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IETF RFC 5398

Autonomous System (AS) Number Reservation for Documentation Use

Last modified on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

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Network Working Group                                          G. Huston
Request for Comments: 5398                                 December 2008
Category: Informational 


    Autonomous System (AS) Number Reservation for Documentation Use

 Status of This Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

 Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2008 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.

 Abstract

   To reduce the likelihood of conflict and confusion when relating
   documented examples to deployed systems, two blocks of Autonomous
   System numbers (ASNs) are reserved for use in examples in RFCs,
   books, documentation, and the like.  This document describes the
   reservation of two blocks of ASNs as reserved numbers for use in
   documentation.

1.  Introduction

   To reduce the likelihood of conflict and confusion when relating
   documented examples to deployed systems, two blocks of Autonomous
   System numbers (ASNs) are reserved for use in examples in RFCs,
   books, documentation, and the like.  This document describes the
   reservation of two blocks of ASNs as reserved numbers for use in
   documentation.

   The problems such conflicts may cause have already been encountered
   with IPv4 addresses where literal use of documented examples in a
   production environment causes address and routing conflicts with
   existing services.  Since private-use ASNs already have a context of
   use in deployed networks, these ASNs cannot be used in many example




Huston                       Informational                   PAGE 1 top


RFC 5398 ASN Documentation Reservation December 2008 situations. In making an explicit allocation of a set of AS numbers reserved for documentation use, it is intended that any such operational problems may be avoided in the future. Similar considerations have been applied to IPv4 addresses [IANA.IPv4], IPv6 addresses [RFC 3849], and domain names [RFC 2606], and reservations have been made for similar purposes. 2. ASNs for Documentation Use To allow documentation to accurately describe deployment examples, the use of public or private-use AS numbers is inappropriate, and a reserved block of AS numbers is required. This ensures that documentation does not clash with public- or private-use AS numbers in deployed networks, and mitigates the risks to operational integrity of the network through inappropriate use of documentation to perform literal configuration of routing elements on production systems. To allow for examples relating to the transition to use of 32-bit AS numbers to be correctly described, a reservation of two blocks of AS numbers is proposed in this document. One reserved block of 16 contiguous AS numbers is to lie in the range of numbers that can be expressed as a 16-bit AS number value (i.e., values less than 65536), and a second reserved block of 16 contiguous AS numbers is to lie in the range of numbers that can only be expressed as 32-bit AS numbers (values greater than 65535). 3. Operational Implications This assignment implies that BGP operational configurations should not peer with neighboring ASes that are numbered from this reserved AS number set. 4. IANA Considerations IANA has reserved a contiguous block of 16 Autonomous System numbers from the unallocated number range within the "16-bit" number set for documentation purposes, namely 64496 - 64511, and a contiguous block of 16 Autonomous System numbers from the "32-bit" number set for documentation, namely 65536 - 65551. These reservations have been documented in the IANA AS Number Registry [IANA.AS]. 5. Security Considerations AS number reservations do not have any direct impact on Internet infrastructure security. Huston Informational PAGE 2 top

RFC 5398 ASN Documentation Reservation December 2008 6. Acknowledgements The author acknowledges the work of Tomoya Yoshida, Gaurab Upadhaya, and Philip Smith in authoring a policy proposal that was submitted to the APNIC Policy Process in 2008 relating to the reservation of AS numbers for documentation purposes. 7. Informative References [IANA.AS] IANA, "Autonomous System (AS) Numbers", Sep 2008, <http://www.iana.org>. [IANA.IPv4] IANA, "IPv4 Global Unicast Address Assignments", Sep 2008, <http://www.iana.org>. [RFC 2606] Eastlake, D. and A. Panitz, "Reserved Top Level DNS Names", BCP 32, RFC 2606, June 1999. [RFC 3849] Huston, G., Lord, A., and P. Smith, "IPv6 Address Prefix Reserved for Documentation", RFC 3849, July 2004. Author's Address Geoff Huston EMail: gih@apnic.net Huston Informational PAGE 3 top

Autonomous System (AS) Number Reservation for Documentation Use RFC TOTAL SIZE: 5433 bytes PUBLICATION DATE: Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)


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