Want to connect to SFMIX? Here's how.
Overview
- Review pricing and requirements below
- Email tech-c@sfmix.org with your desired speed and location; we’ll confirm port availability
- Complete the Membership Application
- SFMIX issues an LOA/CFA for you to order a cross-connect with the datacenter operator
- SFMIX allocates your IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
- Your circuit is connected to a Quarantine VLAN — a safe environment to bring up your link and validate configuration before touching production
- Once ready, SFMIX moves your port to the production peering VLAN
- Start peering!
Administrative Requirements
Pricing
Annual membership fees (as of 2023):
- $995/year — 1Gbps port (prefer 10G with rate limit over multiple 1G ports)
- $2,995/year — 10Gbps port (up to 4 in a LAG)
- $7,495/year — 100Gbps port (no LAG limit)
Fee exemptions are considered case-by-case for non-profits contributing in-kind services (e.g., root DNS, ccTLD/gTLD, public measurement tools). Contact tech-c@sfmix.org.
Billing
- Annual billing (calendar year); no monthly option
- USD only
- Payment (preferred order): ACH, wire, check, credit card
Logistical Requirements
- At least one representative must subscribe to the sfmix-members mailing list. Role accounts encouraged. Email tech-c@sfmix.org to subscribe.
- Mailing list discussions are confidential to participants, members, and sponsors.
- SFMIX is volunteer-run. All services are best-effort; no SLA is implied.
- Participants may peer at a single location only, regardless of port count. SFMIX is a peering fabric, not a transport network.
- No ARP/ICMPv6 spoofing or traffic sniffing.
Technical Requirements
- SMF only — no copper or MMF.
- A public RIR-assigned ASN is required (RFC 1930, RFC 6996). No private ASNs.
- A maintained PeeringDB entry is required.
- One MAC address per logical link. Port security allows 2 MACs temporarily for router migrations, but only 1 long-term.
- Allowed broadcast: ARP and ICMPv6 ND only. No RAs, CDP, LLDP, DHCP, or STP.
- BGP session with the Looking Glass is mandatory. It is used only for debugging — no routes are redistributed, no traffic exchanged.
- Do not propagate SFMIX peering subnets (206.197.187.0/24, 2001:504:30::/64) beyond your edge router. Use ACLs if needed.
- No static or default routes toward other participants or SFMIX resources without permission.
- Route server peering is encouraged but not required.