Special-Purpose IP Address Registries
RFC 6890

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         M. Cotton
Request for Comments: 6890                                     L. Vegoda
BCP: 153                                                           ICANN
Obsoletes: 4773, 5156, 5735, 5736                         R. Bonica, Ed.
Category: Best Current Practice                         Juniper Networks
ISSN: 2070-1721                                              B. Haberman
                                                                     JHU
                                                              April 2013

                 Special-Purpose IP Address Registries

Abstract

   This memo reiterates the assignment of an IPv4 address block
   (192.0.0.0/24) to IANA.  It also instructs IANA to restructure its
   IPv4 and IPv6 Special-Purpose Address Registries.  Upon
   restructuring, the aforementioned registries will record all special-
   purpose address blocks, maintaining a common set of information
   regarding each address block.

   This memo obsoletes RFCs 4773, 5156, 5735, and 5736.

Status of This Memo

   This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Further information on
   BCPs is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6890.

Cotton, et al.            Best Current Practice                 [Page 1]
RFC 6890           Special-Purpose Address Registries         April 2013

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 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.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. IANA Considerations .............................................3
      2.1. Assignment of an IPv4 Address Block to IANA ................3
      2.2. Restructuring of the IPv4 and IPv6 Special-Purpose
           Address ....................................................4
           2.2.1. Information Requirements ............................4
           2.2.2. IPv4 Special-Purpose Address Registry Entries .......6
           2.2.3. IPv6 Special-Purpose Address Registry Entries ......14
   3. Security Considerations ........................................20
   4. Acknowledgements ...............................................20
   5. Informative References .........................................20

1.  Introduction

   In order to support new protocols and practices, the IETF
   occasionally reserves an address block for a special purpose.  For
   example, [RFC1122] reserves an IPv4 address block (0.0.0.0/8) to
   represent the local (i.e., "this") network.  Likewise, [RFC4291]
   reserves an IPv6 address block (fe80::/10) to represent link-scoped
   unicast addresses.

   Periodically, the IETF publishes an RFC that catalogs special-purpose
   address blocks.  Currently, [RFC5735] catalogs all IPv4 special-
   purpose address blocks and [RFC5156] catalogs all IPv6 special-
   purpose address blocks.

   [RFC5736] assigns an IPv4 address block (192.0.0.0/24) to IANA and
   instructs IANA to allocate special-purpose address blocks from this
   space.  [RFC5736] also instructs IANA to create an IPv4 Special-
   Purpose Address Registry that records allocations from this address

Cotton, et al.            Best Current Practice                 [Page 2]
RFC 6890           Special-Purpose Address Registries         April 2013

   space.  However, [RFC5736] does not instruct IANA to record special-
   purpose address block reservations from outside of the aforementioned
   space in the IPv4 Special-Purpose Address Registry.

   Likewise, [RFC2928] assigns an IPv6 address block (2001:0000::/23) to
   IANA and instructs IANA to allocate special-purpose address blocks
   from this space.  [RFC4773] instructs IANA to create an IPv6 Special-
   Purpose Address Registry that records allocations from this address
   space.  However, [RFC4773] does not instruct IANA to record special-
   purpose address block reservations from outside of the aforementioned