Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs Status of this Memo This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

TLDR: In this article, the authors discuss issues that should be considered in formulating a policy for assigning values to a name space and provide guidelines to document authors on the specific text that must be included in documents that place demands on the IANA.

Abstract: Many protocols make use of identifiers consisting of constants and other well-known values. Even after a protocol has been defined and deployment has begun, new values may need to be assigned (e.g., for a new option type in DHCP, or a new encryption or authentication algorithm for IPSec). To insure that such quantities have consistent values and interpretations in different implementations, their assignment must be administered by a central authority. For IETF protocols, that role is provided by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). In order for the IANA to manage a given name space prudently, it needs guidelines describing the conditions under which new values can be assigned. If the IANA is expected to play a role in the management of a name space, the IANA must be given clear and concise instructions describing that role. This document discusses issues that should be considered in formulating a policy for assigning values to a name space and provides guidelines to document authors on the specific text that must be included in documents that place demands on the IANA.