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General Template Instructions

These instructions provide an overview of the purpose of the various templates. Guidelines and examples relating to standard questions you may have when filling out ARIN's templates are included. More specific instructions can be found at the bottom of each template file. Not all instructions herein apply to every template and some items may appear in a slightly different form than what is found on a particular template. If, after reading these instructions and the templates' specific instructions, you still have questions, please contact the Registration Services Department Help Desk at hostmaster@arin.net or by phone at +1-703-227-0660.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not remove or modify the template header, defined as the line beginning with "Template:", or the footer which is defined as the line beginning with "END OF TEMPLATE". Both are required for processing. In contrast, all lines that begin with the characters "##" are guidelines on how to supply the appropriate information, and are not necessary for processing.

Template Categories

All templates fall into one or two of the following categories: Establish, Request, Subdelegate and Maintain.

Establish category: Org and POC templates.

These templates will allow you to register the organizations and points of contact that will be responsible for the IP address space or autonomous system numbers. Organizations and POCs must be established prior to ARIN approving a request for resources. To expedite the review process, error-free templates in this category will be processed automatically.

Request category: Net-End-User, Net-ISP, IPv6-ISP, IPv6-End-User, and ASN-Request templates.

These templates are used to request IP address space or autonomous system numbers from ARIN. All of these templates require you to justify your request. To increase the likelihood of a successful request, it is important that you fully complete the Justification Section of the template. Since every submitted template is unique, each is reviewed and manually processed by the Registration Services Staff.

Sub-delegate category: Reallocate, Reassign-Detailed, Reassign-Simple, IPv6 Reallocate and IPv6 Reassign.

The purpose of these templates is to provide appropriate information for utilization as required by RFC 2050, allocation studies and operational network issues. These templates are processed automatically. For more information regarding the SWIP process, see the Guidelines on Reporting Reassignment Information.

Maintain category: Org, POC, Cert-Request, Net-Mod, IPv6 Modify, ASN-Mod, and Transfer templates.

These templates are used to modify, remove or return registrations/resources. Simple modifications, like changing a phone number or adding a POC to a resource, will be processed automatically. Submissions of Net-Mod templates that remove reassignments will also be processed automatically. Modifications or returns of a more sensitive nature, for example changing the administrative POC for an organization, will be reviewed and processed manually. All transfer templates require legal documentation and will be processed manually.

Organization IDs

All directly assigned or allocated resources from ARIN, as well as many downstream resources, must have an Organization ID (Org ID), formerly known as the maintainer ID. Depending on how your company is structured, and how you request IP address space, you may have a single Org ID for all of your resources, or have multiple Org IDs for different data centers. If you choose to have multiple Org IDs, each Org ID will be billed separately according to the information outline in the Fee Schedule page. If you are unsure of your organization's Org ID or if your organization has an Org ID, search ARIN's WHOIS for your organization name. Additional information about Organization IDs is available in the Guidelines for Managing Organization and Contact Identifiers.

Org ID Requirement

There are several situations when ARIN requires the downstream to have a registered organization with valid POC information (an Org ID). In all of these situations, ARIN establishes a relationship with the downstream and requests the appropriate information. These situations are:

  • You have reallocated IP address space to an organization, and they will subdelegate it further. In other words, they will report back to ARIN how they have used the IP address space via templates or by identifying an RWHOIS server. This information is provided to ARIN via the Reallocate template.
  • You have reassigned IP address space to an organization that will be maintaining its own in-addr name servers. This information is provided to ARIN via the Reassign-Detailed template.
  • You have reassigned IP address space to an organization that would like to be listed as the POC in WHOIS. This information is provided to ARIN via the Reassign-Detailed template.

The only time an Org ID is not required is when you have reassigned IPv4 address space to a customer whom you provide in-addr service and you are listed as the POC in WHOIS. To provide this information to ARIN, use the Reassign-Simple template.

Org ID Establishment

Establishing the Org ID for a downstream can be done in one of two ways, depending on your business practices and the prowess of your customers:

  • You can inform the downstream of the ARIN process, and have them create an Org ID by submitting an Org template. For multi-homed organizations, this would be the better choice. Once established they would provide this Org ID directly to you.
  • As a customer service function, you can establish the Org ID for them. This can be done through an Org template in advance. Or it can be created through the first Reallocate or Reassign-Detailed template submitted.

Although it is possible to establish multiple Org IDs for a single downstream, it is strongly recommended that you use a single Org ID for each. This will provide easier reporting capability for you, your customer and ARIN.

POC Handles

Each point of contact (POC) in the ARIN database is assigned a user handle in the form of <base>-ARIN, where <base> is a unique tag consisting of the person's or role's initials and a number.

If you are unsure of the user handle or whether one has been assigned, perform a "last name, first name" search in the WHOIS database. If you are unable to find the appropriate handle, the POC may have to be established using the POC template. However, if you are using a Reallocate or Reassign-Detailed template, you will be able to establish POCs within the body of these templates. Additional information about POCs is available in the Guidelines for Managing Organization and Contact Identifiers.

POC X.509 Certificates and Strong Authentication

Holders of POC Handles in ARIN's database may choose to use X.509-based certificates to sign e-mail submissions to ARIN. This strong authentication method provides significant security benefits over MAIL-FROM authentication. For more information on requesting and using X.509 certificates with ARIN's registration system, see Requesting an ARIN X.509 Certificate, and ARIN's FAQ for Cryptographic Authentication.

Registration Action

Some of the templates do not have a "Registration Action", or rather the single action is implied. For those other templates, include two or more of the following registration actions:

The use of the word "NONE"

There are several fields that are optional in each of the templates. These include resource POCs, public comments, in-addr nameservers, state and postal codes outside the US and CA, and different phone types for POCs. As part of a modification, you may want to remove the information that is currently stored in ARIN's database. To do this, enter "NONE" in the field.

Public Comments

ARIN will allow you to display comments with any of your records in the WHOIS database. ARIN will be monitoring these comments regarding their appropriateness. Any inappropriate comments will be removed. Suggested comments include the location of an RWHOIS server, a URL of your homepage, or instructions regarding whom to contact for abuse issues.

Justification Section

A Registration Services analyst will review all justification fields. For each "request" template (such as Net-End-User, Net-ISP, or ASN-Request) please include only the information requested in each field. Any additional explanation should be included in the additional information section. Please be sure to adhere to formats established in each of the individual fields. Unless otherwise noted, each of these fields is required to process your request.

Additional Information Section

Please use this section to include information you feel ARIN may find necessary to process your request. This might include such items as further justification of general utilization information, further description for forecasted growth beyond normal expectations, or clarification of a modification request that does not fall within the stated parameters.