[arin-ppml] Policy Question for ARIN regarding SWIP

[Owen DeLong]

> On Jul 26, 2017, at 15:19 , hostmaster at uneedus.com wrote:
> 
> There has been some discussion regarding this question on the PPML, and since I received different answers regarding this and nothing official that I can find in the NRPM, I have decided to reach out to someone from ARIN for an answer.
> 
> Currently NRPM 6.5.5.1 requires a static assignment of a /64 or more of IPv6 space to be registered in SWIP.  When registered, can the contact address be that of a central site managing that site, or is the service address of the site itself, including the Zip Code required?
> 
> The following is background information:
> 
> I have need for a static assignment of IPv6 from a certain Major wireless provider, because said provider will no longer provide us static IPv4 addresses after our current contract ends.  We currently have 500+ sites with one static IPv4 address each.  We want to add at minimum a /60 of static IPv6 to each site, which according to the current NRPM requires SWIP.  Each "Site" is a public transit bus, operated by a unit of State Government, and its location is not fixed.

First, calling each bus a site makes some sense from an assignment perspective in that it is perfectly fine to treat each bus as an end-site under NRPM6 for purposes of being able to issue up to a /48 to each end site without further justification.

> Said Major wireless provider tells me that ARIN requires a street address for each site in SWIP, and this information must be the service address, and that each site's address must be unique.

It isn’t actually necessary to SWIP each bus as a separate end site. Probably the easiest thing to do (assuming your upstream wireless carrier will cooperate) is to get an ARIN direct assignment for the bus operator (whether company, state government agency, etc.) registered to the bus operator’s administrative offices, with the number of busses added to the number of office sites/etc. to be covered added together to get the total tally of sites. This would qualify the bus operator for n x /48 rounded up to a nibble boundary under the ARIN direct assignment policy and would enable you to put a /48 on every bus and in ever office. The aggregate would be all that is registered with ARIN.

If the upstream won’t cooperate in this, then they have no greater SWIP requirement under ARIN policy and they are free to SWIP the customer with the larger aggregate block serving multiple end sites.

This is covered in part in NRPM 6.3.4

Further, in 6.5.4 it is made clear that the policy for direct assignments shall also apply to LIR/ISP assignments to end users.

6.5.5.1 calls for the registration of each static assignment of a /64 or more.

IMHO and in common practice, this includes any shorter prefix and there is nothing in the NRPM to prohibit issuing, e.g. a /36 to a company with 500+ end-sites as a single static assignment to that company. If ARIN had a problem with this, I would have run afoul of that issue many times in the past. It has not been an issue.

So, there you have it… Officially in the NRPM, at least as I read it, a single large assignment can be registered at a single address even though it covers multiple end-sites.

Of course, if the ISP won’t delegate you an aggregate and insists on delegating multiple discrete assignments, then you have a different problem.

> I maintain that we should be able to use the contact address of the administrative headquarters where all the bus networks are centrally operated for the SWIP for all of the 500+ sites.  The only employee at each site is the bus operator, and he/she has no access to this network other than as a member of the public on the public wifi, and no access whatsoever to the administrative portions of the network that notifies the central location of the location of the bus, Fare input and location, as well as emergency notification and audio/video from the bus.  Advertising data and bus destination sign updates are also planned.

I believe this to be true regardless of whether you are issued a single large assignment or multiple smaller ones. Hopefully ARIN staff will clarify this shortly.


> Is it acceptable for a group of sites that is managed centrally to use contact information for the central management site, even if because of the detached nature of the assignments, each assignment must be individually placed in SWIP?

I know of a number of large organizations that have received end-user direct assignments shorter than /48 from ARIN (IIRC, some even /40 or shorter) and do not SWIP their individual end-sites. Since the NRPM makes it clear that the requirements are intended to be equivalent, I see no requirement in the NRPM that places any greater burden on reassignments.

Owen