[rpd] proposed policy: reservation of resources for IXPs

Wed Nov 5 12:37:11 UTC 2014

Dear all,

please find below version -02 of the proposal after few editorial changes
and the incorporation of text towards sparse delegation.

Thanks to David Huberman for this input.

Regards,
Frank

[1] This policy reserves IPv4 resources for public Internet Exchange Points
(IXPs) in the African region, ensuring that there would be discrete IPv4
resources to allow the establishment and growth of future IXPs.

[2] This policy requests AfriNIC to reserve, and publish IPv4 resources,
and 2-byte ASNs for use by IXPs only.

[3] Proposal
3.1  Introduction
It is widely considered that Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) are one of the
critical elements needed for Internet economies to develop.  Africa is
still in the process of developing these, and is, at the same time, faced
with the imminent exhaustion of its IPv4 resources.  Not having IPv4
addresses to grow, or start new, IXPs would create unnecessary and unneeded
routing complexity for Internet connected networks, looking to peer at IXPs
to further their network scope.  AfriNIC already has an existing policy to
make allocations to IXPs [1], but that policy does not specifically reserve
IPV4 space to ensure that there will be such, for future IXPs to grow and
develop.
Additionally, this policy reserves a set of 2-byte ASNs for use by IXPs for
use at IXP BGP Route Servers.

3.2   Distinction between IXP peering and management networks
We distinguish between two kinds of IP address ressources needed and used
at IXPs.
An IXP peering LAN is the contigious network address block that the IXP
would use to assign unique IP addresses to each peering member, for each
peering participant to exchange network traffic across the shared peering
infrastructure.  Best practice has the IXP peering LAN *not* being visible
in a view of the global routing table, among other things to reduce the
attack vectors for ISP border routers via the IXP.
>From a network identification, monitoring and analysis perspective, it is
thus desirable, that the "peering LAN" space be provided from a contiguous
block.

The IXP management LAN is the management network that the IXP uses to
provision services at the IXP, like monitoring, statistics, mail, ticket
systems, provisioning of transit to DNS Roots, etc.
Management networks, are meant to be reachable globally, for instance to
publish data and allow remote access for common good network infrastructure
(such as root and TLD DNS servers) and research projects.

3.3  BGP Route Servers use
Typically IXPs use BGP route servers to help manage peering sessions
between different participants.  The route servers implement IXP routing
policy in the form of BGP communities, typically in the form of A:B, where
A,B represent A=IXP BGP route server and B=participant ASN.  Current BGP
implementations utilise 6 bytes for the extended community attribute
[RFC5668].  Therefore, an IXP with a 4-byte ASN in use at its route server
would not be able to successfully implement the A:B BGP community mapping,
if an IXP participant has a 4-byte ASN. This situation is likely to be
experienced by more IXPs, as additional 4-byte ASNs are allocated through
the current AfriNIC process.

If, IXP route server communities include the IXP ASN and the peer's ASN
(expected to be 4-byte), and a total of only 6 bytes are available, it
follows that IXP route servers ASN could not be longer than a 2-byte ASN.

3.4  Proposal
To ensure that there are sufficient resources for IXPs to develop, this
policy proposes that AfriNIC reserve IPv4 addresses for IXP peering LANs
out of an address block marked particularly, and exclusively, for IXP
peering LAN use. Assignments for IXP peering LANs must be from one
dedicated block, published as such by AfriNIC. The Peering LAN assignments
for each IXP should ensure that the adjacent /24 IP block is reserved
(based on the minimum end-user assignment policy size of /24) to support
future growth of the IXP. This will enable an IXP to increase its peering
LAN resources to /23 without having to renumber to a new contiguous IP
block allocation.

 Assignments for IXP management addresses should NOT be provided from the
same block as the IXP peering LANs.

It is proposed that a /16 block be reserved for future requirements for IXP
peering LANs in the AfriNIC service region, and that AfriNIC publish this
block as such.  In addition, the assignments for the IXP peering LAN should
reserve the adjacent contiguous /24 IP block to the requesting IXP for
future growth.
These reservations shall be upheld until such a time that the available
pool of the /16 can no longer allocate /23 assignments. Thereafter, new
requests may be assigned from the reserved space held for future IXP growth.

It is further proposed to reserve the equivalent of an additional /16 block
for IXP management prefixes, separate from the peering LANs.

It is proposed that AfriNIC reserves a block of 2-byte ASNs for use in  BGP
route servers at IXPs in the AfriNIC service region.
The number of ASNs to be reserved should be the larger of 114, or half of
the remaining 2-byte ASNs within AfriNIC's block at the date of
ratification of this policy.

AfriNIC will allocate these resources on a first come first served basis.

3.5  Evaluation criteria
This policy does not suggest new evaluation criteria for what determines a
valid IXP.

[4] Revision History (for all but the very first draft)
 4.1 Version

Change: .......................... initial draft
Reason for Change:..........

5.0 References

[1]  AfriNIC Policy for End User Assignments - AFPUB-2006-GEN-001
      http://afrinic.net/en/library/policies/127-afpub-2006-gen-001
      Sections 5) and 6)

On 10/29/2014 5:01 PM, Frank Habicht wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> please find this proposed policy, which we (3 co-authors) have submitted to
> the pdpwg last week:
> 
> Resource Reservation for Internet Exchange Points
> 
> Author(s):
> a) Frank Habicht, Tanzania Internet Exchange
> b) Michuki Mwangi, Internet Society/KIXP
> c) Nishal Goburdhan, Packet Clearing House/JINX
> 
> 1) Summary of the Problem being addressed by this proposal
> 
> This policy reserves IPv4 and 2-byte ASNs resources for public Internet
> Exchange Points (IXPs) in the African region, ensuring that there would be
> discrete IPv4 resources to allow the establishment and growth of future IXPs.
> 
> 
> 2) Summary of How this Proposal Addresses the Problem
> 
> This policy requests AfriNIC to reserve, and publish IPv4 resources, and
> 2-byte ASNs for use by IXPs only.
> 
> 
> 3) Proposal
> 
> 3.1 Introduction
> 
> It is widely considered that Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) are one of the
> critical elements needed for Internet economies to develop. Africa is still
> in the process of developing these, and is, at the same time, faced with
> the imminent exhaustion of its IPv4 resources. Not having IPv4 addresses to
> grow, or start new, IXPs would create unnecessary and unneeded routing
> complexity for Internet connected networks, looking to peer at IXPs to
> further their network scope. AfriNIC already has an existing policy to make
> allocations to IXPs [1], but that policy does not specifically reserve IPV4
> space to ensure that there will be such, for future IXPs to grow and
> develop. Additionally, this policy reserves a set of 2-byte ASNs for use by
> IXPs for use at IXP BGP Route Servers.
> 
> 
> 3.2 Distinction between IXP peering and management networks
> 
> We distinguish between two kinds of IP address resources needed and used at
> IXPs. An IXP peering LAN is the contiguous network address block that the
> IXP would use to assign unique IP addresses to each peering member, for
> each peering participant to exchange network traffic across the shared
> peering infrastructure. Best practice has the IXP peering LAN *not* being
> visible in a view of the global routing table, among other things to reduce
> the attack vectors for ISP border routers via the IXP.
> 
>>From a network identification, monitoring and analysis perspective, it is
> thus desirable, that the "peering LAN" space be provided from a contiguous
> block. The IXP management LAN is the management network that the IXP uses
> to provision services at the IXP, like monitoring, statistics, mail, ticket
> systems, provisioning of transit to DNS Roots, etc.
> 
> Management networks, are meant to be reachable globally, for instance to
> publish data and allow remote access for common good network infrastructure
> (such as root and TLD DNS servers) and research projects.
> 
> 
> 3.3 BGP Route Servers use
> 
> Typically IXPs use BGP route servers to help manage peering sessions
> between different participants. The route servers implement IXP routing
> policy in the form of BGP communities, typically in the form of A:B, where
> A,B represent A=IXP BGP route server and B=participant ASN. Current BGP
> implementations utilise 6 bytes for the extended community attribute
> [RFC5668]. Therefore, an IXP with a 4-byte ASN in use at its route server
> would not be able to successfully implement the A:B BGP community mapping,
> if an IXP participant has a 4-byte ASN. This situation is likely to be
> experienced by more IXPs, as additional 4-byte ASNs are allocated through
> the current AfriNIC process.
> 
> If, IXP route server communities include the IXP ASN and the peer's ASN
> (expected to be 4-byte), and a total of only 6 bytes are available, it
> follows that IXP route servers ASN could not be longer than a 2-byte ASN.
> 
> 
> 3.4 Proposal
> 
> To ensure that there are sufficient resources for IXPs to develop, this
> policy proposes that AfriNIC reserve IPv4 addresses for IXP peering LANs
> out of an address block marked particularly, and exclusively, for IXP
> peering LAN use. Assignments for IXP peering LANs must be from one
> dedicated block, published as such by AfriNIC. Assignments for IXP
> management addresses should NOT be provided from the same block as the IXP
> peering LANs.
> 
> It is proposed that a /16 block be reserved for future requirements for IXP
> peering LANs in the AfriNIC service region, and that AfriNIC publish this
> block as such.
> 
> It is further proposed to reserve the equivalent of an additional /16 block
> for IXP management prefixes, separate from the peering LANs. It is proposed
> that AfriNIC reserves a block of 2-byte ASNs for use in BGP route servers
> at IXPs in the AfriNIC service region.
> 
> The number of ASNs to be reserved should be the larger of 114, or half of
> the remaining 2-byte ASNs within AfriNIC's block at the date of
> ratification of this policy.
> 
> AfriNIC will allocate these resources on a first come first served basis.
> 
> 
> 3.5 Evaluation criteria
> 
> This policy does not suggest new evaluation criteria for what determines a
> valid IXP.
> 
> 
> 4.0 References
> 
> [1] AfriNIC Policy for End User Assignments - AFPUB-2006-GEN-001
> http://afrinic.net/en/library/policies/127-afpub-2006-gen-001 Sections 5)
> and 6)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Note: proposal also available at
> http://www.afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development/policy-proposals/1231-resource-reservation-for-internet-exchange-points
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Frank
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