[ARIN-Suggestions] Two New Suggestions Received

[ARIN]

Two new suggestions have been received (2024.9 and 2024.10). You may find the new suggestions and links in full below. 

Regards, 

American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)

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ACSP Suggestion 2024.9: Provide Machine-Readable Versions of ARIN Micro-allocations
https://www.arin.net/participate/community/acsp/suggestions/2024/2024-09/

Author: Matt Peterson   

Description:

ARIN should expose machine-readable versions of ARIN Micro-allocations (Internal, Exchange, and Critical Infrastructure). These should be published in a well-known location and offered in a format usable for scripting languages, such as JSON or CSV encoding. Of particular interest would be the allocation type, assignment date, and the prefix.

Additionally, annotating this in whois output would also be useful as another way to signal specific prefixes which were allocated under NRPM 4.4.

Value to Community:

Researchers and network operators often need to perform analysis on which “special” allocations, such as exchange points - are present in the DFZ table or not.

Those who are tracking the effectiveness and utilization of ARIN policies may find this information useful as well.

Timeframe: Not specified

Status: Confirmed

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ACSP Suggestion 2024.10: Add Optional "Geofeed" field to Whois
https://www.arin.net/participate/community/acsp/suggestions/2024/2024-10/

Author: Guanzhong Chen   

Description: Add an optional “Geofeed” attribute on Network objects in the ARIN Whois database to serve as a standardized, canonical source for Geofeed URLs.

Value to Community:

Currently, APNIC and RIPE has a standardized “geofeed” attribute on their inetnum and inet6num objects, which enables resource holders to declare a canonical source for Geofeed URLs, whereas in ARIN, we are forced to resort to ad hoc solutions like “Comment: Geofeed [url]”.

It is of great benefit to all ARIN resource holders and geolocation providers to have a standardized method of communicating IP geolocation information instead of relying on fragile and error-prone solutions of parsing public comments.

To be clear, a similar proposal was made in ACSP Suggestion 2022.15, but that proposal was rejected because there was no interest in adding inetnum into the ARIN IRR. I agree that the ARIN IRR isn’t the right place for this sort of thing, especially since it would require introducing a new object type. However, all network ranges are expected to be correctly documented in a database per NRPM sections 3.2, 4.2.3.7.1, and 6.5.5.1, and the easiest solution to accomplish this has always been with the ARIN Whois database. Per the relevant sections of NRPM, address information, which is intrinsically linked with geolocation, should be documented in the Whois database. Therefore, adding a “Geofeed” attribute to ARIN Whois database will make documenting and transmitting this aspect of the ARIN resources easier for resource holders.

Status: Confirmed