IRR Overview
Understanding Internet Routing Registries
Internet Routing Registries (IRRs) contain information — submitted and maintained by ISPs or other entities — about Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) and routing IP number prefixes. IRRs can be used by ISPs to develop routing plans. For example, ISPs who use Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) can create Access Control Lists to permit or deny traffic in their networks based on route registry information.
The global IRR is comprised of a network of distributed databases maintained by Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) such as ARIN, service providers, and third parties. Some of these databases contain only routing information for a particular region, network, or ISP. Other IRR databases mirror specific IRR databases, and contain IRR information from multiple databases. One of the IRR maintainers provides a list of routing registries.
Overview of the ARIN IRR
As part of the global IRR, the ARIN IRR provides a registry of Internet routing objects for resources in the ARIN region.
The ARIN IRR stores information in Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL) objects. These objects are submitted to the ARIN IRR by resource holders such as ISPs and retrieved by other IRRs when ISPs in their region are requesting ARIN routing information.
ARIN’s IRR is integrated with ARIN Online. The IRR-email and IRR-online systems are both connected to ARIN’s IRR database. The database provides IRR information via a Near Real-Time Monitoring (NRTM) service and FTP, and is also accessible using Whois on port 43.
ARIN’s IRR provides three methods for entering IRR data. More information on how to submit and retrieve IRR data is available at ARIN’s Internet Routing Registry (IRR) page. Some of the differences between IRR-online, the IRR RESTful API, and IRR-email are summarized in the following table.
Feature/Item | Supported in IRR-online | Supported in IRR RESTful API | Supported in IRR Email Templates |
---|---|---|---|
Bulk add/update capability | No | Multiple REST commands can be used in scripts or software; only one object create/read/update/delete per REST call is supported at this time | Yes, limit of 100 RPSL objects per email |
Email notifications when objects are updated | No | No | Yes, via mnt-nfy or notify attributes in IRR objects |
Maintainer object | No (objects are assigned to Orgs and managed through linked ARIN Online accounts) | No (objects are assigned to Orgs and managed through linked ARIN Online users with a valid API key) | Yes (no new maintainers accepted after June 10, 2020) |
Proxy registration | Yes, via Routing POCs | Yes, via Routing POCs | Yes (if you registered a maintainer object before 6/10/20) |
Internet Routing Registry (IRR)
- IRR Overview
- ARIN IRR User Guide
- Implementation Notes for ARIN's Web-Based IRR
- Automating Your Workflow Using the IRR RESTful API
- Converting IRR Email Templates to REST Commands
- ARIN IRR-email System
- ARIN IRR-email Object Templates
- Internet Routing Registry FAQ
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