Hi all,
Afilias runs AS112 servers at its various anycast nodes, as well as
authoritative servers for the various TLDs that Afilias hosts. We just
turned up a new node last week, which brought the following issue back
to prominence; I thought I'd send a note about it before I forgot
about it again.
Most if not all transit providers these days install prefix filters to
make sure that their BGP-speaking customers only send them the routes
that they should. (Many ASes install similar filters towards peers,
but the extent to which that is commonplace varies from region to
region.)
The AS112 project operates under the service prefix 192.175.48.0/24,
which is originated by AS112. Announcing that prefix to a transit
provider is an identical situation from the point of view of transit
provider policies as announcing routes for a new downstream customer;
in this case the customer is (from whois) "Root Server Technical
Operations Assn".
Transit providers commonly request a Letter Of Authorisation (LOA)
from ISPs who want to propagate their customers' routes in this
fashion. The LOA would come from the customer, and would confirm that
the ISP is authorised to propagate or announce the routes on their
behalf.
The trouble with the AS112 project is that there's no actual connected
customer, and explaining that AS112 is special to transit providers
who haven't already heard of the concept can be a draining and
frequently unfulfilling exercise. I seem to think there's no actual
legal entity that carries the name "Root Server Technical Operations
Assn", and similarly no listed officers, letterhead, etc which makes
any LOA likely to be an exercise in photoshoppery and subterfuge.
So, the thought occurred to me (warning, text on-topic for DNSOP
approaching) that it'd be nice to be able to publish an LOA in the
form of an RFC so that, in effect, the IETF provides authorisation for
the prefix in question to be propagated. Such a document could be
quite brief, but I seem to think its existence would make it far
easier for providers to accept 192.175.48.0/24 from ISPs.
The benefit would be to ISPs (or other ASes) who decide to start
providing public AS112 service, and to existing ISPs providing the
service who change transit providers or peer with people that filter.
I don't have strong feelings about whether the "LOA in an RFC" idea is
plausible, or even good, but I thought I'd throw it out anyway. If
there was consensus that such a document was worthwhile, I'd happy to
do the legwork (and it'd be sufficiently brief in content and purpose
that I could imagine it being thrown up to the IESG fairly swiftly).
Comments and opinions welcome :-)
Joe
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