[sig-policy] prop-048: IPv6 ULA-central
The proposal "IPv6 ULA-central" has been sent to the Policy SIG for review.
It will be presented at the Policy SIG at APNIC 24 in New Delhi, India, 29
August - 7 September 2007. You are invited to review and comment on the
proposal on the mailing list before the meeting.
The proposal's history can be found at:
http://www.apnic.net/policy/proposals/prop-048-v001.html
Regards,
Toshiyuki Hosaka
________________________________________________________________________
prop-048-v001: IPv6 ULA-central
________________________________________________________________________
Author: Jordi Palet Martinez, Consulintel
<jordi.palet at consulintel dot es>
Version: 1
Date: 14 April 2007
Introduction
------------
This policy is intended to allow the assignment of IPv6 blocks within
the so-called "Centrally Assigned Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses"
(see http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipv6-ula-central-01) to
organizations or individuals requiring it. These addresses are globally
unique and intended for local communications, usually within a site or
set of them and are not expected to be routable on the global Internet.
Prefix FC00::/7 is already reserved by IANA for ULA (bit 8 determines
if locally or centrally assigned, so ULA or ULA-central).
Summary of current problem
--------------------------
In some situations, especially large sites in organizations, which
already may have Global Unicast IPv6 blocks, may require an additional
block for their internal infrastructure.
This additional block can be used for a number of purposes, such as
VPNs, site-to-site communications, avoiding dual/multiple faced DNSs,
support for applications which are sensitive to long convergence times
(such as VoIP), etc.
Situation in other RIRs
-----------------------
This policy proposal has already been submitted to the other regions.
Some of them have not yet published it at the time of submission to
APNIC.
Proposal details
----------------
Definition of ULA-central
ULA-central refers to the Centrally Assigned Unique Local IPv6
Unicast Addresses as described in the IETF document
"ietf-ipv6-ula-central" (whatever version is the most recent, as an
Internet Draft, RFC or STD). The ULA-central block is within the
prefix FC00::/7, with bit 8 set to 0.
Assignment of ULA-central blocks
Any organization or individual requiring a /48 from the ULA-central
block will be able to get it assigned, once the relevant contract is
executed and related membership fees are paid (to be determined by
the board).
Note that in most of the cases, locally assigned ULA addresses (RFC
4193) are preferred, and it is only expected that large managed sites
will prefer central assignments. It is also important to reinforce
that the ULA prefix (FC00::/7) it is not routable in the global
Internet (i.e., not designed to be used as IPv6 portable assignments)
and consequently must be filtered.
Advantages and disadvantages of adopting the proposed policy
------------------------------------------------------------
a. Advantages
In some situations, especially large sites in organizations, which
already may have Global Unicast IPv6 blocks, may require an
additional block for their internal infrastructure.
This additional block can be used for a number of purposes, such as
VPNs, site-to-site communications, avoiding dual/multiple faced
DNSs, support for applications which are sensitive to long
convergence times (such as VoIP), etc.
The "Micro-allocations for Internal Infrastructure" document from
ARIN (policy proposal 2006-2, authored by Jason Schiller et al.,
available at http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2006_2.html),
describes the need of this kind of additional block for purposes BGP
Re-Convergence, Internal Infrastructure Security and why locally
assigned ULAs (RFC 4193) addresses are not appropriate. Such policy
proposal was accepted through the policy development process and it
is already part of the ARIN Number Resource Policy Manual.
The usage of Global Unicast IPv6 blocks for this type of purposes
must be considered as wasteful, especially when there is already an
IANA reserved prefix (FC00::/7) for doing so.
b. Disadvantages
None foreseen. However, it should be clear that the original scope
of ULA-central is for large managed sites and all other cases should
use locally assigned ULAs as per RFC 4193. From the same document,
it is clearly documented the reasons why this prefix will not be
useful as IPv6 portable assignments and will be filtered out in the
global Internet.
Effect on APNIC members
-----------------------
None expected.
Effect on NIRs
--------------
They may need to adopt an equivalent proposal, or, as the number of
assignations will be low, rely directly on the same system which may
become implemented by APNIC.
Acknowledgments
---------------
I would like to acknowledge to the authors of the ULA-central work at
IETF, Bob Hinden and Brian Haberman and all those who also contributed
to that work.
(end of text)