- db-wg - mailman.ripe.net

Deleting unreferenced PERSON objects
by Denis Walker 16 Oct '08

16 Oct '08

[Apologies for duplicate emails] Dear Colleagues, We announced at RIPE 56 that the RIPE NCC would soon start to delete unreferenced PERSON and ROLE objects. This will begin in late November 2008. There are some people involved in the Internet industry who do not directly manage Internet resources but who have PERSON objects in the RIPE Database. If you fall into this category and you believe your PERSON object should not be deleted, you have the option to join the RIPE Database White Pages. This will prevent your PERSON object from being deleted. For further details, please see this web page: http://www.ripe.net/db/support/white-pages-instructions.pdf Regards, Denis Walker Business Analyst RIPE NCC Database Group

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Maintaining DOMAIN objects
by Denis Walker 16 Oct '08

16 Oct '08

[Apologies for duplicate emails] Dear Colleagues, The RIPE Data Protection Task Force advised the RIPE NCC that all objects in the RIPE Database should be maintained. Maintaining Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL) objects in the RIPE Database was optional for PERSON, ROLE and DOMAIN objects. All the DOMAIN objects in the RIPE Database are now maintained and protected. As there may have been a possibility to exploit this data if any advance warning had been made, the RIPE NCC did not publicly announce that it was going to add maintainers to unmaintained DOMAIN objects before doing so. For further details of what was done, please see this web page: http://www.ripe.net/db/support/security/domain/syntax.html Regards, Denis Walker Business Analyst RIPE NCC Database Group

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RIPE57 DB-WG Draft Agenda V1
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 16 Oct '08

16 Oct '08

Dear DB-WG folks, Chairpersons, "Meeting"! This is the (very rough) 1st draft of an agenda for the DB-WG at RIPE57 in Dubai, October 2008. For time slot allocations please refer to the most up-to-date meeting plan at http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-57/meeting-plan.html Attention please: this time the DB-WG meeting is again scheduled for th last day of the meeting, *Thursday* at 9 AM in the morning! Please note that, for our convenience, the time slot map becomes clickable for those sessions which have already submitted a (draft) agenda! This time Nigel Titley will manage the meeting as I can't be in Dubai. Best regards, Wilfried. ________________________________________________________________________ A. Administrative Matters . Welcome . select scribe . finalise agenda . approval of minutes from RIPE 56 . review of action list B. Data Base Update (Jos I. B., RIPE NCC) C. Follow-Up/Closure of Task-Force on Data Protection Issues (N.N., RIPE NCC) Y. Input from other WGs and TFs . ASN32 . DNS [t.b.c.] Z. AOB ________________________________________________________________________

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Outage report for updates to the RIPE Database
by Denis Walker 13 Oct '08

13 Oct '08

[ Apologies for duplicate mails ] Dear colleagues, >From approximately 19:41 (UTC) to 20:15 (UTC) on Friday, 10 October 2008, some e-mail update messages to the RIPE Database service, auto-dbm(a)ripe.net, were not processed due to a problem with our system. During the same period it was not possible to connect to the syncupdates or webupdates services. All the messages received by auto-dbm(a)ripe.net were stored on our mail server. The problem was resolved on Friday evening. All the saved update messages have been processed. If you sent an e-mail update to the RIPE Database service during this period, you will have already received an acknowledgement message. There is no need to re-send any update messages. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused. Regards, Denis Walker Business Analyst RIPE NCC Database Group

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Draft minutes from RIPE 56
by Nigel Titley 10 Oct '08

10 Oct '08

Folks, Looks like I forgot to circulate the minutes from RIPE 56. Please find attached Nigel Minutes of the Database WG RIPE 56 (Berlin) Thursday, 8 May. 16:00-17:30 A. Administrative Matters * Welcome * Select a scribe (Nigel T) * Finalise agenda Agenda accepted * Approval of Minutes from WG session at RIPE 55 Minutes approved. Move from draft status * Review of action list (Nigel T) [AP55.2] To be taken offline All the rest will be dealt with below B. Database Update - Jos I. Boumans, RIPE NCC * See presentation * Actions from previous meetings AP54.3 Mandatory MNT-BY. Code is completed but two issues which means that before can be deployed much more rigorous testing needed to be done. Ongoing AP54.7 rev-srv deprecation. Needs a database schema change. Will be released at the same time as AP54.3. Ongoing AP54.4 White pages. New org-type and will be maintained by WG-Chairs. AP54.6 Clean up unref'ed person objects. Started. 400k remain. Same problem as AP54.3. Start by implementing AP54.4. Monitor object weekly from outside DB and remove if unreferenced for 3 weeks. Ongoing AP55.1 Add mnt-irt to LIRportal. This is not possible at the moment. It has been added to the rewrite schedule for the portal which will take place late this year or early next. Ongoing * Future of RIPE DB DB Team would like to pause and reflect and decide on how the database should change to reflect current requirements. * DB Terms & Conditions Now clearly defined. RIPE NCC can now remove data as required by law. Discharges AP55.3. * Stats Lots of pretty graphs. See presentation. * IRIS Very lightly used. Prototype code. Feature frozen. Suggestion to deprecate. It is suggested that there is much higher use in the domain area. DENIC are intending to release a client and server, but orientated to the domain side. Possibly sometime this year. The RIPE version just proxies to the RIPE database. There is less than 1 query per day. It was agreed that it should be deprecated. * RRCC (Routing registry Consistency Check) Suggestion to integrate with RIS and deprecate as standalone service. Agreed. * Mirroring RR No protocol, so breaks down when syntax changes. Attributes with no equivalents result in data being dropped. Only about 12% of queries are actually valid. 5% of valid queries are for route objects and so this question is being asked of the routing WG too. Proposal is to build a joint referral service. Replies would be in the format of the remote DB (which may be problematic). The point was raised that it is impossible to do CIDR type searches directly on the ARIN database and so the mirroring service is useful. A desire was expressed for a little more data on how frequently sync is lost (1 - 2 times a month) and how quickly it can be recovered (depends on the other registry). Some users of the service raised the point that returning results that are not in RPSL would be a problem. They suggested that this would be a far worse problem than returning stale data. C. Follow-Ups * Task-Force on Data Protection Issues Summary report will be presented tomorrow in the plenary * Contact Data Quality/Requirements Discussion Nothing appropriate for the moment * Resource Certification Project The point was raised that the CA-TF work was a focus for actions by lawful authority to remove items from the database. Would we want to record all such actions. This is properly the domain of the DP-TF and some progress on similar topics has already been made. [AP56.1 DP-TF] To consider the action to be taken when legal authority requests the removal of data from the database, and in particular whether records of such actions should be recorded. It was noted that 2008-04 will result in more ROA data for the DB using data derived from the certification effort. D. High Avalability SW Update for IRR - Yasuhiro Shirasaki, NTT * Using ripe-whois and our experimental syncronization trial See presentation General enthusiam for the work done. The improvements in speed are partly due to the original code being some 7 years old. This gives further impetus to the RIPE DB team to be allowed time to think and reflect on the database re-write. Y. Input from Other Working Groups and Task Forces None Z. A.O.B None

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Call for agenda items, DB-WG Meeting during RIPE57, Dubai, UAE
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Dear DB-WG folks, planning activities for the next RIPE Meeting - RIPE57 in Dubai - have already started, thus this call for agenda items. Please submit (to the WG list!) your item requests and|or suggest topics for discussion to be included in the draft agenda! (I plan to distribute the 1st version of the draft agenda in about one week from now.) Please note that the DataBase-WG meeting is, again, scheduled for *Thursday* (in the morning) - due to the meeting starting on Sunday. The overall RIPE 57 meeting outline is already available at http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-57/meeting-plan.html The list of plenary presentations and the session archive may eventually become available at [- this page probably does not exist yet -] http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-57/presentations/ or at a different URL. Have a successful meeting in Dubai, Wilfried.

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Adequate contact information in the RIPE database must be enforced (was: NCC#2008090071 Unreachable Italian Host)
by Thor Kottelin 03 Sep '08

03 Sep '08

Anonymized extracts from a correspondence between a phish takedown operator and the RIPE NCC: PIRT: "There's a phish on 192.0.2.227. The server is rooted. The address a(a)a.example.net in the IP whois comes back 'host not found'. The ASN address we have, b(a)b.example.net, comes back 'connect timeout'. c(a)c.example.net comes back 'Address rejected'. The webform on the allocee's website (such as it is) doesn't actually do anything.--RIPE can you contact the IP owner and get them to update your database please." RIPE NCC: "Please try contact the Network owners/maintainers. Phone number registered for the maintainer is correct and working." PIRT: "I'm a volunteer and don't have the resources to make international phone calls. Plus I don't speak Italian (I don't write Italian either but there are websites for translation, which is why email is preferable). Doesn't RIPE have the resources to do this? And isn't it in your interest to keep the database accurate? Otherwise what's the point? I have already emailed the d(a)d.example.net address. I have had no reply and the phish is still active." RIPE NCC: "There may be options we could pursue to check the validity of the contact data in the objects in the RIPE Database. Where we have a direct relationship with the owners of these objects we could request that they update this information. But we do not have a mandate from the RIPE community to allocate any resources to this activity." (End of correspondence extracts.) The issue of false or otherwise inadequate RIPE database entries has been discussed before in various RIPE working groups. It is bizarre that the problems nevertheless continue, year in and year out. Publishing sufficient and up-to-date contact information in the RIPE database should be an absolute prerequisite for holding any kind of RIR-allocated resource. Whenever a deficiency is discovered and reported, the RIPE NCC should efficiently and urgently contact the allocee, requiring a full and immediate correction. If one is not made, the resources should be deregistered. I realize that IP connectivity is not directly contingent on registration, but I also believe that allocees would still want to avoid having their resources bogonized. Should this pressure nevertheless prove insufficient, further sanctions, such as elevated fees, should be available. It is intolerable that important and urgent security-related communications repeatedly fail due to a lack of adequate contact information. -- Thor Kottelin CISM, CISSP fax +358 102 961 064 thor(a)anta.net, PGP 0x327B7345 http://www.anta.net/

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RIPE Database legal documents
by Denis Walker 28 Jul '08

28 Jul '08

Apologies for duplicates] Dear Colleagues, The RIPE Data Protection Task Force (DP TF), working with the RIPE NCC and the company lawyers, has finalised a set of legal documents for the RIPE Database. These documents are: - RIPE Database Terms and Conditions - RIPE Database Acceptable Use Policy - Procedure for the Removal of Personal Contact Details from the RIPE Database They can be seen on the RIPE DP TF web page at this address: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/tf/dp/index.html The documents have been subjected to a final review by the DP TF but they are not yet legally effective. They are now available for review and comments by the wider community. Please let us know if you have any considerations or issues. Please bear in mind that with any documents such as these, the wording can always be changed. However, we would prefer not to make any subjective changes at this stage but only amend anything that is inaccurate. The documents will become legally effective from 1 September 2008 and they will then be available on a new Legal Documents page on the RIPE NCC website. Regards, Denis Walker (on behalf of the RIPE DP TF)

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Subject: White Pages Implementation
by Denis Walker 24 Jul '08

24 Jul '08

[Apologies for duplicates] Dear Colleagues, The RIPE NCC Database Group has now implemented the White Pages functionality discussed in the Database Working Group session at RIPE 56. For those not familiar with the discussions surrounding White Pages, please refer to the document outlining all the details of the implementation in the RIPE Database Document Library: http://www.ripe.net/db/docs.html This document also explains how to have yourself listed in the White Pages. We plan to re-start a clean-up project to remove unreferenced PERSON objects early in September. This will start to delete objects from the database late in September. Anyone who wishes to be listed in the White Pages to avoid deletion should submit an application as soon as possible. Regards Denis Walker Business Analyst RIPE NCC Database Group

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Re: [db-wg] Notification message change
by Thor Kottelin 19 Jun '08

19 Jun '08

> Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:04:16 +0200 > From: Denis Walker <denis(a)ripe.net> > To: Database WG <db-wg(a)ripe.net>, > ncc-services-wg <ncc-services-wg(a)ripe.net> > With most updates to the RIPE Database, notification messages are sent > out. Many of these notifications are hitting users' ticketing > systems or arriving in mailboxes with auto-responders. The "Reply-to:" > address in these notifications was <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Our help desk > ticketing system was receiving hundreds of e-mails a month from these > auto-responders. This was causing a serious operational > problem for our > Customer Services Department. > > To solve this problem, we have changed the e-mail header in the > notification messages we send out. They now have the "From:" and > "Reply-to:" addresses set to <unread(a)ripe.net>. As the name suggests, > any replies to this address are not read by anyone and they are just > dropped from our mail system. Hello Denis, The local-part "unread" gives such a suggestion--at most--in English, and not because of any standard or other convention. The "Reply-To:" line, on the other hand, unequivocally (RFC 2822) states that replies are expected at the address it shows. As you probably know, localized mail clients often use it to display something along the lines of "your replies are invited to". While you are to thank for the heads-up, I would have expected RIPE NCC, of all organizations, to come up with a more stylish and exemplary solution to the problem. Also, assuming that "hundreds" stands for e.g. nine hundred, that would mean 900 / 30 = approximately 30 surplus messages per day. Does such a volume really cause serious operational issues on a departmental level? Some of us (tinu) receive hundreds of spurious messages every *day* into (or intended for) *personal* mailboxes, and are easily able to handle that noise, perhaps with a little help from filtering software. With regards, -- Thor Kottelin CISM, CISSP fax +358 102 961 064 thor(a)anta.net, PGP 0x327B7345 http://www.anta.net/

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