[arin-ppml] 2600::/12 LOA

[Matthew Kaufman]

On 3/29/2014 7:06 PM, John Curran wrote:
> On Mar 29, 2014, at 8:23 PM, Matthew Kaufman <matthew at matthew.at> wrote:
>
>> Here's what surprises me: that it is ARIN's business at all to provide an LOA allowing someone to announce a BGP route. I could have sworn that I have read hundreds of times that ARIN is *only* in the business of running a database in which they maintain unique registrations, and that routing policy is of no concern to ARIN.
>>
>> Either ARIN added a database entry assigning 2600::/12 to Merit, in which case I am confused for several reasons, starting with it not being a unique assignment...
>>
>> Or ARIN didn't add a database entry assigning 2600::/12 to Merit, in which case what could the letter possibly have said?
> Matthew -
>   
>     This is not an "ARIN" process per se, it's more of a practice of
>     that some ISPs require; if you come to them seeking them to route
>     a block not assigned to you, they'll have you get a letter of
>     authorization from the party listed on the block.  For example,
>     this was provided to Merit for new /8's that we received from
>     IANA, so that they could do darknet testing on them before we
>     began issuing space out of them.

I would think that the new /8s would need to be assigned to something in 
your database first. Then you could provide an LOA or alternative (see 
below).

>
>> I would hope that in the absence of both community-developed policy *and* a change in ARIN's chartered mission, ARIN would not issue routing authorization that covers any address space, with the possible exception of the addresses assigned to ARIN itself for its own servers.
>     Would you also include doing testing on address space in the free
>     pool before its issued to anyone, so that we can detect potential
>     impairment of the space?

Sure, that sounds fine. Use Section 11 of the NRPM to assign *unique* 
address space of the appropriate size to ARIN (and provide an LOA for 
the routing to your transit provider(s)) if ARIN is doing the testing, 
or have whomever is doing the testing apply under Section 11 and assign 
the (unique) space to them (so they can just point to the allocation if 
anyone asks them for a LOA) and have at it.

But assigning non-unique space, or worse, giving someone a LOA for space 
that is neither unique nor assigned to them? Sounds like the existing 
policy wasn't even followed... I hate when we get new rules to cover 
specific things that the old rules already covered, and this is going to 
be one of those cases.

Matthew Kaufman