BGP & CIDR blocks

Rob Skrobola rjs at ans.net
Thu May 7 15:49:40 UTC 1998


  >From: Sean Donelan <SEAN at SDG.DRA.COM>
  >Subject: Re: BGP & CIDR blocks

  >Exactly how this works hasn't been very clear to an outsider.  I've
  >had customers with their own AS number, who moved from one provider
  >to another provider.  I added their ASN to our AS-MACRO in the RADB
  >and announced their AS and network prefixes.  When their first provider
  >stopped announcing the AS, the customer couldn't reach ANS.  A call to
  >the ANS NOC received a response in addition to updating the RADB we were
  >supposed to send ANS a seperate message telling you the AS number was
  >now being announced by our network (as indicated by the AS-MACRO).  New
  >network prefixes, and new AS numbers seem to get in Ok.  But moving
  >AS numbers still seems to be a special case.  I can understand why, but
  >it would be nice if there was some way you could let other ISPs know
  >what the special cases are, so we don't get surprised.
  >
  >If this is not the case, I know I'm not alone in appreciating knowing
  >when or not we have to send ANS a seperate note for AS number policy
  >changes.

Well, the idea is that aut-nums/as-macros should take care of this
case. However, I agree that there are situations where AS policy changes
can be painful (ie, require a call). I also agree that isn't the way it
should be.

There is standards and development work going on here within ietf, so
registry work isn't, by any stretch, just an ANS issue.

  >On a related subject, is there any concern about cleaning obsolete
  >objects out of the various routing registries?  Information entropy

There is serious concern, and this is an ongoing effort. Again, longterm
fixes are in the works.. Sorry for the vagueness, but I'm no expert on
the rps standards work. Perhaps those that are could comment..Or perhaps
they are smarter than I. :) 

I will note that there is a draft concerning authentication and
authorization of routing policy information, that speaks to the issue
you raise..I list it below. There is also a draft on ripe181 to rps
transition..I mention these only to indicate again that there is real
work going on here, and to point those that want to learn more the right
way.

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-rps-auth-00.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-rps-transition-02.txt

  >Or should we just declare the registry databases a failed experiment,
  >and leave them as trash dumps for the archalogists to dig through.

Well, I'm not interested, nor I suspect are many others, in taking this
down the religious war path (any further than it has already gone). So
I'll leave this alone. :)

	   RobS




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