, accused me of wasting address 
space and flatly refused to accept that as a new policy...)

Gert Doering
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