Summary

  • Owen DeLong's first ARIN 2005-1 draft would have let an end site that qualified for an ASN receive a provider-independent IPv6 prefix. Opposition centred on routing-table growth and a possible rush for ASNs.
  • The adopted 2006 rule instead required eligibility for an IPv4 assignment or allocation, set a /48 minimum for direct IPv6 assignments and reserved at least a /44 for growth. The Board asked for actual discussion counts before voting.

A network could change its ISP. Its address wanted to stay.

An enterprise considering IPv6 had a mundane problem under the grand talk of a new Internet: a provider-assigned address might have to change when the enterprise changed providers. In his February 2005 draft, Owen DeLong offered a brisk qualification test. If an end site met ARIN's criteria for an autonomous system number, it could obtain one provider-independent IPv6 prefix. A growing site would exchange that prefix for a bigger one and promise to return the old block within 24 months. The proposal treated portability as something an operator could ask for without first buying a permanent address from its ISP.

The door key alarmed the room. An ASN is a routing identifier, and the proposal could make it attractive as a ticket to an independent IPv6 block. DeLong's original numerical estimates for resulting routes were forecasts. The September rewrite, now bearing Kevin Loch's name too, records the objections: a run on ASNs and an IPv6 default-free table swelling with separate prefixes. That version tried a much tighter gate—existing IPv6 multihoming through two LIRs and capacity for 100,000 devices within a year. It proposed a /44. Those requirements were a negotiating draft, not the final policy.

At ARIN XVII, DeLong and Loch presented 2005-1 alongside Andrew Dul's separate 2006-4. The audience advanced the former. The final archive lists all three as authors and gives the enacted test: the applicant must not be an IPv6 LIR and must qualify for an IPv4 assignment or allocation under ARIN policy. The minimum direct IPv6 assignment became /48, with at least /44 reserved for possible growth. An ASN was no longer the automatic ticket.

The Board even paused to count the hands and messages. Its 9 May 2006 minutes record 55 in favour and 12 opposed in the room, followed by mailing-list and Last Call tallies. The proposal passed with one abstention and took effect on 30 August. DeLong's opening move did not survive intact. The durable result was a route to an IPv6 address an end site could hold directly, with a smaller and more closely inspected doorway than he first drew.

ARIN originals