Considerations for Internet Routing Registries (IRRs) and Routing Policy Configuration
RFC 7682
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) D. McPherson
Request for Comments: 7682 Verisign, Inc.
Category: Informational S. Amante
ISSN: 2070-1721 Apple, Inc.
E. Osterweil
Verisign, Inc.
L. Blunk
Merit Network, Inc.
D. Mitchell
Singularity Networks
December 2015
Considerations for Internet Routing Registries (IRRs)
and Routing Policy Configuration
Abstract
The purpose of this document is to catalog issues that influenced the
efficacy of Internet Routing Registries (IRRs) for inter-domain
routing policy specification and application in the global routing
system over the past two decades. Additionally, it provides a
discussion regarding which of these issues are still problematic in
practice, and which are simply artifacts that are no longer
applicable but continue to stifle inter-provider policy-based
filtering adoption and IRR utility to this day.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7682.
McPherson, et al. Informational [Page 1]
RFC 7682 IRR & Routing Policy Considerations December 2015
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Historical Artifacts Influencing IRR Efficacy . . . . . . . . 3
4. Accuracy and Integrity of Data Contained within the IRR . . . 4
4.1. Lack of Resource Certification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.2. Incentives to Maintain Data within the IRR . . . . . . . 5
4.3. Inability for Third Parties to Remove (Stale) Information
from the IRRs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.4. Lack of Authoritative IRR for Resources . . . . . . . . . 7
4.5. Client-Side Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.6. Conclusions with Respect to Data in the IRR . . . . . . . 8
5. Operation of the IRR Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.1. Replication of Resources among IRRs . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.2. Updating Routing Policies from Updated IRR Resources . . 10
6. Historical BGP Protocol Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. Historical Limitations of Routers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.1. Incremental Updates to Policy on Routers . . . . . . . . 13
7.2. Storage Requirements for Policy on Routers . . . . . . . 13
7.3. Updating Configuration on Routers . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
8. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
10. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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RFC 7682 IRR & Routing Policy Considerations December 2015
1. Introduction
The purpose of this document is to catalog issues influencing the
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