Comments solicited: assignment of non-routed network numbers
We have recently received a number of requests from customers wanting IP network numbers which are never intended to be routed to the global Internet. How are other providers dealing with requests of this sort? In the absence of network numbers which have been explicitly set aside for this purpose by the global Internet registry, I can't see a good way for a provider to allocate network numbers for this purpose without having them needlessly consume the provider's address space. One compromise might be for the provider to reserve a block which can re-used by more than one customer, but that block will still consume a chunk of the provider's space. Also, how large should that block be to satisfy all requests for non-connected network numbers? Your comments on this matter would be appreciated. --Vince
Vince,
One compromise might be for the provider to reserve a block which can re-used by more than one customer, but that block will still consume a chunk of the provider's space.
Don't you think that this would be asking for trouble in the event that the customer does eventually connect? It would be best to have the customer with a "legal" network from the start. - Greg knopf@jvnc.net
I strongly suggest putting some network numbers aside for this purpose. Hans-Werner
We have recently received a number of requests from customers wanting IP network numbers which are never intended to be routed to the global Internet. How are other providers dealing with requests of this sort? In the absence of network numbers which have been explicitly set aside for this purpose by the global Internet registry, I can't see a good way for a provider to allocate network numbers for this purpose without having them needlessly consume the provider's address space. One compromise might be for the provider to reserve a block which can re-used by more than one customer, but that block will still consume a chunk of the provider's space. Also, how large should that block be to satisfy all requests for non-connected network numbers?
Your comments on this matter would be appreciated.
--Vince
I strongly suggest putting some network numbers aside for this purpose.
Hans-Werner
We have recently received a number of requests from customers wanting IP network numbers which are never intended to be routed to the global Internet. consume a chunk of the provider's space. Also, how large should that block be to satisfy all requests for non-connected network numbers?
--Vince
I would almost have suggested using a class-A net for this :-) except that I have found the lack of flexibilty and understanding (of subnetting rules and variable subnet masks) to be very prevelant in the 'industry'. Since the underlying and existing software seems to deal with class-C nets so much more nicely, can we allocate a class-[AB] and a chunk of class-C nets ? Explaining the concept of split-subnets to confused end users time and time again is pretty tiring... -vikas
I would recommend against "simply" using a large net (read class A) and would instead advise the use of as small of a block as possible. People who move from a private network to the public Internet will face the same problem as people moving from one network service provider to another (if they renumber). If all future IP address assignments are done along the lines of <CIDR prefix, host address part>, with host address part assigned to meet local routing requirements, then people who move over to the public Internet could possibly get by with only changing their prefix. This will be an education problem in the short term. It would be nice if tools like BSD ifconfig could take some syntax that looked like <CIDR prefix, host address>. Overall, it would make sense to draw these private prefixes out of a single large block, such as 10. cheers, peter
For those organizations that can get away with it, I have them use 192.0.2.0, which I understand is reserved for just such uses. There had been talk about an additional number for other spaces, but a well placed mask should take care of this... :-) -- Regards, Bill Manning bmanning@rice.edu PO Box 1892 713-285-5415 713-527-6099 Houston, Texas R.U. (o-kome) 77251-1892
AN RFC is being drafted to assign a "non-globally unique" network number out of class A,B, and C space, for the NIC to respond to these queries with. You should use one of them if it's a disconnected segment which will never require access. Note people really need to understand the meaning of that - including that they won't be able to talk to root nameservers, etc... Thanks, milo
Just thought another use of the "non-globally unique" nets: they could be used for internal testbeds. --jessica
participants (8)
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bmanning＠is.rice.edu -
Greg Knopf -
hwb＠upeksa.sdsc.edu -
Jessica Yu -
Milo S. Medin -
Peter S. Ford -
Vikas Aggarwal -
Vince Fuller