RIPE Policy Proposal 2007-02

This proposal suggests that there should no longer be a requirement to be a ccTLD or a gTLD to receive IPv4 and IPv6 assignments for anycasting DNS. The proposal suggests new requirements that the requesting organisation must fulfil to receive assignments for anycasting DNS.

Current:

(from ripe-405):

6.9 Anycasting TLD Nameservers

If the name server set of a ccTLD or a gTLD without anycasting technology applied would not pass the 'IANA Administrative Procedure for Root Zone Name Server Delegation and Glue Data' the TLD administrator may receive a single dedicated /24 network prefix for the sole purpose of anycasting name servers, as described in RFC 3258.

The prefix will be assigned by the RIPE NCC directly to the TLD, upon a request submitted via an existing LIR and will be registered with a status of 'ASSIGNED ANYCAST' in the RIPE Database and must be returned to the RIPE NCC if not in use for anycast DNS any longer.

(from ripe-388):

7. Assignments for Anycasting TLD Nameservers

If the name server set of a ccTLD or a gTLD without anycasting technology applied would not pass the 'IANA Administrative Procedure for Root Zone Name Server Delegation and Glue Data' the TLD administrator may receive a single dedicated /48 network prefix for the sole purpose of anycasting name servers, as described in RFC 3258.

The prefix will be assigned by the RIPE NCC directly to the TLD, upon a request submitted via an existing LIR and will be registered with a status of 'ASSIGNED ANYCAST' in the RIPE Database and must be returned to the RIPE NCC if not in use for anycast DNS any longer.

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New:

(For IPv4)

6.9 Anycasting Name servers

If the name server set of an organisation running DNS without using anycasting technology would not pass the 'IANA Administrative Procedure for Root Zone Name Server Delegation and Glue Data' the organisation may receive a single dedicated /24 network prefix for the sole purpose of anycasting name servers, as described in RFC 3258.

The organisation should demonstrate that the number of name servers or IP addresses for these name servers in the delegation exceeds eight and that without anycasting their zone size exceeds the UDP datagram size.

The organisation should also demonstrate that they need to do anycasting due to the geographical diversity of their DNS setup. The organisation will be required to demonstrate that anycasting will be used in diverse geographical locations. The existence of the real servers should be demonstrated with anycasting nodes that can be pinged and tracerouted.

The prefix will be assigned by the RIPE NCC directly to the organisation, upon a request submitted via an existing LIR and will be registered with a status of 'ASSIGNED ANYCAST' in the RIPE Database. The prefix must be returned to the RIPE NCC if no longer in use for anycast DNS.

(For IPv6)

7. Assignments for Anycasting Name servers

If the name server set of an organisation running DNS without using anycasting technology would not pass the 'IANA Administrative Procedure for Root Zone Name Server Delegation and Glue Data' the organisation may receive a single dedicated /48 network prefix for the sole purpose of anycasting name servers, as described in RFC 3258.

The organisation should demonstrate that the number of name servers or IP addresses for these name servers in the delegation exceeds eight and that without anycasting their zone size exceeds the UDP datagram size.

The organisation should also demonstrate that they need to do anycasting due to the geographical diversity of their DNS setup. The organisation will be required to demonstrate that anycasting will be used in diverse geographical locations. The existence of the real servers should be demonstrated with anycasting nodes that can be pinged and tracerouted.

The prefix will be assigned by the RIPE NCC directly to the organisation, upon a request submitted via an existing LIR and will be registered with a status of 'ASSIGNED ANYCAST' in the RIPE Database. The prefix must be returned to the RIPE NCC if no longer in use for anycast DNS.

a. Arguments supporting the proposal

There are organisations which are running DNS but which are not holding a ccTLD or a gTLD. However, as their DNS setup is reasonably large and very important for their customers, they need to do anycasting. Although these organisations need resources for similar reasons, they cannot qualify for anycast assignments under the current Anycasting Assignments policy.

The proposal suggests that resources should be assigned to those organisations which can demonstrate a reasonable anycasting DNS setup. It proposes that details like the number of the organisation's name servers and the geographical diversity of their DNS setup should be included in the policy text so that eligible organisations can demonstrate their serious need for the address space.

b. Arguments opposing the proposal

One can argue that there will be some additional address consumption and routing table slots with this proposal as the assignment criteria will be opened to organisations that are not a ccTLD or a gTLD.