IRINN & APNIC inetnum range confusion

Networking

Last week I saw an interesting post at APNIC mailing list about IRINN (recently formed NIR in Indian region). 

Poster Jimmy was concerned about IRINN’s netname

inetnum: 0.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255  
netname: IRINN-BROADCAST-ADDRESSES  
descr: Broadcast addresses  
descr: These addresses cannot (should not) be routed on the Internet.  
country: IN  
admin-c: IH1-IN  
tech-c: IH1-IN  
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE  
remarks: send spam and abuse report to info@irinn.in  
mnt-by: IRINN-HM  
mnt-irt: IRT-IRINNHM-IN  
mnt-lower: IRINN-HM  
changed: hostmaster2@irinn.in 20130420  
source: IRINN

As per first two lines entire IPv4 address space i.e 0.0.0.0/0 (ranging from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255) was put as IRINN-Broadcast while expected was IANA broadcast (since IANA sits on top in this RIR & NIR hierarchy).

Right after that post IRINN came into action and changed values to:

inetnum: **255.0.0.0** - 255.255.255.255  
netname: **IANA-BROADCAST-ADDRESSES**  
descr: Broadcast addresses  
descr: These addresses cannot (should not) be routed on the Internet.  
descr: http://www.apnic.net/db/RIRs.html  
country: US  
admin-c: HM20-AP  
tech-c: NO4-AP  
remarks: This is a placeholder object to ensure no objects are created  
remarks: in the enclosing range.  
mnt-by: MAINT-APNIC-AP  
mnt-lower: MAINT-APNIC-AP  
changed: apnic-dbm@apnic.net 19991214  
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20040926  
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE  
source: APNIC

This had correct netname suggesting IANA but source is APNIC and moreover it got a really interesting inetnum i.e 255.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. This really sounded bit weird to me as I was expecting entire IPv4 address range here and start from 255.0.0.0 rather then from 0.0.0.0 sounds confusing. 

I did some testing and saw results from whois db were different based on query. I was getting range from 255.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 if I query APNIC db for 0.0.0.0/0 while for 0.0.0.0 (without /0) I was getting expected range 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. I posted about this in APNIC mailing list to figure out reason for these strange numbers.

I got a really interesting reply from Leo Vegoda from ICANN:

I agree that it seems quite odd. 255/8 is part of 240/4. In 240/4 the only address whose use has been defined is 255.255.255.255, which is used for limited broadcast. The rest of 255/8 does not (yet) have a defined use. You can find the details here: http://www.iana.org/assignments/iana-ipv4-special-registry/iana-ipv4-special-registry.xml

Regards, Leo


Right after his reply, Guangliang from APNIC posted clarification and actually fix too. :)

Thanks to Anurag for pointing out this and Leo for your clarifications. The inetnum object 255.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255 was created in 1999 to reflect that Broadcast reservation. We have now removed it from the APNIC whois database to avoid any confusion.

Best regards,

Guangliang

So yet another interesting case from internet world. Time for me to get back to work, have a good time ahead! :)