[routing-wg] Need for "import-via:" and "export-via:" attributes in AUT-NUM object

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 03:05:21PM +0200, Denis Walker wrote:

> Although the proposal had received some support when discussed
> recently on the Database Working Group mailing list, there was some
> discussion during the RIPE 67 Routing Working Group session that the
> community field can be used to achieve the same result as these
> proposed "via" attributes. 

IMHO, overloading the BGP community field is not the appropiate place
for such inter-domain policy publication. Not only is the BGP community
field only 32 bit (thus not allowing for targetting 32 bit ASNs with
an action) - it will never provide a uniform interface for users as
each AS interprets and treats communities in their own way. 

> However, some people have commented that the community field cannot be
> used for this purpose with 32-bit AS Numbers. As a result, the RIPE
> NCC was asked to bring the issue back to this mailing list for further
> discussion.

Exactly. 

Also, I feel that we should be careful in this thread not to venture
into a zealotic discussion what the best approach is (BGP Communities
versus RPSL), but rather discuss if RPSL-via is valid and workable, and
if yes allow people to use it. 

Kind regards,

Job
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