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APNIC-066
APNIC Autonomous System Number Request Form
Issued: August, 1998
This form is intended to be used to request an "autonomous system
(AS)
number" useful in facilitating routing in multi-homed environments.
Unless you are multi-homed to more than one Internet service provider,
you will generally not need an autonomous system number. See RFC 1930
to determine whether an AS number is justified in your case.
Please see comments at the bottom of this form regarding how to
complete this application. Note that this form is parsed by machine
and modification of lines starting with #[ or the field names will
likely result in strange errors being returned to you and your request
not being processed.
After completing this form, please submit it via email to:hostmaster@twnic.net.tw
If you have any questions regarding this form, please contact us via
email at hostmaster@twnic.net.tw (preferred), fax at +886-2-2396-8832.,
postal mail at the above address or via telephone at +886-2-2341-1313
between 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Taiwan Eastern Standard Time. Note that
we do not accept autonomous system number requests via telephone.
Please allow up to one week for processing electronic mail requests
and up to one month for other forms of submission.
NOTE: IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO INCLUDE THIS HEADER
NOR THE INSTRUCTIONS
AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS FORM WITH YOUR APPLICATION.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - CUT HERE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
#[AUT-NUM TEMPLATE V:3.0]#
as-name:
aut-num:
descr:
descr:
country:
admin-c:
tech-c:
as-in:
as-in:
as-out:
as-out:
default:
remarks:
changed:
source: TWNIC
#[PERSON TEMPLATE V:4.0]#
person:
address:
address:
address:
country:
phone:
fax-no:
e-mail:
nic-hdl:
remarks:
changed:
source: TWNIC
#[PERSON TEMPLATE V:3.0]#
person:
address:
address:
address:
country:
phone:
fax-no:
e-mail:
nic-hdl:
remarks:
changed:
source: TWNIC
#[TEMPLATES END]#
Additional Comments:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - CUT HERE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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1. Instructions For Completing This Form
Below are the instructions for filling in an APNIC Autonomous System
Number Request Form. It is *EXTREMELY* important you provide
attributes for the tags listed below correctly. Failure to do so WILL
result in delays in service and thus may delay when you will receive
the AS number you are requesting. NOTE: Experience has shown the
AS-IN, AS-OUT, and DEFAULT fields are prone to errors. *THESE FIELDS
ARE NOT OPTIONAL*. If you have any questions on how to fill in these
fields, please contact hostmaster@twnic.net.tw
Before attempting to complete the AUT-NUM template provided above,
TWNIC *strongly* recommends you read the supporting notes provided
below. Each autonomous system (AS) is represented in the TWNIC
database by an AUT-NUM object. The AUT-NUM object stores descriptive,
administrative and contact information about the AS as well as the
technical information relating to the routing policies of the AS in
relation to all neighboring ASes. With an AUT-NUM object you must
also supply completed PERSON templates which gives the full contact
details for the administrative and technical contacts or reference NIC
handles that exist in the TWNIC Registration database (NIC handles
from other databases are not currently accepted).
All information provided with the templates in this form will be provided
to the Internet community to aid in diagnosing and resolving issues
related
to the operation of the Internet. Any use outside of this context is
expressly prohibited without written permission from TWNIC Pty Ltd.
As TWNIC applications are machine processed, application forms *MUST*
be submitted in plain ASCII, do not use MIME encoding unless that MIME
encoding can be viewed without any form of decoding. In particular,
do NOT encode your application using BASE64 encoding techniques. In
addition, do not attempt to format your application in any fashion,
e.g., do not justify text or insert extra blank lines between lines
in
a template. Failure to observe these restrictions will likely result
in syntax errors being returned to you as the automated parsing system
is not prepared to handle large deviations from the format presented
in the form above. An example of a completed form is provided below.
As always, if you have any questions or comments regarding this form,
please contact hostmaster@twnic.net.tw at your convenience.
2. Autonomous System Number Request Technical
Details
AS-NAME:
Please provide a short but meaningfully descriptive name for this
autonomous system. The AS-NAME is used mainly for administrative
purposes such as consistency checking of the Internet Registry. The
autonomous system name should be written as a SINGLE word of less than
25 capital alphanumeric characters or a hyphen ('-') ONLY. It is
requested you use an autonomous system name that relates to the
organization for which the AS number is being requested. Please do
NOT use domain names, such as FOO.COM, as the autonomous system name
has no relation with the domain name system. There should be exactly
one AS-NAME tag per AUT-NUM template.
Example:
as-name: TERABIT-TW
AUT-NUM:
Please provide a count of how many AS numbers you will require. If
you will require more than one, please provide justifying
documentation in the ADDITIONAL COMMENTS section. Note that TWNIC
ONLY allocates AS numbers for imminent demonstrated need, e.g., you
will be multi-homing to two different service providers within one or
two weeks. There should be exactly one AUT-NUM tag per AUT-NUM
template.
Example:
aut-num: 1
DESCR:
Please complete with a short description of the organization including
the location to provide sufficient detail to distinguish your
organization from others in the APNIC database, i.e., "descr: Computer
Center" is not sufficient. Do NOT put advertising information such
as
"The best internet provider in Foo" in your description and
please
limit the number of DESCR lines to 5. This tag is required for all
AUT-NUM templates.
Example:
descr: Terabit Labs Inc.
descr: Border AS
descr: Network Bugs Feeding Facility, Northtown
COUNTRY:
Please give the two letter ISO 3166 country code appropriate for the
organization requesting the autonomous system number. Do NOT provide
the country name or the three letter ISO 3166 country code. If you do
not know the appropriate ISO 3166 code for your country please see the
table of ISO 3166 codes maintained on APNIC at
ftp://ftp.apnic.net/apnic/docs/iso-3166.txt
We are aware listing a country may be ambiguous for autonomous systems
crossing national boundaries, so choose the most appropriate country
based on the location of the administrative contact. This tag is
required for all AUT-NUM templates, with only one COUNTRY tag
permitted per template.
Example:
country: TW
ADMIN-C:
Please provide the TWNIC NIC handle (NIC handles from other registries
are not currently accepted) of the person who is the administrative
contact for the autonomous system. If you do not have an TWNIC NIC
handle, please see the section below entitled "Obtaining an TWNIC
NIC
Handle". The administrative contact must be someone who is physically
located at the site of the autonomous system and at least one ADMIN-C
tag is required for all AUT-NUM templates.
Example:
admin-c: JD1-TW
TECH-C:
Please provide the TWNIC NIC handle (other registry NIC handles are
not currently accepted) of the person who is the technical contact for
the autonomous system. If you do not have an TWNIC NIC handle, please
see the section below titled "Obtaining an TWNIC NIC Handle".
The
technical contact need not be physically located at the site of the
autonomous system, but rather is the person who is responsible for the
day-to-day operation of the network(s). At least one TECH-C tag is
required for all AUT-NUM templates.
Example:
tech-c: MS4-TW
AS-IN:
Please provide a description of routing information your AS will
accept from neighboring ASes. The format for this field is:
as-in: <aut-num> <cost> <routing policy expression>
which can be read as:
"receive routing information from AS <aut-num> tagging
it with
weight <cost> if it passes the expression specified in
<routing policy expression>"
where:
<aut-num> is the neighboring AS from which you will be
receiving routing information.
<cost> is a positive integer used to express a relative cost
of routes learned from the neighboring AS. The lower
the cost the more preferred the route.
<routing policy expression> is a description of the routing
policy taking the following
formats:
1. A list of one or more ASes, AS Macros and Communities.
Example:
as-in: AS1103 100 AS1103
as-in: AS786 105 AS1103
as-in: AS786 10 AS786 HEPNET
as-in: AS1755 110 AS1103 AS786
2. A set of KEYWORDS. The following keywords are currently
defined:
ANY - anything the neighbor AS knows.
THIS-AS - a special keyword which will be translated
to the assigned autonomous system number
when the AS number is allocated.
The use of THIS-AS primarily
makes sense in the context of as-in: (see
below)
Example:
as-in: AS1103 10 ANY
3. A logical expression of either 1 or 2 above. The current
logical operators are defined as:
AND
OR
NOT
NOTE: if no logical operator is given between ASes, AS-macros,
Communities and KEYWORDS an implicit OR operation is
assumed, thus OR can generally be left out for
conciseness. Rules may also be grouped together using
parenthesis i.e. "(" and ")".
Example:
as-in: AS1755 100 AS102 AND NOT (AS1234 OR AS513)
as-in: AS1755 150 ANY AND NOT AS1234
A rule can be wrapped over lines providing the associated
<aut-num> and <cost> values are repeated and occur on
consecutive lines. For example:
as-in: AS1755 100 AS102 AND NOT (AS1234 AS513)
and
as-in: AS1755 100 AS102 AND NOT
as-in: AS1755 100 (AS1234 AS513)
are evaluated to the same result.
You may provide as many AS-IN statements as necessary to accurately
describe the routing information you accept from your peers, but at
least two AS-IN tags are required.
Example:
As above.
AS-OUT:
Please provide a description of generated routing information sent
to
other AS peers. The format for this field is:
as-out: <aut-num> <routing policy expression>
which can be read as:
"send to AS <aut-num> our routing information if such
information passes the expression specified in <routing
policy expression>"
where:
<aut-num> refers to your AS of your peer to which you will be
supplying routing information
<routing policy expression> is the routing policy expression
as described in the AS-IN tag.
with the exception of the "ANY"
tag.
You may provide as many AS-OUT statements as necessary to accurately
describe the routing information you provide to your peers, but at
least two AS-OUT tags are required.
Example:
as-out: AS786 AS701 AND NOT (AS978 AS65535)
DEFAULT:
If you will be using a peer as a default for your network, please
provide an indication of how default routing will be done. The format
of this field is:
default: <aut-num> <relative cost>
where:
<aut-num> is the AS peer you will default route to.
<relative cost> is the relative cost used to express a
preference for default. There is no relationship to
the cost used in the AS-IN tag. The lower cost
indicates which AS peer is more preferred for default.
You may provide as many DEFAULT statements as necessary to accurately
describe your choice of autonomous systems you default to (including
none if you do not use default routing).
Example:
default: AS1755 10
default: AS786 5
REMARKS:
The remarks attribute contains any remarks about this address space
that cannot be expressed in any of the other attributes. Although
multiple lines are allowed, it should be only be used if it provides
extra information to users of the database and usage should be kept
to
a minimum.
Example:
remarks: will be returned to TWNIC 19990101
CHANGED:
Please indicate the e-mail address of the person who is completing
the
template followed by the current date in the format of YYYYMMDD (YYYY
is the current year, MM is the month and DD is the day, all values 0
filled). You should supply exactly one CHANGED tag per AUT-NUM
template.
Example:
changed: johndoe@terabit.na 19950225
SOURCE:
Source of the information. For the purposes of TWNIC forms, it will
always be TWNIC. This information is always required in the database
and has already been added to the forms.
Example:
source: TWNIC
3. Autonomous System Number Request Person Template
Details
The fields of the PERSON template(s) should only be filled in when
an
TWNIC NIC handle is being requested or when the contact information
for an existing PERSON object must be modified. If the administrative
and technical contacts already have TWNIC NIC handles, please use them
instead of requesting new TWNIC NIC handles.
PERSON:
Please give the full name of the person this template will represent.
Do not use formal titles like `Dr' or `Prof.' or `Sir' and please
provide full names, not initials. The name should be provided as the
person would be addressed in a letter salutation (e.g., given name
followed by family name or family name followed by given name
depending on the custom in your country). There can be exactly one
PERSON field in a PERSON template.
Example:
person: John E Doe
ADDRESS:
Please complete with the full postal address written as you would for
international postal mail (albeit, without the country which is
provided using the COUNTRY field described below) using one line for
each part of the address as shown below.
Example:
address: Terabit Labs Inc.
address: Industrial Estate North
address: North Perpendicular Road 12
address: NL-1234 Northtown
COUNTRY:
Please give the two letter ISO 3166 country code appropriate for the
contact person. Do NOT provide the country name or the three letter
ISO 3166 country code. If you do not know the appropriate ISO 3166
code for this person's address, please see the list of ISO 3166 codes
maintained on APNIC at
ftp://ftp.apnic.net/apnic/docs/iso-3166.txt
This tag is required for all PERSON templates, with only one COUNTRY
tag permitted.
Example:
country: TW
PHONE:
Please provide the work telephone number of the person specified in
this template as it would be dialed internationally in your country
(WITHOUT the prefix necessary to reach an international line). Please
do not include the leading zero when specifying their area/city code
unless it is required to correctly dial the number internationally.
The format for the telephone number is:
+<country code>-<area/city code>-<exchange>-<subscriber>
If an extension is necessary, please add "ext <extension>".
Please do
not put 'x' or other abbreviations for "extension". More than
one
telephone number is fine; each telephone number should be put on a
separate line and written in order of the most appropriate number for
the person to the least.
Example:
phone: +886-2-1233-4676
phone: +886-2-1233-4677 ext 4711
FAX-NO:
Please complete with the facsimile number of the person as it would
be
dialed internationally (WITHOUT the prefix necessary to reach an
international line) in your country. Please do not include the
leading zero when specifying their area/city code unless it is
required to correctly dial the number internationally. The format for
the facsimile number is:
+<country code>-<area/city code>-<exchange>-<subscriber>
More than one facsimile number is fine. Each facsimile number should
be put on a separate line and written in order of the most appropriate
to the least. If the person does not have a facsimile number, please
leave blank.
Example:
fax-no: +886-2-1233-4678
E-MAIL:
Please supply the electronic mail address for the person. The
electronic mail address MUST be an Internet reachable valid RFC-822
address with a fully qualified domain name. If you do not have
Internet reachable e-mail connectivity, please leave this field blank.
Multiple e-mail addresses may be specified, with each on a separate
line and written in order of the most appropriate to the least.
Example:
e-mail: johndoe@terabit.na
NIC-HDL:
A NIC Handle is a unique identifier used within the Internet registry
database to differentiate between people with the same names. NIC
handles are assigned by registries -- if you do not have one, please
do not make one up, a handle will be automatically generated for you
if you follow the procedures described below in the section titled
"Obtaining an TWNIC NIC Handle". If you have an TWNIC NIC
handle but
do not remember it, please make a note of this in the ADDITIONAL
COMMENTS section of the application form and leave this field blank.
If you have a NIC handle assigned by another registry, e.g., InterNIC,
please provide a full person template anyway and leave the NIC-HDL
field blank -- the regional registries are currently investigating
ways in which information such as this can be shared, but no solution
has yet been implemented.
Example:
nic-hdl: JD401-TW
REMARKS:
The remarks attribute contains any remarks about this address space
that cannot be expressed in any of the other attributes. Although
multiple lines are allowed, it should be only be used if it provides
extra information to users of the database, and usage should be kept
to a minimum.
Example:
remarks: <e-mail>-pager can be used for paging.
CHANGED:
Please indicate the e-mail address of the person who is completing
the
template followed by the current date in the format of YYYYMMDD (YYYY
is the current year, MM is the month and DD is the day, all values 0
filled). You should supply exactly one CHANGED tag per PERSON
template if this is a new person object.
Example:
changed: johndoe@terabit.na 19950225
SOURCE:
Source of the information. For the purposes of TWNIC forms, it will
always be TWNIC. This information is always required in the database
and has already been added to the forms.
Example:
source: TWNIC
4. Supporting Notes
4.1 What is an Autonomous System?
An Autonomous System (AS) is a group of Internet networks run by one
or more network operators having a single and clearly defined routing
policy. An AS will normally use one or more interior gateway
protocols when exchanging routing information internally within its
own autonomous system.
An AS has a unique number associated with it which is used in both
the
exchange of exterior routing information (i.e. network reachability
information between ASes) and as an identifier of the AS itself.
Exterior routing protocols such as BGP are used to exchange routing
information between ASes.
The term AS is often confused and/or misused as a convenient way of
grouping together a set of networks which belong under the same
administrative umbrella even if within that group of networks there
are various different routing policies. An AS can strictly have
exactly one routing policy. TWNIC will not allocate an AS number to
organizations unless the organization will have a different routing
policy than its service provider(s) in the immediate future (e.g.,
within one to two weeks).
The creation of an AS should be done in a conscious and well
coordinated manner to avoid creating ASes unnecessarily, perhaps
resulting in the worst case scenario of one AS per IP network number.
This may mean that by applying the general rules for the creation and
allocation of an AS below, some re-engineering may be needed.
However, this may be the only way to actually implement a desired
routing policy anyway.
As a general rule one should always try to populate an AS with as many
IP networks as possible, providing all IP networks conform to the same
routing policy.
4.2 How can I be sure I need an AS number?
The creation of an AS is only required when exchanging routing
information with other ASes. Some routing protocol implementations
make use of an AS number as a form of tagging to identify the routing
process. However, it should be noted that this tag does not need to
be unique unless routing information is indeed exchanged with other
ASes.
An IP network number can and must belong to exactly one AS. This is
a
direct consequence of the fact that at each point in the Internet
there can be exactly one routing policy for traffic destined to a
specific network. In the case of a network which is used in peering
between two ASes, say at the border between two ASes, a conscious
decision must be made as to which AS this IP network number actually
resides in.
For a simple case of customer networks connected to a single service
provider, the customer's IP network(s) should be a member of the
service provider's AS. In terms of routing policy the customer IP
network has exactly the same policy as the service provider thus there
is no need to make any distinction in routing information. This idea
may at first seem slightly alien to some, but it highlights the clear
distinction in the use of the AS number as a representation of routing
policy as opposed to some form of administrative use.
If a network connects to more than one AS with different routing
policies then they need to create their own AS. In the case of
multi-homed customer networks connected to two service providers there
are at least two different routing policies to a given customer
network. At this point the customer networks should be part of a
single AS and this AS would be distinct from either of the service
providers ASes. This allows the customer the ability of having a
different representation of policy and preference to the different
service providers. This is the ONLY case where a network operator
should create its own AS number.
5. Obtaining an TWNIC NIC Handle
If you are completing a person template or want to reference a person
in an another object in the TWNIC registration database, you should
use an TWNIC NIC handle ('nic-hdl:'). NIC handles will give you a
unique identifier attached to a person which you can use as a
reference in those cases where multiple individuals have the same
name. You can obtain an TWNIC NIC handle by putting the following in
the NIC-HDL field:
nic-hdl: AUTO-1
(that's a one, not the letter 'ell'). This will result in the
database software deriving creating an TWNIC handle from your first
and last initials. For example, if you submitted the following person
object (please don't):
person: David Conrad
address: Taiwan Network Information Center
address: Level 1, 33 Park Road
address: P. O. Box 2131
address: Milton, QLD 4064
country: AU
[...]
nic-hdl: AUTO-1
[...]
the database software would generate a NIC handle of the form
DC###-TW
where ### is the next available number that insures the TWNIC NIC
handle starting with DC would be unique.
You can use the same identifiers (AUTO-1) in the
same update message in other objects as a reference. The database
software will then fill in the freshly assigned NIC handles in the
objects. Note that you can also use other numbers (example: AUTO-2)
so
that you can update more person objects and objects that reference the
persons in one E-mail message. For example:
[...]
admin-c: AUTO-1
tech-c: AUTO-2
[...]
person: David Conrad
[...]
nic-hdl: AUTO-1
[...]
person: Yoshiko Chong
[...]
nic-hdl: AUTO-2
[...]
will result in two new handles being created, one of the form DC###-TW
filled in for the ADMIN-C and David Conrad's NIC-HDL fields and the
other, YC###-TW filled in for the TECH-C and Yoshiko Chong's NIC-HDL
fields.
6. Acknowledgements
This document in derived in large part from documents written by the
staff of the European Registry, RIPE-NCC <ncc@ripe.net>, particularly
RIPE-109.
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