Guide to the recovery of unused address space
Introduction
These guidelines are intended to complement the policy on the recovery of historical address space described in section 5 of Historical resources in the APNIC Whois Database and are intended to guide networks holding historical address space.
Historical address space that has been globally routed at any time since 1 January 1998 is not affected by this policy.
How to transfer resources
The following steps will take place:
- APNIC identifies historical address space that is not currently being globally routed
- APNIC notifies the network contacts of the intent to reclaim unrouted resources
- The network responsible for the unrouted resources can choose to return the resources to APNIC or maintain custody
- If there is no response from a network, APNIC will keep trying to contact the network for one year before reclaiming the resources.
- Reclaimed resources will be returned to the free pool for redistribution in the future.
APNIC identifies historical address space that is not currently being globally routed
The APNIC Secretariat will check the list of historical address ranges against historical routing data available from a prefix announcement database. If addresses from a historical address range have not been routed at all since 1 January 1998, APNIC will begin the process to recover the resources.
APNIC notifies the network contacts of the intent to reclaim unrouted resources
The network responsible for the unrouted resources can choose to return the resources to APNIC or maintain custody
- Return the address range to APNIC
- If a network is happy to return the resources, the resources will be reclaimed for reallocation in the future. For more information, see section 5 below.
- Maintain custody of the resources
If the network needs to update any information about the address range in the APNIC Whois Database, it will be subject to the historical resource protection policy described in section 4 of "Historical resources in the APNIC Whois Database". For more information, see:
If the network wishes to transfer the resources to another network, this can be achieved under the transfer of historical resources policy described in section 6 of "Historical resources in the APNIC Whois Database". For more information, see:
If there is no response from a network, APNIC will keep trying to contact the network for one year before reclaiming the resources.
Reclaimed resources will be returned to the free pool for redistribution in the future.
The origin of historical resource will affect what happens to the reclaimed resource:
- The historical resource is an early APNIC or AUNIC allocation
- The historical resource is part of the ERX ranges
The inetnum object will be deleted from the database and returned to the free pool for redistribution immediately. Information on historical AUNIC ranges is available at:
The inetnum object will be deleted from the database. The resource will not be redistributed immediately; however, in the future the resource may be redistributed by APNIC or another RIR. More information about ERX ranges is available at:
The APNIC Secretariat will use the contact details of the admin-c and tech-c for the address range to notify the network of the intent to recover resources.
If a network is contacted by APNIC and is notified of APNIC's intention to recover the unrouted resources, the network can choose to:
If a network is using the address range for its internal network or plans to route the address range on the global Internet in the future, the network can inform APNIC that it wishes to retain custody of the resources. The network can choose to take advantage of two other historical resource policies:
Guide to the maintenance of historical Internet resources
Guide to the transfer of historical Internet resources
At the end of one year, if there is still no response from the network, the address range will be reclaimed.
