COMMENTARY ON "GUIDE TO ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES OF THE
INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE" (draft-rfced-info-iana-00.txt)
Status of This Document
This document is a Comments-Draft. Comments-Drafts are working documents of the
Comments-Drafts working groups, which are the groups that work on
Comments-Drafts. Note that other groups besides Comments-Drafts working groups
may work on drafting comments.
Comments-Drafts are drafts valid for as long as anyone pays attention to them,
but in no case longer than 100 years. While they are authoritative for the
information they contain, they should not be cited or quoted as the authors
disclaim all responsibility for their contents.
Distribution of this document is unlimited but anyone found distributing it
beyond the Comments-Drafts working groups will be ostracized.
Summary 2
Who Should Read This Document 2
References 3
Appendix A
Summary
This document provides comments on, and thereby clarifies, certain ambiguities
and confusions that might otherwise result from a reading of certain sections in
draft-rfced-info-iana-00.txt (enclosed by parentheses in the text that follows).
This commentary is provided as a public service and is not intended to affect
the authority of the original draft, which in any case is disclaimed by its
authors. Likewise, the author(s) of the present document disclaim all
responsibility for its contents and warn readers that they will have no recourse
if they follow what it says, just as they will have none if they follow what the
original document says, the fact that they have no choice not being accepted as
an argument in a court of law, which in any case does not exist for subjects
related to these documents, and if it did would not understand what you were
talking about.
Who Should Read This Document
This document is intended for the authors of draft-rfced-info-iana-00.txt and
the circle of Internet Engineers and others who developed the protocols and
policies it describes, and for the millions of persons and organizations
connected to the Internet who are affected by those protocols and policies
without having anything to say about them.
This information is intended to help new readers and old of RFCs, FYIs, INFOs
and other documents emitted by the IETF, the IANA, the ISOC, the IAB, the IXYZ,
or anyone else, so that they may have a better understanding of what will be
required of them for the rest of their lives on this planet. The language of the
original draft, which is final regardless of the fact that it is called a draft,
is necessarily obscure and ambiguous in order to protect its authors;
nevertheless Internet users should understand what is behind it; thus the need
for the present commentary.
"Prerequisites
This document assumes that you have examined different alternatives for
physical connectivity and will assist you in navigating the Internet
infrastructure so that you can use that connectivity. In choosing your
upstream provider, you should consider their ability to deal with the
Internet infrastructure."
Comment: If your upstream provider is unable to deal with the Internet
infrastructure, find out how he gets away with it and file this information for
future use.
DRAFT-RFCED-INFO-IANA-00.TXT
Section I "Preparation of Systems and Network Planning".
Subsection C.
1. "The administrative contact should be a member of your organization and must
reside in the country. The technical contact should be the key network support
person and may be represented initially by someone outside of the country. Note
that the technical contact must become a network support person residing in the
country."
Comment: The administrative contact can be anyone who has ever been in the
country or has ever had a telephone conversation with anyone residing in the
country. The technical person can be anyone, like your cousin or your family
dentist, but sometime before the year 2999 will have to become someone who has
once resided in the country or had a telephone conversation with someone
residing in the country. In the event that such persons cannot be found, anyone
else will do since no one checks the information in the contact database. Note
that in case of serious attacks on your right to be a ccTLD registry, all you
have to do is move out to the country, since this document, which has no force
of law in any case, merely says "The administrative contact. . .must reside in
the country", so anyone who has a farm will do perfectly well.
3. "Diagram your organization chart and network topology.
Draw your organization chart. Determine the number of groups and
end-users. Describe the size and shape of your current network. Design
your addressing plan based on this information."
Comment: Since you must provide on the application the number of machines that
will be in your network for the next twelve months, you are expected to guess.
It is best to write down your wildest fancy. If you put down too few you will
not be given more addresses when you need them, whereas if you put down too many
you can always sell the ones you do not need. For example, if you have five
computers in your house, put down "One SUN Sparc, fifteen Linux PCs (four as
servers), seven Apple MACs, and four laptop PCs." This is coherent, sounds like
very little to the young man running the Regional Registry, and no one is going
to go to your house to check up anyway, especially if you have a friend who
works at the telephone company. We advise, though, that you pick up some
burned-out desktop towers and keep them strewn around your place in full view.
These can usually be had free at the end of computer auctions.
5. "Predict your address space and bandwidth requirements from end-user
needs. Since address space is finite and must be conserved, end-users are not
permitted to reserve address space."
Comment: You will have to wait until you are higher up on the chain before you
can hoard address space.
6. "Set up, connect, and test your hardware and software.
It is important to have your hardware and connectivity set up before
contacting the appropriate agency for address space."
Comment: Applying for addresses without having any computers at all at your
house is frowned on.
II. "Address Space Allocation
STEP TWO: OBTAIN ADDRESS SPACE ALLOCATION AND REGISTRATION FROM THE ISP
YOU ARE CONNECTING TO, OR (AS A LAST RESORT) YOUR REGIONAL REGISTRY."
Comment: Do not bother the registry people, who have other, better-paying jobs
to do, unless all the ISPs in your area tell you they do not know what IP
addresses are.
"Public IP addresses make up the Internet address space."
Comment: Private IP addresses made up by you and your friends will not be
recognized by anyone except the Root Server Confederations. The Registries will
be angry with you if you use them, and the girls at IANA will not let you take
them to the movies.
"Addresses are allocated in a hierarchical manner and are designed to be
unique."
Comment: If you buy addresses from the fellow down the block for less than the
big Net in town is selling them, you will have to invite the techies at the big
Net to dinner once a month. Also, duplicating other people's addresses and
causing havoc with their e-mail and websites, while an effective technique,
causes router problems and may get you in trouble if you are not able to drive
them out of business before your upstream provider finds out.
"It is important and required that you contact the first upstream provider, and
not the Regional IR automatically. The first question the Regional Registry
will ask you is why you cannot get
address space from your upstream provider."
Comment: If you tell him that your upstream provider did not know what an IP
address is, he will give you some.
A. "Who is my upstream provider?
If there is an ISP already functioning in your country, contact them
directly."
Comment: Do not go yourself. Send a man named Giacomo Pietrasanta, who can be
found at the Black Cat Club, down on the wharves.
"You should contact your Regional Internet Registry if 1) the ISP you are
connecting to is unable or unwilling to provide address space, or 2)
your particular connectivity requirements will result in non-local data
to your customers possibly taking a different route over the Internet
than data destined for your upstream provider's customers."
Comment: You should contact your RIR if 1)the ISP you connected to is in jail,
or 2)your customers are fixing the horse races across the border and do not want
anyone in town getting the odds.
"If you obtain address space from your ISP, it is very likely that you
will need to renumber should you decide to change upstream providers
and/or if you grow considerably. As this renumbering may affect your
customers (and their customers, etc.) if they are using dedicated lines,
you should carefully weigh the cost/benefit involved in obtaining
address space from your upstream provider."
Comment: If you must use an ISP, try to find one who is married and owns his own
house. Failing that, try to find one who is over twenty-five. If all else fails,
contact your RIR.
"Note that if you are an ISP in the ARIN region, the current policy is that you
must have used a /19 previously from your upstream ISP before going to ARIN."
Comment: Mr. Pietrasanta will write you a note.
"Remember that your upstream provider should route you if you ask them.
You are a customer of the ISP, so if the service is not what you need
you should change ISPs."
Comment: After you have exhausted all the upstream providers, go see Mr.
Pietrasanta.
C. "What is CIDR?
CIDR stands for Classless Inter-Domain Routing. Historically, IP
addresses were assigned within classes: Class A (8 bits of network
address, 24 bits of host address), Class B (16 bits of network address,
16 bits of host address), or Class C (24 bits of network address, 8 bits
of host address). With the advent of CIDR, address space is now
allocated and assigned on bit boundaries. Using CIDR means you are able
to assign addresses corresponding with the number of hosts on the
network, thereby conserving address space."
Comment: In the past, there were addresses without much value that were given
out to people like you. Now, all addresses have the same value, so do not expect
to be able to trick your friends like you did before.
D. "How do I request and register address space?
For Countries in the APNIC Region
In order to obtain services from APNIC, you will need to become a
member."
Comment: See Mr. Pietrasanta for an application form.
3. "Confederations are a means by which service providers can group
together to provide resource allocation and registration services
tailored to their specific local language and cultural requirements."
Comment: If you live in an area where there is a confederation, sell your house
and move.
"For Countries in the RIPE Region
RIPE NCC provides IP address space allocation only to contributing local
Internet registries. For a description of the European Internet
Registry policies and procedures, see RIPE-159, "European Internet
Registry Policies and Procedures."
Comment: Do not waste your time going to RIPE unless you have a cousin who works
in Brussels.
III. "Autonomous Systems (AS)
A. What is an ASN and do I need one?
Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) are used to facilitate routing in
multi-homed environments. They are allocated when your routing policy
is different from your provider's."
Comment: If you are providing connectivity for bookies, smugglers, gun runners,
or the mafia, you need an AS number.
"Note that the resultant multi-homing generally makes the system more robust and
may also change registry (and therefore request) relationships. It also
increases costs greatly."
Comment: If cost is a problem, you do not need an AS number.
B. "How do I register an ASN?
Since the ASN space is quite limited, request only what you really need
when you need it."
Comment: If you are covering the weekend races, you can obtain an AS number for
the weekend at a reduced rate. Likewise, for smuggling, gun running and other
transitory operations, AS numbers can be arranged by contacting your RIR ten
days in advance.
IV. "Routing and Exchange Points
STEP FOUR: IF NEEDED, REGISTER WITH A ROUTING DATABASE.
A. Do I need to register with a routing database?
You do not need to register with a routing database if you are simply
carrying default routes to your (single) ISP. If you get your address
space from an ISP, the ISP will register you. If you are connected to
more than one ISP, then you should register with a routing database."
Comment: International operations usually need routing database registration for
convenience in changing connectivity points. This also aids in remaining
untraceable. For more information see RFC 741185 "Routes, Routing, Routing
Databases, and Routing Database Registries" and Cisco's "How to Configure
Routers and Copy Databases From Others While They Sleep".
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(To Be Continued)