IPv4 Address Blocks Reserved for Documentation
draft-iana-ipv4-examples-02

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Abstract

Three IPv4 unicast address blocks are reserved for use in examples in specifications and other documents. This document describes the use of these blocks.

1.  Introduction

This document describes three IPv4 address blocks that are provided for use in documentation. The use of designated address ranges for documentation and examples reduces the likelihood of conflicts and confusion arising from the use of addresses assigned for some other purpose.

[RFC1166] (Kirkpatrick, S., Stahl, M., and M. Recker, “Internet numbers,” July 1990.) reserves the first of the three address blocks, 192.0.2.0/24. The other two address blocks have recently been allocated for this purpose, primarily to ease the writing of examples involving addresses from multiple networks.

Other documentation ranges have been defined in the IETF, including the IPv6 documentation prefix [RFC3849] (Huston, G., Lord, A., and P. Smith, “IPv6 Address Prefix Reserved for Documentation,” July 2004.) and example domain names [RFC2606] (Eastlake, D. and A. Panitz, “Reserved Top Level DNS Names,” June 1999.). Documentation also makes use of the ranges reserved in [RFC1918] (Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, R., Karrenberg, D., Groot, G., and E. Lear, “Address Allocation for Private Internets,” February 1996.).

2.  Terminology

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 BCP 14, [RFC2119] (Bradner, S., “Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels,” March 1997.).

3.  Documentation Address Blocks

The blocks 192.0.2.0/24 (TEST-NET-1), 198.51.100.0/24 (TEST-NET-2), and 203.0.113.0/24 (TEST-NET-3) are provided for use in documentation.

4.  Operational Implications

Addresses within the TEST-NET-1, TEST-NET-2, and TEST-NET-3 blocks SHOULD NOT appear on the public Internet and are used without any coordination with IANA or an Internet registry [RFC2050] (Hubbard, K., Kosters, M., Conrad, D., Karrenberg, D., and J. Postel, “INTERNET REGISTRY IP ALLOCATION GUIDELINES,” November 1996.). Network operators SHOULD add these address blocks to the list of non-routeable address space, and if packet filters are deployed, then this address block SHOULD be added to packet filters.

These blocks are not for local use, and the filters may be used in both local and public contexts.

5.  The Status of 128.66.0.0/16

Note that 128.66.0.0/16 has been used for some examples in the past. However, this block did not appear in the list of special prefixes in [RFC3330] (IANA, “Special-Use IPv4 Addresses,” September 2002.) or its successors, and the block is therefore not reserved for any special purpose. The block can be used for regular address assignments with caution.

6.  Security Considerations

This document has no security implications.

7.  IANA Considerations

IANA should record the allocation of the three address blocks in the IPv4 address registry. No end party is to be assigned these addresses.

8.  References

8.1. Normative References

8.2. Informative References

Appendix A.  Acknowledgments

The authors would like to offer a special note of thanks to APNIC, which nominated 198.51.100.0/24 and 203.0.113.0/24 for this purpose. The authors would also like to acknowledge that this document inherits material from [RFC3849] (Huston, G., Lord, A., and P. Smith, “IPv6 Address Prefix Reserved for Documentation,” July 2004.).

The authors would also like to thank Geoff Huston, Peter Koch, Ulf Olsson, John Klensin and others for interesting discussions of this topic.

Authors' Addresses