Summary

  • Jan Zorz, Mark Townsley and Jordi Palet Martinez wrote RIPE proposal 2011-04, accepted in May 2012, to let eligible existing IPv6 /32 holders request expansion up to /29 without extra justification.
  • Their follow-up, 2012-10, accepted in May 2013, changed a /29 ceiling from per LIR to per allocation. An LIR with several old /32s could request a /29 for each.

The empty room had an occupied sign

Imagine drawing an office floor plan, leaving seven rooms beside a tenant for future growth, and then demanding a business case before opening the doors. RIPE's IPv6 policy had its own version. A /32 allocation sat inside a larger, contiguous /29 block reserved for possible expansion. Operators planning a network could see the room on the map. Getting to use it was another matter.

Jan Zorz and coauthors Mark Townsley and Jordi Palet Martinez took that mismatch to the RIPE Address Policy Working Group. Their 2011-04 proposal connected address size to two practical problems. A small LIR using 6rd, a method of carrying IPv6 across existing IPv4 infrastructure, needed enough space for customers. Another operator might want prefix bits to mark different areas of its network. A tidy /32 minimum could make both plans needlessly tight. The authors sought initial allocations up to /29 for eligible applicants, and an easier path for existing /32 holders to request expansion. The reserve was already there; the application should acknowledge why it had been reserved.

RIPE accepted 2011-04 on 31 May 2012. The RIPE 64 minutes record Zorz leading the discussion. A holder could ask to expand its /32 to /31 or /29 without supplying a new case for need. Beyond /29, the policy still asked for justification. That boundary made the permission legible: use the growth space set aside around an allocation, then explain any larger request.

One troublesome word survived. The accepted text let an LIR extend “these allocations up to a total of a /29.” Read strictly, total meant one /29 ceiling across the entire LIR. Suppose a company had three separate networks, each with an old /32. The 2012-10 proposal shows the arithmetic: under that reading it might extend one /32 to /30 and two to /31. Taking one network to /29 while leaving the others alone was outside the rule. The address plan had become a hostage of the singular ceiling.

Zorz and the same coauthors returned with a precise edit: each existing allocation could be extended up to /29 without further documentation. The proposal calls the old phrasing an oversight. It also explains the odd incentives created by a per-LIR total: an organisation could expand before merging LIRs, or reorganise its LIRs to get a different result. The correction made the allocation, rather than the corporate wrapper around it, the unit of the permission. RIPE accepted it on 14 May 2013.

That is Zorz's useful lesson from two small policy files. IPv6 address space can be abundant while the right to organise it is cramped by a sentence. In this case the sentence was rewritten, and the reserved room acquired a usable door.

Original records