6 December 2021 | 3 min read

Preparing the Subnet Before Placing It in the IPXO Marketplace (AFRINIC)

Learn how to prepare your subnet before adding it to the IPXO Marketplace. 

If you wish to add your AFRINIC allocated subnet to the IPXO Marketplace, you need to prepare it. Follow this guide to learn how to do it.  

Step 1: Check your subnet’s status 

Go to https://afrinic.net/whois, enter your subnet into the Search query box and then click Search at the bottom. To demonstrate, we use 154.70.152.0/22 as an example.

Subnet example in AFRINIC Whois search tool.
AFRINIC’s subnet search query tool

The image below shows an example of the results page. The field you need to check is Status

Whois search results provided by the AFRINIC search tool.
Inetnum, org and status fields in AFRINIC’s search results

In our case, the status is Allocated PA, and the subnet is bigger than /24, which is accepted at IPXO. Use our guide to learn more about acceptable AFRINIC subnet statuses.

Step 2: Set your maintainer admin-c or tech-c abuse-mailbox 

Once the subnet is added to the IPXO Marketplace, you need to confirm your subnet ownership. To confirm it, you receive an ownership verification email to your abuse contact mailbox provided in the admin-c or tech-c attributes. You can read more about this in our Subnet Ownership Confirmation and How to Add/Update the abuse-mailbox guides.

Abuse-mailbox field highlighted in AFRINIC's search results page.
Abuse-mailbox field in AFRINIC subnet search results

Step 3: Create inetnum if your subnet has Allocated PA status and is bigger than /24 

Note: If you already have a subnet with the Assigned PA status, you can jump to Step 4. If you have a different subnet status, check the acceptable AFRINIC subnet statuses and follow the presented actions.

Go to https://afrinic.net/whois, click Create Object, select inetnum and then click Load.

Inetnum selected in AFRINIC's Create object menu.
How to create an inetnum in AFRINIC

In the Object list window, you can create an inetnum. The template loads with the fields you need to fill and explanations on the right. Fill according to the requirements. In the <…> fields, provide your own data: 

inetnum: <subnet that will be added to the IPXO market, in format x.x.x.x/yy> 
netname: IPXO 
descr: IPXO 
country: ZA 
admin-c: IPXO834 
tech-c: IPXO834 
status: ASSIGNED PA 
mnt-by: <your-maintainer> 
changed: <your-email> 
source: AFRINIC 

To demonstrate, we use 154.16.99.0/24 as an example.

Inetnum template in AFRINIC's Object list.
Inetnum in the Object list

Once you provide the necessary information, scroll down to the Password section and enter your maintainer (XXXX-MNT) password. Click Submit

Password box highlighted in AFRINIC's Object list menu.
Password field in the Object list

If the information is filled in correctly, you will see a message like the one represented in the image below. 

An example of the inetnum result in AFRINIC's Object list menu.
Inetnum result

Step 4: Add IPXO mnt-by 

Go to https://afrinic.net/whois, enter the subnet you have just created (or one you already had with Assigned PA/Sub-Allocated PA status) into the Search query field and then click Search.

To demonstrate, we use 154.16.99.0/24 as an example.

Subnet example in AFRINIC Whois search tool.
AFRINIC’s subnet search query tool

Scroll down to find your subnet and then click Update

Inetnum field underscored in AFRINIC's subnet search results with an Update button.
How to update AFRINIC inetnum

Find the mnt-by field, place the cursor at the end of the line and tap Enter on the keyboard to open a new line. Enter mnt-by: IPXO-MNT just like in the template below. In the <…> fields, provide your own data: 

inetnum: <subnet that will be added to the IPXO market, in format x.x.x.x/yy> 
netname: IPXO 
descr:m IPXO 
country: ZA 
admin-c: IPXO834 
tech-c: IPXO834 
status: ASSIGNED PA 
mnt-by: <your-maintainer> 
mnt-by: IPXO-MNT 
changed: [email protected] 20211202 
changed: <your-email> 
source: AFRINIC 
password: <your-maintainer-password> 

To demonstrate, we use 154.16.99.0/24 as an example.

Mnt-by field underscored in AFRINIC's subnet search results with Submit button.
Mnt-by field in subnet search results

If the information is filled in correctly, you will see a message like the one represented in the image below. 

An example of Whois results provided by AFRINIC.
AFRINIC Whois results

Once you add IPXO as mnt-by, you can add the subnet to the IPXO Marketplace. 

Learn more

Contact Customer Solutions

If you have any questions, contact our Customer Solutions Team