ACSP Consultation 2007.3: Lame Delegation Information in WHOIS

Consultation Tracking Information

  • Requested By: ARIN President
  • Status: Closed
  • Comments Opened: Linked to Discussion Archives: 09 October 2007
  • Comments Closed: 23 October 2007
  • Suggestion Number: 2007.29

Consultation Description

ARIN received a suggestion (2007.29) “that ARIN implement lame-delegation policy on a per-zone basis and not the per-network basis as described in the message. I am not making the request to “do” it, but to open this up for discussion as this change means that ARIN would have to do per-zone management.”

The complete suggestion can be viewed at:
http://www.arin.net/participate/community/acsp/suggestions/2007/2007-29/

As a result, ARIN would like to solicit input on how reverse delegation information should be displayed on network blocks within WHOIS. Currently, only the network block information is displayed and not any actual delegations within in-addr.arpa. For example, a /19 has 32 actual delegations. If one particular delegation (e.g. a /24) is marked as being lame out of a larger block (e.g. a /19), two issues arise:

  1. Is it necessary to indicate which delegations are lame within the network block within WHOIS?
  2. If yes, how should this information be displayed in WHOIS?

Please submit your response to the consult@arin.net. You can subscribe to the arin-consult mailing list at: http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-consult

Discussion on consult@arin.net will close at noon EDT 23 October 2007. A poll on the topic will be conducted in early November. Only subscribers on the consult@arin.net list when the poll opens will be eligible to participate. Poll results will be publicly available and will be used by the ARIN President to help determine what course of action, if any, ARIN should take regarding the subject.

ARIN Actions

Although the consultation resulted in minimal community feedback, ARIN feels that there is support for this change in operational practice.

ARIN will make this change with one enhancement. As part of the change, ARIN will also change WHOIS to indicate which portions of a network block are lame. Thus, the community will be able to tell that the omission of one or more delegations (/24’s) out of the zone was done on purpose and would not be looked upon as a bug in the zone generation or resolution process.

The will be completed by the end of 2nd quarter 2008.