Re: For whom is IPv6? [was: Happy St Nicholas Day: Re-Launching the IPv6 ULA registry]

[Ted Lemon <[e-mail]>]

Are these community networks not connected to the internet, then?

> On Dec 10, 2020, at 04:04, Nico Schottelius <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
> Good morning,
> 
> thanks a lot for the various comments and feedback. I might need to
> take step a back and explain a bit more about the motivation to spin up
> a "for free ULA registry" (actually rhymes, doesn't it?).
> 
> I am rather young compared to some people here on the list. But what I
> learned when I was young is "you cannot buy an IP address" with the
> notion of "addresses are always free, you might pay for the service to
> give it to you, though".
> 
> So my understanding is that basic thought beyond building the Internet
> is to enable communication between different parties. I do not claim
> that there is no cost involved in this, as building (physical)
> connections does cost actual money.
> 
> Being active in the IPv6 community I see on a daily basis how users or
> potential users are struggling with a very basic need: the question of
> 
>          Which IPv6 addresses can I use?
> 
> For many personal and non-profit organisations the answer at the moment
> is ULA. Why? Because there is no cost involved. No cost directly means
> that communities can act and innovations on their own. And as a long
> time Open Source hacker I can only say that the less hurdles you have to
> take, the more likely you can actually solve the original problems that
> you were tackling.
> 
> That said, users like community networks, do need some guarantee on
> non-collision of their networks. If Berlin uses 2001:db8:aa::/48, it
> would be good if Hamburg used something else. You can argue that within
> one community there is likely going to be a "local" database (i.e. a
> wiki or similar) of assigned networks.
> 
> But what if they merge with a different community? A lot of work needs
> to be done for something that is already been done on volunteer basis,
> this is not an easy task to do.
> 
> This can be solved by a ULA registry such as the one we
> provide. However, you might argue that these organisations should
> instead use GUA. I would personally even open to use an assigned block
> from ungleich to give it to the community. However, this will bind users
> to ungleich without an explicit need. And how is the space handled in
> case we are out of business? It's not the most secure option.
> 
> Then you could argue people should get PI space. That is a great idea,
> until you actually try to get PI space. The conditions set for the LIR
> to keep track of their sponsored parties and the formal requirements are
> neither easy for the user nor for the LIR. It is understandable from an
> RIR perspective that you do not want to have zombie address space, like
> we had in the IPv4 world, but where does it leave the users?
> 
> And this brings me to the topic of this email:
> 
>    For whom is IPv6?
> 
> If global space is too cumbersome and/or expensive for non-profit
> organisations and if ULA space is fully random without a registry, what
> are users supposed to do?
> 
>> From my point of view I see a big shift towards IPv6 in the communities
> (open source, networking, even developers) at the moment. And I think it
> is crucial in this moment to give people who are interested in IPv6 the
> right tools. Today and not in a year or two.
> 
> I am by far not insisting on running a ULA registry. As a matter of
> fact, there are very, very rare cases I ever use ULA
> myself. However I do insist that we need to have a very easy entrypoint
> when it comes to the question of
> 
>     Which IPv6 address space can I use (without colliding in the future)?
> 
> There are many answers to this question, some sketches from my side:
> 
>      - Using the proposed ULA registry (fd00::/8)
>      - Defining fc00::/8 as "officiall registered, unroutable networks"
>      - Defining a totally different [GUA?] space for free usage, but
>        with automated alive checks
> 
> The first two options have been discussed to some extent, let me
> ellaborate a bit on the third option: As mentioned above, I am not
> deploying ULA much. With the main reason being that it prevents me in
> practice to use the space on the Internet.
> 
> What if we had a space that users can acquire directly ("register") and
> that requires (automated) alive checks from the user ("I am still using
> this network"). It could also require users to setup appropriate
> security measures, like RPKI, MANRS, etc. if they wanted to connect to
> the Internet at some point in the future.
> 
> While slightly diverging from the original topic, the IPv6 ULA registry,
> I hope this email illustrates a bit more the motivation of why we do
> what we do and also that there is a need for a low barrier access to
> unique, assigned IPv6 address space. Because if access to IPv6
> addresses is expensive, I have nothing but to ask:
> 
>    For whom is IPv6?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Nico
> 
> Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> writes:
> 
>>> On 09-Dec-20 23:42, Nico Schottelius wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hey Ted,
>>> 
>>> Ted Hardie <[e-mail]> writes:
>>>> [...]
>>>> Because of how they [ULAs] are created, ULAs do not admit of such an
>>>> authoritative list.
>>>> [...]
>>> 
>>> I understand your point and I think the whole ULA discussion could
>>> instantly be stopped, iif everyone had easy access to free IPv6 address
>>> space. As far as I can see PI space is not an option because of the
>>> current high administrative challenges (both as LIR and as a requestor).
>>> 
>>> On the danger of going down the rabbit hole, I propose that ungleich
>>> provides an open source, open data, for-free ULA registry (*) using the
>>> fc00::/8 prefix that has been discussed before as centrally managed.
>> 
>> That would trample on space that both the IETF and IANA have marked
>> as Reserved, so no, that would be a Bad Idea, IMHO. Who knows what
>> structure the IETF might decide for that space 10, 20 or 30 years
>> from now?
>> 
>> fd00::/8 is a space full of pseudo-random numbers, so a registry
>> is certainly harmless.
>> 
>>    Brian
>> 
>>> 
>>> This way there is no conflict with self assignment / self managed
>>> fd00::/8 range and neither the data nor the implementation is locked to
>>> stay with ungleich in the future in case
>>> IETF/IANA/any-of-the-five-RIRs/$other_org wants to take over.
>>> 
>>> Best regards,
>>> 
>>> Nico
>>> 
>>> (*) The source code is already open source, usage is for free already,
>>> however so far there is no automated data export, which we could
>>> implement on a CSV basis and automatically update once per day.
>>> 
>>> --
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> 
> 
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