]> Clarification of IPv6 Address Allocation Policy The University of Auckland
School of Computer Science PB 92019 Auckland 1142 New Zealand brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com
Cisco Systems, Inc.
suresh.krishnan@gmail.com
University of Minnesota
Office of Information Technology MinneapolisMN55455 United States of America farmer@umn.edu
INT 6man This document specifies the approval process for changes to the "IPv6 Address Space" registry. It also updates RFC 7249.
Introduction Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) and its address space are defined by and . The management of the IPv6 address space was delegated to IANA by , some years before the relationship between the IETF and IANA was formalized and registry details were clarified . Occasionally, IPv6 address space allocations are performed outside the scope of routine allocations to Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). For example, a substantial allocation was requested by an IETF document approved by the IESG , which moved the range 5f00::/16 from the "IPv6 Address Space" registry to the "IPv6 Special-Purpose Address Space" registry . At the time of writing, the allocation policy in the "IPv6 Address Space" registry was shown as "IESG approval", whereas a more stringent policy is appropriate for major allocations. The present document therefore strengthens the approval level needed for non-routine address allocations, which requires an update to . This document also clarifies the status of . This clarification is necessary because , a joint publication of the IAB and IESG following an IETF Last Call, was incorrectly listed in the RFC index at the time of writing as "Legacy", whereas it is part of the IETF Stream .
Approval Level of IPv6 Address Allocations Portions of the IPv6 address space are shown in the registry as "Reserved by IETF" . This is the address space held in reserve for future use if ever the 125-bit unicast space (2000::/3) is found inadequate or inappropriate. did not specify an allocation policy for this space. At some point, IANA listed "IESG approval". As defined in , this is a rather weak requirement ("Although there is no requirement that the request be documented in an RFC, the IESG has the discretion to request documents...") and is "a fall-back mechanism in the case where one of the other allowable approval mechanisms cannot be employed...". For something as important as the majority of the spare IPv6 address space, this process is clearly insufficient. The present document replaces the "IESG approval" process by the "IETF Review" process as defined by . The stricter "Standards Action" policy is not considered necessary, because there may be cases where opening up a new range of address space does not in fact require a new protocol standard. It may be noted that the allocation for , which was processed as a working group document, did indeed follow the more stringent "IETF Review" process proposed by this document. Indeed, the other two related registries cite the "IETF Review" policy, consistent with . This document therefore extends the first paragraph of as follows: OLD:
The vast bulk of the IPv6 address space (approximately 7/8ths of the whole address space) is reserved by the IETF , with the expectation that further assignment of globally unique unicast address space will be made from this reserved space in accordance with future needs.
NEW:
The vast bulk of the IPv6 address space (approximately 7/8ths of the whole address space) is reserved by the IETF , with the expectation that further assignment of globally unique unicast address space will be made from this reserved space in accordance with future needs, through "IETF Review" as defined in .
IANA Considerations IANA has updated the registration procedure of the "IPv6 Address Space" registry to "IETF Review".
Security Considerations The security considerations of apply. While having no direct security impact, carefully reviewed address allocation mechanisms are necessary to ensure operational address accountability.
References Normative References Informative References IPv6 Address Space IANA IPv6 Global Unicast Address Space IANA IPv6 Special-Purpose Address Space IANA
Acknowledgements Useful comments were received from , , , , and others.