IPv6 Documentation Address Policy APNIC Policy SIG Meeting Kitakyushu, September 2002 Philip Smith <pfs@cisco.com>

The Problem No IPv6 address space which can be used for documentation APNIC has no criteria for allocating IPv6 address space for documentation

Background Documentation authors are using Internet Resources from a variety of sources: RFC1918 IPv4 space and private ASNs From their employer’s blocks From well known ISPs Easy to remember values for IPv4 addresses and ASNs Unassigned/unallocated resources at the time of writing (e.g. network 222/8 or ASN > 32000)

Background – Problems Apart from private IPv4 and ASN space, all other address ranges conflict with existing or future assignments on the commercial Internet “cut-and-paste” testing of documentation examples “cluelessness” Commercial impact on operational networks – $$$ May be seen as DOS attack

Current Status IPv4 addresses ASNs IPv6 addresses RFC1918 address used Not ideal, but most ISPs filter private addresses ASNs Private ASNs used Not ideal, but more ISPs are now filtering private ASNs IPv6 addresses Nothing available Address space is either reserved or allocated

Proposal The RIRs set aside a block of IPv6 address space exclusively for the purposes of documentation

Detail One Address space allocated for documentation purposes Should be same size as RIR minimum allocation This is so that documentation examples can match real life

Detail Two Address space allocated for documentation purposes Should come from global unicast address space Use of site local or link local makes no sense – it is different from global unicast address space

Advantages Documentation authors no longer have to use IPv6 address space of their employers, or of other Internet entities, for worked examples in published works No more possible risk to the commercial Internet

Disadvantages An IPv6 netblock will be added to the list of non-routable IPv6 address space Most ISPs filter IPv6 address space anyhow, so this is only one extra network Some people might think that this is private IPv6 space – it is not

Implementation APNIC should implement this policy three months after consensus has been reached All supporting docs will be updated before this date Community will be informed before this date

Questions?