Provider-independent address space

Last updated

A provider-independent address space (PI) is a block of IP addresses assigned by a regional Internet registry (RIR) directly to an end-user organization. [1] The user must contract [2] with a local Internet registry (LIR) through an Internet service provider to obtain routing of the address block within the Internet.

Contents

Provider-independent addresses offer end-users the opportunity to change service providers without renumbering of their networks and to use multiple access providers in a multi-homed configuration. However, provider-independent blocks may increase the burden on global routers, as the opportunity for efficient route aggregation through Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) may not exist.

IPv4 assignments

One of the RIRs is RIPE NCC. The RIPE NCC can no longer assign IPv4 Provider Independent (PI) address space as it is now using the last /8 of IPv4 address space that it holds. IPv4 address space from this last /8 is allocated according to section 5.1 of "IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region". IPv4 Provider-aggregatable (PA) Address space can only be allocated to RIPE NCC members. [3]

IPv6 assignments

In April 2009 RIPE accepted a policy proposal of January 2006 to assign IPv6 provider-independent IPv6 prefixes. Assignments are taken from the address range 2001:678::/29 [4] and have a minimum size of a /48 prefix. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is the regional Internet registry for Canada, the United States, and many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands. ARIN manages the distribution of Internet number resources, including IPv4 and IPv6 address space and AS numbers. ARIN opened for business on December 22, 1997 after incorporating on April 18, 1997. ARIN is a nonprofit corporation with headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia, United States.

An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label such as 192.0.2.1 that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two main functions: network interface identification and location addressing.

IPv4 Version 4 of the Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version deployed for production on SATNET in 1982 and on the ARPANET in January 1983. It is still used to route most Internet traffic today, even with the ongoing deployment of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), its successor.

IPv6 Version 6 of the Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address exhaustion, and is intended to replace IPv4. In December 1998, IPv6 became a Draft Standard for the IETF, which subsequently ratified it as an Internet Standard on 14 July 2017.

Classless Inter-Domain Routing is a method for allocating IP addresses and for IP routing. The Internet Engineering Task Force introduced CIDR in 1993 to replace the previous classful network addressing architecture on the Internet. Its goal was to slow the growth of routing tables on routers across the Internet, and to help slow the rapid exhaustion of IPv4 addresses.

APNIC Regional Internet registry for the Asia Pacific region

APNIC is the regional Internet address registry (RIR) for the Asia-Pacific region. It is one of the world's five RIRs and is part of the Number Resource Organization (NRO).

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority Department of ICANN, a nonprofit private American corporation

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Internet Protocol-related symbols and Internet numbers.

Bogon filtering is the practice of filtering bogons, which are bogus (fake) IP addresses of a computer network. Bogons include IP packets on the public Internet that contain addresses that are not in any range allocated or delegated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) or a delegated regional Internet registry (RIR) and allowed for public Internet use. The areas of unallocated address space are called the bogon space.

Regional Internet registry Organization responsible for managing network numbering

A regional Internet registry (RIR) is an organization that manages the allocation and registration of Internet number resources within a region of the world. Internet number resources include IP addresses and autonomous system (AS) numbers.

AFRINIC Regional Internet registry for Africa

AFRINIC (African Network Information Centre) is the regional Internet registry (RIR) for Africa. Its headquarters are in Ebene, Mauritius.

An autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators on behalf of a single administrative entity or domain, that presents a common and clearly defined routing policy to the Internet. Each AS is assigned an autonomous system number (ASN), for use in Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing. Autonomous System Numbers are assigned to Local Internet Registries (LIRs) and end user organizations by their respective Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), which in turn receive blocks of ASNs for reassignment from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The IANA also maintains a registry of ASNs which are reserved for private use.

Multihoming is the practice of connecting a host or a computer network to more than one network. This can be done in order to increase reliability or performance.

In Internet networking, a private network is a computer network that uses a private address space of IP addresses. These addresses are commonly used for local area networks (LANs) in residential, office, and enterprise environments. Both the IPv4 and the IPv6 specifications define private IP address ranges.

RIPE NCC Regional Internet Registry representing Europe, the former USSR and West Asia

RIPE NCC is the regional Internet registry (RIR) for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia. Its headquarters are in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with a branch office in Dubai, UAE.

IPv4 address exhaustion Depletion of the pool of unallocated IPv4 addresses

IPv4 address exhaustion is the depletion of the pool of unallocated IPv4 addresses. Because the original Internet architecture had fewer than 4.3 billion addresses available, depletion has been anticipated since the late 1980s, when the Internet started experiencing dramatic growth. This depletion is one of the reasons for the development and deployment of its successor protocol, IPv6. IPv4 and IPv6 coexist on the Internet.

IPv6 address Label to identify a network interface of a computer or other network node

An Internet Protocol Version 6 address is a numeric label that is used to identify and locate a network interface of a computer or a network node participating in an computer network using IPv6. IP addresses are included in the packet header to indicate the source and the destination of each packet. The IP address of the destination is used to make decisions about routing IP packets to other networks.

IPv6 rapid deployment

6rd is a mechanism to facilitate IPv6 rapid deployment across IPv4 infrastructures of Internet service providers (ISPs).

Carrier-grade NAT

Carrier-grade NAT, also known as large-scale NAT (LSN), is a type of Network address translation (NAT) for use in IPv4 network design. With CGNAT, end sites, in particular residential networks, are configured with private network addresses that are translated to public IPv4 addresses by middlebox network address translator devices embedded in the network operator's network, permitting the sharing of small pools of public addresses among many end sites. This shifts the NAT function and configuration thereof from the customer premises to the Internet service provider network.

In order to ensure proper working of carrier-grade NAT (CGN), and, by doing so, alleviating the demand for the last remaining IPv4 addresses, a /10 size IPv4 address block was assigned by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to be used as shared address space.

References

  1. RIPE FAQs
  2. "Contractual Requirements for Provider Independent Resource Holders in the RIPE NCC Service Region". RIPE Network Coordination Centre. Retrieved 2017-04-05.
  3. "Requesting Independent Resources". RIPE Network Coordination Centre. Retrieved 2017-04-05.
  4. Address Space Managed by the RIPE NCC - Special Purpose Ranges
  5. May 2013, Publication date: 14. "IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment Policy". RIPE Network Coordination Centre. Retrieved 2021-07-04.