Comment by techsupporter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by techsupporter | Hacker News Reader

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Having dealt with ARIN, RIPE, and APNIC quite a lot over the years, this is bang on. APNIC is fairly ambivalent. ARIN expects everyone to be a formally organized entity. Only RIPE seems to truly get that an individual person could be doing something on their own behalf, probably because forming a proper limited company was such a huge paperwork endeavor in most of RIPE's service area.

ARIN really needs the concept of sponsoring LIRs, because right now everyone has to deal directly with ARIN and that means ARIN has to fit their policies to try to fit everyone. While it's technically possible to get IPv6 PI space from ARIN as an individual person end user, and it's gotten easier than in the past, it still looks really daunting to the hobbyist or small network operator.

As for LIRs handing them out like candy, I joined RIPE as an LIR and RIPE will allocate an IPv6 /29 to an LIR for the low cost of zero Euro (well, except for the membership, which is a bit spendy) and that's 524,288 /48s so no reason for me to not slap up a web page and see if I can earn back a few of the EUR I will be paying to RIPE. I'm glad people do it for the pittance we see here.

Frankly it needs to be at least a little bit of a pain to get PI space. As the post briefly mentions, every prefix announced consumes memory in every router on the internet. If everyone had their own PI space it would literally break the internet.

>If everyone had their own PI space it would literally break the internet.

That's an odd way of saying "spurring innovation in the realm of internet routing implementations!

Damn middleboxers. Always trying to keep the little guy off the net!

I have a legacy /24 that predates ARIN. I know several other local "early internet" users that also have their own netblocks. Back then, all you had to do was fire off an email. The company name didn't even have to be real.

ARIN doesn't want or need LIRs because its operating model is based upon having a direct relationship with the entities that hold the ASNs and IP space. If you want to change this you'll need to run for the ARIN board and get a sufficient number of other board members to agree with you for what would be a seismic shift in their entire operating model.

> RIPE will allocate an IPv6 /29 to an LIR

Last time I checked it was a /32.

More than that requires justification (and potential Euro payments depending on context/cirumstances).

Edit to add: Grrr... I see there was a policy change after $myco received its IPv6 allocation [1]. Typical. ;-(

[1] https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2012-10

How fussy are APNIC? I have a Pty Ltd I can put it though, and I'd like my own addressing and ASN and am willing to pay the $1500 a year fee. My justification with a networking plan however would be bullshit, as I just want to play and learn as an individual.

I am curious, what happens if I get a /48 from you and some time later you decide you don't wish to be a LIR anymore. Do I get to keep my /48 somehow (i.e., does RIPE guarantee this)?

Your /48 isn't portable, so, no, too bad. If you've got a contract which extends beyond the period where they're an LIR, maybe you have a breach and would seek compensation, but RIPE doesn't care. See also, "What do you mean the guy I leased this apartment from has sold it?".

Most IPv4 space also isn't portable. Even if you have a /24 (enough IPv4 space that it could be portable) it usually isn't, if you actually need portable space you need to make sure that's what you're actually getting, it will probably cost more.

If it's portable then you can just take it with you to another provider.

Depends on whether the /48 is PI (provider-independent) or PA (provider-aggregable). In the case above (LIR gets /29 and splits it to /48s) it is PA, so the /48 is just a part of the provider's address range, you cannot keep it if the provider ceased to be LIR (or if you wanted to change providers).

But you can instead request /48 PI range in 'sponsoring LIR' mode, which would be independent allocation from RIPE (and subject to small yearly fee), just processed by the LIR. Then you could keep it if you change LIRs.

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