wdiff draft-narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis-03.txt draft-narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis-04.txt

INTERNET-DRAFT Thomas Narten
IBM
<draft-narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis> Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Cisco
October 24,
March 6, 2005

Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs

<draft-narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis-03.txt>

<draft-narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis-04.txt>

Status of this Memo

By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that
other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
Drafts.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress".

The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html

The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html

This Internet-Draft expires April, 2005. in six months.

Abstract

Many protocols make use of identifiers consisting of constants and
other well-known values. Even after a protocol has been defined and
deployment has begun, new values may need to be assigned (e.g., for a
new option type in DHCP, or a new encryption or authentication
transform for IPsec). To ensure that such quantities have consistent
values and interpretations in different implementations, their
assignment must be administered by a central authority. For IETF
protocols, that role is provided by the Internet Assigned Numbers
Authority (IANA).

In order for the IANA to manage a given name space prudently, it
needs guidelines describing the conditions under which new values can
be assigned. If the IANA is expected to play a role in the management
of a name space, the IANA must be given clear and concise
instructions describing that role. This document discusses issues
that should be considered in formulating a policy for assigning
values to a name space and provides guidelines to document authors on
the specific text that must be included in documents that place
demands on the IANA.

Contents

Status of this Memo.......................................... 1

1. Introduction............................................. 4

2. Why Management of a Name Space May be Necessary.......... 4

3. Designated Experts....................................... 5
3.1. The Motivation For Designated Experts............... 5 6
3.2. The Role of the Designated Expert................... 7
3.3. Designated Expert Reviews........................... 7

4. Creating A Registry...................................... 8 9
4.1. Well-Known IANA Policy Definitions.................. 8 9
4.2. What To Put In Documents That Create A Registry..... 11
4.3. Updating Guidelines In Existing Registries.......... 12 13

5. Registering Values In An Existing Registry............... 13
5.1. What to Put In Documents When Registering Values.... 13
5.2. Maintaining Registrations........................... 14
5.3. Overriding Registration Procedures.................. 14 15

6. Miscellaneous Issues..................................... 15 16
6.1. When There Are No IANA Actions...................... 15 16
6.2. Appeals............................................. 16
6.3. Namespaces Lacking Documented Guidance.............. 16

7. Security Considerations.................................. 16 17

8. Open Issues.............................................. 17

9. Changes Relative to RFC 2434............................. 17
8.1. 18
9.1. Changes Relative to -00............................. 17
8.2. 18
9.2. Changes Relative to -02............................. 17

9. IANA Considerations...................................... 18

10. Acknowledgments......................................... 18 IANA Considerations..................................... 19

11. Acknowledgments......................................... 19

12. Normative References.................................... 18

12. 19

13. Informative References.................................. 18

13. 19

14. Authors' Addresses.................................... 20 21

1. Introduction

Many protocols make use of fields that contain constants and other
well-known values (e.g., the Protocol field in the IP header [IP] or
MIME types in mail messages [MIME-REG]). Even after a protocol has
been defined and deployment has begun, new values may need to be
assigned (e.g., a new option type in DHCP [DHCP] or a new encryption
or authentication algorithm for IPsec [IPSEC]). To ensure that such
fields have consistent values and interpretations in different
implementations, their assignment must be administered by a central
authority. For IETF protocols, that role is provided by the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) [IANA-MOU].

In this document, we call the set of possible values for such a field
a "name space"; its actual value may be a text string, a number or
another kind of value. The assignment of a specific value to a name
space is called an assigned number (or assigned value). Each
assignment of a number in a name space is called a registration.

In order for the IANA to manage a given name space prudently, it
needs guidelines describing the conditions under which new values
should be assigned. This document provides guidelines to authors on
what sort of text should be added to their documents, and reviews
issues that should be considered in formulating an appropriate policy
for assigning numbers to name spaces.

Not all name spaces require centralized administration. In some
cases, it is possible to delegate a name space in such a way that
further assignments can be made independently and with no further
(central) coordination. In the Domain Name System, for example, the
IANA only deals with assignments at the higher-levels, while
subdomains are administered by the organization to which the space
has been delegated. As another example, Object Identifiers (OIDs) as
defined by the ITU are also delegated [ASSIGNED]. When a name space
can be delegated, the scope of IANA is limited to the parts of the
namespace where IANA has authority.

This document uses the terms 'MUST', 'SHOULD' and 'MAY', and their
negatives, in the way described in RFC 2119 [KEYWORDS]. In this case,
"the specification" as used by RFC 2119 refers to the processing of
protocols being submitted to the IETF standards process.

2. Why Management of a Name Space May be Necessary

One issue to consider in managing a name space is its size. If the
space is small and limited in size, assignments must be made
carefully to prevent exhaustion of the space. If the space is
essentially unlimited, on the other hand, potential exhaustion may will
probably not be a practical concern at all. Even when the space is
essentially unlimited, however, it is usually desirable to have at
least a minimal review prior to assignment in order to:

- prevent the hoarding of or unnecessary wasting of a space. For
example, if the space consists of text strings, it may be
desirable to prevent organizations entities from obtaining large sets of strings
that correspond to the "best" names (e.g., existing company
names).

- provide a sanity check that the request actually makes sense and
is necessary. Experience has shown that some level of minimal
review from a subject matter expert is useful to prevent
assignments in cases where the request is malformed or not
actually needed (i.e., an existing assignment for a an essentially
equivalent service already exists).

A second consideration is whether it makes sense to delegate the name
space in some manner. This route should be pursued when appropriate,
as it lessens the burden on the IANA for dealing with assignments.

A third, and perhaps most important consideration, concerns potential
impact on interoperability of unreviewed extensions. Proposed
protocol extensions generally benefit from community review; indeed,
review is often essential to prevent future interoperability
problems. [VENDOR-EXT] discusses this topic in considerable detail.

In some cases, the name space is essentially unlimited, unlimited and there are
no potential interoperability issues, and issues; in such cases assigned numbers
can safely be given out to anyone. When no subjective review is
needed, the IANA can make assignments directly, provided that the
IANA is given specific instructions on what types of requests it
should grant, and what information must be provided before a as part of the
request for an assigned
number will number.

It should be considered. Note noted that the IANA will does not create or define an assignment policy;
policy itself; rather, it should carries out policies that have been defined
by others, i.e., in RFCs. IANA must be given a set of guidelines
that allow it to make allocation decisions with minimal subjectivity. subjectivity
and without requiring any technical expertise with respect to the
protocols that make use of a registry.

3. Designated Experts
3.1. The Motivation For Designated Experts

In most cases, some review of prospective allocations is appropriate,
and the question becomes who should perform the review and what is
the purpose of the review. In many cases, one might think that an
IETF Working Group (WG) familiar with the name space at hand should
be consulted. In practice, however, WGs eventually disband, so they
cannot be considered a permanent evaluator. It is also possible for
name spaces to be created through individual submission documents,
for which no WG is ever formed.

One way to ensure community review of prospective assignments is to
have the requester submit a document for publication as an RFC. Such
an action helps ensure that the specification is publicly and
permanently available, and allows some review of the specification
prior to publication and assignment of the requested code points.
This is the preferred way of ensuring review, and is particularly
important if any potential interoperability issues can arise. For
example, many assignments are not just assignments, but also involve
an element of protocol specification. A new option may define fields
that need to be parsed and acted on, which (if specified poorly) may
not fit cleanly with the architecture of other options or the base
protocols on which they are built.

In some cases, however, the burden of publishing an RFC in order to
get an assignment is excessive. However, it is generally still useful
(and sometimes necessary) to discuss proposed additions on a mailing
list dedicated to the purpose (e.g., the ietf-types@iana.org for
media types) or on a more general mailing list (e.g., that of a
current or former IETF WG). Such a mailing list provides a way for
new registrations to be publicly reviewed prior to getting assigned,
or to give advice for persons who want help in understanding what a
proper registration should contain.

While discussion on a mailing list can provide valuable technical
expertise,
feedback, opinions may vary and discussions may continue for some
time without clear resolution. In addition, the IANA cannot
participate in all of these mailing lists and cannot determine if or
when such discussions reach consensus. Therefore, the IANA relies on
a "designated expert" to advise it in assignment matters. The
designated expert is a single individual who is responsible for
carrying out an appropriate evaluation and returning a recommendation
to IANA.

It should be noted that a key motivation for having designated
experts is for the IETF to provide IANA with a single-person subject
matter expert to which it can delegate the evaluation process to,
with that person informing IANA whether the assignment is to be made.

IANA effectively delegates evaluating the request to the IETF's
designated expert.

3.2. The Role of the Designated Expert

The designated expert is responsible for initiating and coordinating
as wide a review of an assignment request as appropriate to evaluate
it properly. This may involve consultation with a set of technology
experts, discussion on a public mailing list, or consultation with a
working group (or its mailing list if the working group has
disbanded), etc. Ideally, the designated expert follows specific
review criteria as documented in a related document that describes
management of the namespace. (See the IANA Considerations sections of
[RFC3748,RFC3575,XXX] for examples that have been done for specific
name spaces).

Designated experts are expected to be able to defend their decisions
to the IETF community and the evaluation process is not intended to
be secretive or bestow unquestioned power on the expert. Experts are
expected to apply any documented review or vetting procedures that
may apply, or in the absence of documented criteria, follow
generally-accepted norms, e.g., those in section 3.3.

Section 5.2 discusses disputes and appeals in more detail.

Designated experts are appointed by the IESG (e.g., upon
recommendation by the relevant Area Director). They are typically
named at the time a document that creates a new numbering space is
published as an RFC,
approved by the IESG, but as experts originally appointed may later
become unavailable, the IESG will appoint replacements if necessary.

Since the designated experts are appointed by the IESG, they may be
removed by the IESG.

3.3. Designated Expert Reviews

In the seven years since RFC 2434 was published and has been put to
use, experience has led to the following observations:

- a designated expert must respond in a timely fashion, normally
within a week for simple requests to a few weeks for more complex
ones. Unreasonable delays can cause significant problems, such as
when products need code points to ship. This is not to say that
all reviews can be completed under a firm deadline, but they must
be started, and the requester and IANA should have some
transparency into the process if an answer cannot be given
quickly.

- if a designated expert does not respond to IANA's requests within
a reasonable period of time, either with a response, or to explain
that the requests are particularly complex, and if this is a
recurring event, the IANA must raise the issue with the IESG.
Because of the problems caused by delayed evaluations and
assignments, the IESG should take appropriate actions, such as
ensuring that the expert understands their responsibilities, or
appointing a new expert.

- The designated expert is not intended required to personally bear the
burden of evaluating and deciding all requests, but acts as a sort
of shepherd for the request, enlisting the help of others as
appropriate. In the case that a request is denied, and rejecting
the request is likely to be controversial, the expert should have
the support of other subject matter experts for a particular
decision. That is, the expert must be able to defend a decision to
the community as a whole.

In the case where a designated expert is used, but there are no
specific documented criteria for performing an evaluation, the
presumption should be that a code point should be granted, unless
there is a compelling reason not to. Possible reasons include:

- scarcity of codepoints, where the finite remaining codepoints
should be prudently managed, or when a request for a large number
of codepoints is made, when a single codepoint is the norm.

- documentation is not of sufficient clarity to evaluate or ensure
interoperability

- the code point is needed for a protocol extension, but the
extension is not consistent with the documented (or generally
understood) architecture of the base protocol being extended, and
would be harmful to the protocol if widely deployed. It is not the
intent that "inconsistencies" refer to minor differences "of a
personal preference nature;" instead, they refer to significant
differences such as inconsistencies with the underlying security
model, implying a change to the semantics of an existing message
type or operation, requiring unwarranted changes in deployed
systems (compared with alternate ways of achieving a similar
result), etc.

- the extension would cause problems with existing deployed systems.

- the extension would conflict with one under active development by
the IETF, and having both would harm rather than foster
interoperability.

4. Creating A Registry

Creating a registry involves describing the name spaces to be created
together with an initial set of assignments (if appropriate) and
guidelines on how future assignments are to be made.

4.1. Well-Known IANA Policy Definitions

The following are some defined policies, some of which are in use
today. These cover a range of typical policies that have been used to
date to describe the procedure for assigning new values in a name
space. It is not required that documents use these terms; the actual
requirement is that the instructions to IANA are clear and
unambiguous. However, it is preferable to use these terms where
possible, since their meaning is widely understood.

Private Use - For private or local use only, with the type and
purpose defined by the local site. No attempt is made to
prevent multiple sites from using the same value in
different (and incompatible) ways. There is no need for
IANA to review such assignments (since IANA does not record
them) and assignments are not generally useful for broad
interoperability.

Examples: Site-specific options in DHCP [DHCP] have
significance only within a single site. "X-foo:" header
lines in email messages.

Experimental Use - Similar to private or local use only, with the
purpose being to facilitate experimentation. See
[EXPERIMENTATION] for details.

Hierarchical allocation - Delegated managers can assign values
provided they have been given control over that part of the
name space. IANA controls the higher levels of the
namespace according to one of the other policies.

Examples: DNS names, Object Identifiers, IP addresses

First Come First Served - Anyone can obtain an assigned number, so
long as they provide a point of contact and a brief
description of what the value would be used for. for together
with any other required information that is specifically
required to be provided by the name space in question. For
numbers, the exact value is generally assigned by the IANA;
with names, specific text strings are usually requested.

Examples: vnd. (vendor assigned) MIME types [MIME-REG], TCP
and UDP port numbers.

Expert Review (or Designated Expert) - approval by a Designated
Expert is required. The required documentation and review
criteria to be used by the Designated Expert should be
provided when defining the registry.

Specification required - Values and their meaning must be
documented in an RFC or other permanent and readily
available public specification, in sufficient detail so
that interoperability between independent implementations
is possible. [XXX: When used, Specification Required also implies
useage of a Designated Expert, who assesses will review the public
specification and evaluate whether a non-RFC document it is sufficiently clear for interoperability? IANA cannot.]
to allow interoperable implementations.

Examples: SCSP [SCSP]

RFC Required - RFC publication (either as IETF Submission or as an
RFC Editor submission [RFC3932]) suffices.

IETF Review - (Formerly called "IETF Consensus" in [IANA-
CONSIDERATIONS]) New values are assigned only through RFCs
that have been shepherded through the IESG as AD-Sponsored
IETF Documents [RFC3932,RFC3978]. The intention is that the
document and proposed assignment will be reviewed by the
IESG and appropriate IETF WGs (or experts, if suitable
working groups no longer exist) to ensure that the proposed
assignment will not negatively impact interoperability or
otherwise extend IETF protocols in an inappropriate or
damaging manner.

To ensure adequate community review, such documents are
shepherded through the IESG as AD-sponsored documents with
an IETF Last Call.

Examples: SMTP extensions [SMTP-EXT], BGP Subsequent
Address Family Identifiers [BGP4-EXT].

Standards Action - Values are assigned only for Standards Track
RFCs approved by the IESG.

Examples: MIME top level types [MIME-REG]

IESG Approval - New assignments may be approved by the IESG.
Although there is no requirement that the request be
documented in an RFC, the IESG has discretion to request
documents or other supporting materials on a case-by-case
basis.

IESG Approval is not intended to be used often or as a
"common case;" indeed, it has been seldom been used in practice. practice
during the period RFC 2434 was in effect. Rather, it is
intended to be available in conjunction with other policies
as a fall-back mechanism in the case where one of the other
allowable approval mechanisms cannot be employed in a
timely fashion or for some other compelling reason. IESG
Approval is not intended to circumvent the public review
processes implied by other policies that could have been
employed for a particular assignment.

The following guidelines are suggested for any evaluation
under IESG Approval:

- The IESG can (and should) reject a request if another
path is available that is more appropriate and allows
broader community review

- before approving a request, the community should be
consulted, via a "call for comments" that provides as
much information as is reasonably possible.

Except in unusual circumstances, the IESG is expected

[XXX: Is Section 4.3. below sufficient to cover possible about the case
that IESG is designed to handle?]
request.

It should be noted that it often makes sense to partition a name
space into several categories, with assignments out of each category
handled differently. For example, the DHCP option space [DHCP] is
split into two parts. Option numbers in the range of 1-127 are
globally unique and assigned according to the Specification Required
policy described above, while options number 128-254 are "site
specific", i.e., Private Use. Dividing the name space up makes it
possible to have different policies in place for different ranges.

4.2. What To Put In Documents That Create A Registry

The previous sections presented some issues that should be considered
in formulating a policy for assigning well-known numbers and other
protocol constants. It is the Working Group and/or document author's
job to formulate an appropriate policy and specify it in the
appropriate document. In almost all cases, having an explicit "IANA
Considerations" section is appropriate. The following subsections
define what is needed for the different types of IANA actions.

Documents that create a new name space (or modify the definition of
an existing space) and that expect the IANA to play a role in
maintaining that space (e.g., serving as a repository for registered
values) MUST provide clear instructions on details of the name space.
In particular, instructions MUST include:

1) The name of the registry being created and/or maintained. The
name will appear on the IANA web page and will be referred to in
future documents that need to allocate a value from the new
space. The full name (and abbreviation, if appropriate) should
be provided. Ideally, the chosen name will not be easily
confusable with the name of another registry.

2) What information must be provided as part of a request in order
to assign a new value.

3) The review process through which that will apply to all future assignments are made (see
Section 3.1). requests for a
value from the namespace.

Note: When a Designated Expert is used, documents MUST NOT name
the Designated Expert in the document itself; instead, the name
should be relayed to the appropriate IESG Area Director at the
time the document is sent to the IESG for approval.

If the request should also be reviewed on a specific public
mailing list (such as the ietf-types@iana.org for media types),
that mailing address should be specified. Note, however, that
use of a Designated Expert MUST also be specified. specified (see Section
3).

If the IANA is expected to make assignments without requiring an
outside review, sufficient guidance MUST be provided so that the
requests can be evaluated with minimal subjectivity.

When specifying the process for making future assignments, it is
quite acceptable to pick one of the example policies listed in
Section 3.1 4.1 and refer to it by name. Indeed, this is the preferred
mechanism in those cases where the sample policies provide the
desired level of review. It is also acceptable to cite one of the
above policies and include additional guidelines for what kind of
considerations should be taken into account by the review process.
For example, RADIUS [RFC3575] specifies the use of a Designated
Expert, but includes specific additional criteria the Designated
Expert should follow.

For example, a document could say something like:

This document defines a new DHCP option, entitled "FooBar" (see
Section y), assigned a value of TBD1 from the DCHP Option space
[RFCXXX]. The FooBar option also contains an 8-bit FooType
field, for which IANA is to create and maintain a registry
entitled "FooType values". Initial values for the FooType field
registry are given below; future assignments are to be made
through Expert Review [IANA-CONSIDERATIONS]. Assignments consist
of a name and the value.

Name Value Definition
---- ----- ----------
Frobnitz 1 See Section y.1
NitzFrob 2 See Section y.2

For examples of documents that provide good and detailed guidance to
the IANA on the issue of assigning numbers, consult [MIME-REG, MIME-
LANG, RFC3757, RFC3749, RFC3575].

4.3. Updating Guidelines In Existing Registries

Updating the registration process for an existing name space is
similar to that used when creating a new namespace. That is, a
document is produced that makes reference to the existing namespace
and then provides detailed management guidelines for each registry. individual
name space. Such documents are normally processed as BCPs [RFC1818]. [IETF-
PROCESS].

Example documents that updated the guidelines for managing (then)
pre-existing registries include: [RFC2929,RFC3228,RFC3575].

5. Registering Values In An Existing Registry

5.1. What to Put In Documents When Registering Values

Often, a document requests the assignment of a code point from an
already existing name space (i.e., one created by a previously-pub-
lished RFC). In such cases documents should make clear:

- From what name space is a value is being requested? List the exact
name space listed on the IANA web page (and RFC), and cite the RFC
where the name space is defined. (Note: There is no need to men-
tion what the allocation policy for new assignments is, as that
should be clear from the references.)

- For each value being requested, give it a unique name. When the
value is numeric, use the notation: TBD1, TBD2, etc. Throughout
the document where an actual IANA-assigned value should be filled
in, use the "TDBx" "TBDx" notation. This helps ensure that the final RFC
has the correct assigned value filled inserted in in all of the relevant
places where the value is expected to be listed in the final document. docu-
ment. For values that are text strings, a specific name can be
suggested: IANA will assign the name, unless it conflicts with a
name already in use.

- Normally, the values to be used are chosen by IANA; documents
shouldn't pick values themselves. However, in some cases a value
may have been used for testing or in early implementations. In
such cases, it is acceptable to include text suggesting what spe-
cific value should be used (together with the reason for the
choice.
choice). For example, one might include the text "the value XXX is
suggested as it is used in implementations". However, it should be
noted that suggested values are just that; IANA will attempt to
assign them, but may find that impossible, if the proposed number
has already been assigned for some other use.

For many registries, IANA also has a long-standing policy pro-
hibiting assignment of names or codes on a vanity or organization
name basis, e.g., codes are always assigned sequentially unless
there is a strong reason for making an exception. Nothing in this
document is intended to change those policies or prevent their
future application.

- The IANA Considerations section should summarize all of the IANA
actions, with pointers to the relevant sections elsewhere in the
document as appropriate. When multiple values are requested, it is
generally helpful to include a summary table. It is also often
useful for this table to be in the format of the registry data in
the IANA site

As an example, the following text could be used to request assignment
of a DHCPv6 option number:

IANA has assigned an option code value of TBD1 to the DNS Recur-
sive Name Server option and an option code value of TBD2 to the
Domain Search List option from the DHCP option code space defined
in section 24.3 of RFC 3315.

5.2. Maintaining Registrations

Registrations are a request for an assigned number, including the
related information needed to evaluate and document the request. Even
after a number has been assigned, some types of registrations contain
additional information that may need to be updated over time. For
example, MIME types, character sets, language tags, etc. typically
include more information than just the registered value itself.
Example information can include point of contact information,
security issues, pointers to updates, literature references, etc. In
such cases, the document defining the namespace must clearly state
who is responsible for maintaining and updating a registration. In
different cases, it may be appropriate to specify one or more of the
following:

- Let the author update the registration, subject to the same
constraints and review as with new registrations.

- Allow some mechanism to attach comments to the registration, for
cases where others have significant objections to claims in a
registration, but the author does not agree to change the
registration.

- Designate the IESG or another entity as having the right to
reassign ownership of
change the registrant associated with a registration and any
requirements or conditions on doing so. This is mainly to get
around the problem when some registration owner a registrant cannot be reached in order
to make necessary updates.

5.3. Overriding Registration Procedures

[XXX: following is new text w.r.t. 2434. Is this something that is
appropriate to include??]

Since RFC 2434 was published, experience has shown that the
documented IANA considerations for individual protocols do not always
adequately cover the reality on the ground. For example, many older
routing protocols do not have documented, detailed IANA
considerations. In addition, documented IANA considerations are
sometimes found to be too stringent to allow even working group
documents (for which there is strong consensus) to obtain code points
from IANA in advance of actual RFC publication. In other cases, the
documented procedures are unclear or neglected to cover all the
cases. In order to allow assignments in individual cases where there
is strong IETF consensus that an allocation should go forward, but
the documented procedures do not support such an assignment, the IESG
is granted authority to approve assignments in such cases. The
intention is not to overrule properly documented procedures, or to
obviate the need for protocols to properly document their IANA
Considerations, but
Considerations. Instead, the intention is to permit assignments in
individual cases where it is obvious that the assignment should just
be made, but updating the IANA process just to assign a particular
code point is viewed as too heavy a burden. In general, the IETF
would like to see deficient IANA registration procedures for a
namespace revised through the IETF standards process, but not at the
cost of unreasonable delay for needed assignments.

6. Miscellaneous Issues

6.1. When There Are No IANA Actions

Before an Internet-Draft can be published as an RFC, IANA needs to
know what actions (if any) it needs to perform. Experience has shown
that it is not always immediately obvious whether a document has no
IANA actions, without reviewing a document in some detail. In order
to make it clear to IANA that it has no actions to perform (and that
the author has consciously made such a determination!), such
documents should include an IANA Considerations section that states:

This document has no IANA Actions.

This statement, or an equivalent form of words, must only be inserted
after the WG or individual submitter has carefully verified it to be
true.

In some cases, the absence of IANA-assigned values may be considered
valuable information for future readers; in other cases it may be
considered of no value once the document has been approved, and may
be removed before archival publication. This choice should be made
clear in the draft, for example by including a sentence such as

[RFC Editor: please remove this section prior to publication.]

[RFC Editor: please do not remove this section.]

6.2. Appeals

Appeals on registration decisions made by the IANA can be appealed to
the IESG
using the normal IETF appeals process as outlined described in Section 6.5 of
[IETF-PROCESS]. Specifically, appeals should be directed to the IESG,
followed (if necessary) by an appeal to the IAB. IAB, etc.

6.3. Namespaces Lacking Documented Guidance

For all existing RFCs that either explicitly or implicitly rely on
the IANA to evaluate assignments without specifying a precise
evaluation policy, the IANA (in consultation with the IESG) will
continue to decide what policy is appropriate. Changes to existing
policies can always be initiated through the normal IETF consensus
process.

All future RFCs that either explicitly or implicitly rely on the IANA
to register or otherwise manage assignments MUST provide guidelines
for managing the name space.

7. Security Considerations

Information that creates or updates a registration needs to be
authenticated.
authenticated and authorized.

Information concerning possible security vulnerabilities of a
protocol may change over time. Likewise, security vulnerabilities
related to how an assigned number is used (e.g., if it identifies a
protocol) may change as well. As new vulnerabilities are discovered,
information about such vulnerabilities may need to be attached to
existing registrations, so that users are not mislead as to the true
security issues surrounding the use of a registered number.

An analysis of security issues is required for all parameters (data
types, operation codes, keywords, etc.) used in IETF protocols or
registered by the IANA. All descriptions of security issues must be
as accurate as possible regardless of level of registration. In
particular, a statement that there are "no security issues associated
with this type" must not given when it would be more accurate to
state that "the security issues associated with this type have not
been assessed".

8. Open Issues

- It has been suggested that mailing lists associated with public
reviews (e.g., ietf-types) should be hosted by IETF servers and
should have public archives available. To what degree should we
have requirements? Should we have a policy, and should it be
documented here?

- Added text to "Specification Required" stating that an Expert will
be used to evaluate a spec for adequate "implementability". Is
this reasonable? [IANA can't do the evaluation, as they lack the
necessary time/expertise. So someone has to do it...]

- It would be good to get feedback on whether the examples of "good
IANA Considerations" that are cited are actually good, or whether
better ones are available.

9. Changes Relative to RFC 2434

Changes include:

- Major reordering of text to group the "creation of registries"
text in same section, etc.

- Numerous editorial changes to improve readability.

- Change "IETF Consensus" term to "IETF Review" and added more
clarifications.

- Added "RFC Required" to list of defined policies.

- Much more explicit directions and examples of "what to put in
RFCs".

- "Specification Required" now implies use of Designated Expert to
evaluate specs for sufficient clarity.

- no doubt other things...

8.1.

9.1. Changes Relative to -00

- Revised Section 5.3 to try and make it even more clear.

8.2.

9.2. Changes Relative to -02

- Significantly changed the wording in Section 3. Main purpose is
to make clear the Expert Reviewers are accountable to the com-
munity, and to provide some guidance for review criteria in the
default case.

- removed wording: "By virtue of the IAB's role as overseer of
IANA administration [RFC 1602], the IAB's decision is final
[IETF-PROCESS]." This document now makes no changes to existing
appeal mechanisms relative to RFC 2026.

10. IANA Considerations

This document is all about IANA Considerations.

10.

11. Acknowledgments

From

This document has benefited from specific feedback from Marcelo
Bagnulo Braun, Brian Carpenter, Spencer Dawkins, John Klensin,
Allison Mankin, Mark Townsley and Bert Wijnen.

The original acknowledgements section in RFC 2434: 2434 was:

Jon Postel and Joyce Reynolds provided a detailed explanation on what
the IANA needs in order to manage assignments efficiently, and
patiently provided comments on multiple versions of this document.
Brian Carpenter provided helpful comments on earlier versions of the
document. One paragraph in the Security Considerations section was
borrowed from [MIME-REG].

11.

12. Normative References

12.

13. Informative References

[ASSIGNED] Reynolds, J., and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD 2,
RFC 1700, October 1994. See also:
http://www.iana.org/numbers.html

[BGP4-EXT] Bates. T., Chandra, R., Katz, D. and Y. Rekhter,
"Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4", RFC 2283,
February 1998.

[DHCP-OPTIONS] Alexander, S. and R. Droms, "DHCP Options and BOOTP
Vendor Extensions", RFC 2132, March 1997.

[EXPERIMENTATION] "Assigning Experimental and Testing Numbers
Considered Useful". T. Narten, RFC 3692, January
2004.

[IANA-CONSIDERATIONS] Alvestrand, H. and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP
26, RFC 2434, October 1998.

[IANA-MOU] Memorandum of Understanding Concerning the Technical Work
of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. B.
Carpenter, F. Baker, M. Roberts, RFC 2860, June
2000.

[IETF-PROCESS] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process --
Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.

[IP] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791, September 1981.

[IPSEC] Atkinson, R., "Security Architecture for the Internet
Protocol", RFC 1825, August 1995.

[KEYWORDS] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

[MIME-LANG] Freed, N. and K. Moore, "MIME Parameter Value and Encoded
Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and
Continuations", RFC 2184, August 1997.

[MIME-REG] Freed, N., Klensin, J. and J. Postel, "Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extension (MIME) Part Four:
Registration Procedures", RFC 2048, November 1996.

[SCSP] Luciani, J., Armitage, G. and J. Halpern, "Server Cache
Synchronization Protocol (SCSP)", RFC 2334, April
1998.

[SMTP-EXT] Klensin, J., Freed, N., Rose, M., Stefferud, E. and D.
Crocker, "SMTP Service Extensions", RFC 1869,
November 1995.

[VENDOR-EXT] "Considerations on the Extensibility of IETF protocols",
draft-iesg-vendor-extensions-02.txt

[RFC1818] Best Current Practices. J. Postel, T. Li, Y. Rekhter.
August 1995.

[RFC2929] Domain Name System (DNS) IANA Considerations. D. Eastlake
3rd, E. Brunner-Williams, B. Manning. September
2000.

[RFC3228] IANA Considerations for IPv4 Internet Group Management
Protocol (IGMP). B. Fenner. February 2002.

[RFC3575] IANA Considerations for RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial
In User Service). B. Aboba. RFC 3575, July 2003.

[RFC3978] IETF Rights in Contributions. S. Bradner, Ed.. March 2005.

[RFC3575] IANA Considerations for RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial
In User Service). B. Aboba. July 2003.

[RFC3748] Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). B. Aboba, L.
Blunk, J. Vollbrecht, J. Carlson, H. Levkowetz,
Ed.. June 2004.

[RFC3932] The IESG and RFC Editor Documents: Procedures. H.
Alvestrand. October 2004.

13.

14. Authors' Addresses

Thomas Narten
IBM Corporation
3039 Cornwallis Ave.
PO Box 12195 - BRQA/502
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2195

Phone: 919-254-7798
EMail: narten@us.ibm.com

Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Cisco Systems
5245 Arboretum Dr
Los Altos, CA
USA

Email: Harald@Alvestrand.no

Intellectual Property Statement

The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.

The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-
ipr@ietf.org.

Disclaimer of Validity

This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
retain all their rights.