Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) J. Haas
Request for Comments: 7300 Juniper Networks
BCP: 6 J. Mitchell
Updates: 1930 Microsoft Corporation
Category: Best Current Practice July 2014
ISSN: 2070-1721
Reservation of Last Autonomous System (AS) Numbers
Haas & Mitchell Best Current Practice [Page 1]
RFC 7300 Last AS Reservation July 2014 1. IntroductionOver a decade ago, IANA reserved the last Autonomous System Number (ASN) of the 16-bit ASN range, 65535, with the intention that it not be used by network operators running BGP [RFC4271]. Since the introduction of "BGP Support for Four-Octet Autonomous System (AS) Number Space" [RFC6793], IANA has also reserved the last ASN of the 32-bit autonomous system number range, 4294967295. This reservation has been documented in the IANA "Autonomous System (AS) Numbers" registry [IANA.AS]. Although these "Last ASNs" border on Private Use ASN [RFC6996] ranges, they are not defined or reserved as Private Use ASNs by [IANA.AS]. This document describes the reasoning for reserving Last ASNs and provides guidance both to operators and to implementers on their use.
2. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
3. Reasons for Reservation of the Last ASNs
A subset of the BGP communities of ASN 65535, the last ASN of the 16-bit range, are reserved for use by Well-known Communities as described in [RFC1997] and [IANA.WK]. Although this is not currently true of ASN 4294967295, if there is a future need for another Special Use ASN that is not designed to be globally routable, or for the associated BGP communities of such an ASN, ASN 4294967295 could be a valid candidate for such purpose. This document does not prescribe any such Special Use to this ASN at the time of publication.
4. Operational Considerations
Operators SHOULD NOT use these Last ASNs for any other purpose or as Private Use ASNs. Operational use of these Last ASNs could have undesirable results. For example; use of AS 65535 as if it were a Private Use ASN, may result in inadvertent use of BGP Well-known Community values [IANA.WK], causing undesirable routing behavior.
Haas & Mitchell Best Current Practice [Page 2]
RFC 7300 Last AS Reservation July 2014 5. Implementation ConsiderationsWhile Last ASNs are reserved, they remain valid ASNs from a BGP perspective. Therefore, implementations of BGP [RFC4271] SHOULD NOT treat the use of Last ASNs as any type of protocol error. However, if a Last ASN is configured as the local AS, implementations MAY generate a warning message indicating improper use of a reserved ASN.
6. IANA Considerations
IANA has reserved last Autonomous System number 65535 from the "16-bit Autonomous System Numbers" registry for the reasons described in this document.
7. Security Considerations
This document does not introduce any additional security concerns in regards to usage of Last ASNs. Although the BGP is designed to allow usage of Last ASNs, security issues related to BGP implementation errors could be triggered by Last ASN usage.8. References 8.1. Normative References[IANA.AS] IANA, "Autonomous System (AS) Numbers",
Haas & Mitchell Best Current Practice [Page 3]
RFC 7300 Last AS Reservation July 2014
[RFC4271] Rekhter, Y., Li, T., and S. Hares, "A Border Gateway
8.2. Informative References
[IANA.WK] IANA, "Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Well-known
Haas & Mitchell Best Current Practice [Page 4]
RFC 7300 Last AS Reservation July 2014 Appendix A. AcknowledgmentsThe authors would like to thank Michelle Cotton and Elwyn Davies for encouraging the proper documentation of the reservation of these ASNs, and David Farmer for his contributions to the document.
