RFC 3438 (rfc3438) - Page 2 of 5
Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Considerations Update
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 3438 L2TP IANA Considerations December 2002
1.1 Terminology
The following terms are used here with the meanings defined in
BCP 26: "name space", "assigned value", "registration".
The following policies are used here with the meanings defined in
BCP 26: "Private Use", "First Come First Served", "Expert Review",
"Specification Required", "IETF Consensus", "Standards Action".
2. IANA Considerations
L2TP [RFC 2661] defines a number of "magic" numbers to be maintained
by the IANA. This section updates the criteria to be used by the
IANA to assign additional numbers in each of these lists.
Each of the values identified in this document that require a
registration criteria update are currently maintained by IANA and
have a range of values from 0 to 65 535, of which a very small number
have been allocated (the maximum number allocated within any one
range is 46) [L2TP-IANA]. Given the nature of these values, it is
not expected that any will ever run into a resource allocation
problem if registration allocation requirements are relaxed from
their current state.
The recommended criteria changes for IANA registration are listed in
the following sections. In one case, the registration criteria is
currently defined as First Come First Served and should be made more
strict, others are defined as IETF Consensus and need to be relaxed.
The relaxation from IETF Consensus is motivated by specific cases in
which values that were never intended to be vendor-specific have had
to enter early field trials or be released in generally available
products with vendor-specific values while awaiting documents to be
formalized. In most cases, this results in products that have to
support both the vendor-specific value and IETF value indefinitely.
For registration requests where a Designated Expert should be
consulted, the responsible IESG Area Director should appoint the
Designated Expert.
For registration requests requiring Expert Review, the Designated
Expert should consult relevant WGs as appropriate (e.g., the l2tpext
WG at the time of this writing).
The basic guideline for the Expert Review process will be to approve
the assignment of a value only if there is a document being advanced
that clearly defines the values to be assigned, and there is active
Townsley Best Current Practice