Re: [nanog] 2749 routes AT RISK - Re: TIMELY/IMPORTANT - Approximately 40

[John Curran <jcurran () istaff org>]

> On 4 Apr 2022, at 7:42 PM, Dan Mahoney (Gushi) <danm () prime gushi org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 5 Apr 2022, Job Snijders via NANOG wrote:
>
> > I think all of us recognize a need to declaw "third party" IRR databases
> > like RADB and ALTDB ("declawing" meaning that it is not desirable that
> > anyone can just register *anything*); on the other hand our community
> > also has to be cognizant about there being parts of the Internet which
> > are not squatting on anyone's numbers *and* also are not contracted to a
> > specific RIR.
>
> As one datapoint, two tiny /24's I (not-dayjob) originate are legacy resources.  They cannot be added to either RPKI 
> or the ARIN IRR objects without endeavoring to spend an at-least-this-much-money-price-will-only-go-up-over-time 
> amount.

Dan - 

I’ve frequently spoken with people with legacy resources in this situation, and some opt to sign an RSA & become an 
ARIN customer, and others do not…   It’s your choice, and those with concerns about the NONAUTH RIR shutdown who didn't 
want to become ARIN customers and use our authenticated IRR were directed towards several of the other perfectly fine 
IRR projects out there (e.g. RADB, ALTDB, etc.)  

There’s nothing amiss with putting routing objects in these other IRR systems, and no one I spoke with had any 
challenge with the concept.  As far going with the RPKI ROA route, I’ll admit that I didn’t raise it very much (since 
it inherently requires a level of validation that many organizations don’t particularly want or need to go through with 
their legacy number resources...) 

> Ironically, to find the way forward, ARIN would require incorporation, the signing of a RSA, and Moar Money for this 
> same organization to have similar v6 blocks, in order to eventually retire these v4 resources.

Interesting – as ARIN’s fee schedule was designed specifically so that every IPv4 customer can get a 
corresponding-sized IPv6 block without any change in annual registry fees.
(i.e. I’d be interested in hearing more; on- or off- list as you prefer)   If you mean that you’d need to pay the same 
amount of fees of everyone else whose received similar sized IPv6 blocks, then yes, I am afraid this is the case. 

> IRRExplorer presently flags these with a warning "expected object in ARIN db" because there's no programmatic way 
> (via either WHOIS or IRR) to detect a legacy resource that I can find.
>
> This is an edge case which will only diminish over time, but it does exist.

The “edge case” of having IRR objects for legacy resources doesn’t necessarily have to be a problematic situation for 
the operator community – so long as the operator community continues recognizes a nominal set of community-run IRR 
projects for such situations, and those responsible for maintaining their routing objects actually do that…    There is 
obviously tradeoffs involved in having “open" IRR systems (e.g. the issue of “declawing” issue referenced by Job) but 
hopefully deciding what to follow becomes easier for everyone if there fewer of them out there echoing years of 
crufty/unmaintained data - as was the case with the ARIN-NONAUTH IRR. 

Thanks,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers