[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2023-2: /26 initial IPv4 allocation for IXPs

[William Herrin]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 8:54 AM ARIN <info at arin.net> wrote:
> ARIN will make IPv4 micro-allocations to critical infrastructure providers of the Internet, including public internet exchange points (IXPs), core DNS service providers (e.g. ICANN-sanctioned root and ccTLD operators) as well as the RIRs and IANA. These allocations will be no smaller than a /26 for IXPs, or a /24 for other allocations that require global reachability of the assigned allocation. Multiple allocations may be granted in certain situations.

I generally agree with this, although I'd make the minimum /27.
There's no need to assign a /24 to something that neither requires
that many IP addresses nor requires global routability, and there are
private interconnects with a small number of participants that would
benefit from addresses guaranteed to be unique. However...


> An IXP requesting an allocation larger than a /26 must show an immediate need to utilize more than 25% of the requested allocation size upon initial commissioning.

I vehemently disagree with this. Expecting to -eventually- have more
than 126 participants should be more than adequate to justify a /24
for an IXP. IPv4 addresses are not so unobtainable that we need to
force IXPs into a regime where they have  a messy addressing problem,
possible renumbering and flag days on the exchange.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William Herrin
bill at herrin.us
https://bill.herrin.us/