On 24 Oct 2019, at 5:18 AM, Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:
On Thu, 24 Oct 2019, Matt Hoppes wrote:
A thought crossed my mind the other day as I was having a discussion with someone.
Every entity is suppose to justify their need for IPv4 address space from ARIN. This was always (in recent history) the case.
Over the history of the Internet numbers registry system, there has been some requirements to be met in order to have IPv4 address space issued to you. You’d have to ask Vint Cerf, Steve Crocker, or their ilk for the earliest requirements, but I expect it was not much more than asking Jon Postel to make the registration entry in his notebook of assigned numbers. The requirements became a little more formal over time – i.e. requiring one to fill out and submitting to SRI (or their successor GSI or their successor InterNIC/NSI) a template describing the number of IP addresses that you need immediately and over 1, 2, and 5 years time. RFC 1174 documents the decision to delegate the central “Internet Registry” (IR) assignment authority to regional bodies, and you can see the formalization of the IP assignment policy in RFC 1466. In November 1996 (pre-ARIN). RFC 2050 was published containing guidelines regarding administration of the registry. The regional registries at the time were RIPE NCC, APNIC, and the InterNIC (operated by NSI), with the InterNIC’s “region” being nominally everyplace not served by RIPE NCC or APNIC. Network Solutions (NSI) performed the InterNIC function per an agreement awarded under the authority of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Note that RFC 2050 provided that one could return their unused address space or one could transfer space to someone meeting the same requirements as necessary to obtain an assignment directly from the free pool ("7. The transfer of IP addresses from one party to another must be approved by the regional registries. The party trying to obtain the IP address must meet the same criteria as if they were requesting an IP address directly from the IR.”)
No entity is suppose to be given more IPv4 space until they have nearly exhausted their previous space.
How is it, then, that we daily for the last 2-3 years have places like Hilco that have sometimes 15-20 large IPv4 blocks up for auction?
Supposedly we are completely out of IPv4 space, yet every day large blocks are being sold for money, yet they were never returned because they weren’t needed.
Another thought: being that IPv4 address space is essentially leased to you from ARIN, can you even legally auction your space to someone else? I know it’s happening, but it would almost be like me auctioning my apartment to another random person.
There are probably more qualified people who can answer this, but lots of IP space was handed out to organizations (and even to individuals) long before the RIRs like ARIN were created. Those "assignments" / "allocations" (whatever you want to call them) are outside of the control of the RIRs because they had no involvement in them.
Incorrect. There are been a sequence of entities administering the registry – you may have gotten your assignment from Jon Postel or SRI, but it was being maintained by the successor registries (GSI, NSI/InterNIC, ARIN or RIPE or LACNIC, , etc.) since that time. In the ARIN region, we refer to “legacy resource holders” as the parties (or their legal successors) who hold number resources issued to them by ARIN’s predecessors prior to ARIN’s inception in December 1997. If you obtain an address block from a legacy resource holder, you are not a legacy resource holder unless you purchased the entire company (i.e. merger/acquisition) and thus are the legal successor. The reason that ARIN provides special pricing and terms for legacy resource holders is because we respect those organizations contributions to the earliest days of the Internet, and provide a voluntary path for them to formalize their rights via the RSA agreement with favorable terms, if they so choose. Note that none of the above speaks to policy – ARIN’s policies apply to all resources in its registry, and all parties are welcome to participate, including legacy resource holders who haven’t entered any formal agreement for services with ARIN. The NSF press release issued at the time of ARIN’s formation <https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=102819> shows NSF’s approval of the transition of administration of the registry to ARIN and notes that "Creation of ARIN will give the users of IP numbers (mostly Internet service providers, corporations and other large institutions) a voice in the policies by which they are managed and allocated within the North American region.” As such, legacy resource holders are encouraged to participate in the policy development process that sets the policy used for management of the (now) ARIN registry. Legacy resource holders receive the same services that they always have - i.e. those that they were in place at ARIN’s inception, without any need for an agreement or payment of any fees. (Legacy holders that want the all ARIN services available today must enter into a RSA and pay the modest capped maintenance fees which help support development of same.) ARIN has direct control over the registry including all of the entries therein, and this means that when the community adopts a policy, it is indeed applied to all entries regardless of their time of issuance. Since the ARIN community has developed and adopted more relaxed policies for transfers (allowing them to entities who can meet more modest needs requirements), all of the resources in the ARIN registry are operated under those updated policies rather than the more stringent policy that was in place via RFC 2050 prior to ARIN’s formation. This has, among other things, enabled the development of a robust transfer marketplace for unused IPv4 resources in the region, thus creating incentive for unused blocks to be brought back into productive use within the community and providing some small mitigation for those who require additional IPv4 address space at a time when there is very little available for free assignment from the registry system. Note finally that there is no policy at ARIN regarding “leasing” of IP addresses (in many ways, that's precisely what an ISP does with IP addresses for its customers, only usually bundled as an element in the overall service), so one should not be surprised when leasing occurs in the ARIN region. Best wishes - I hope the above helps clarify things - if not, one can find me in Austin for more specific questions. :-) /John John Curran President and CEO American Registry for Internet Numbers