- db-wg - mailman.ripe.net

Proposal to re-structure the RIPE DB Software Documentation
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 30 Aug '07

30 Aug '07

Following up on discussions in eMail and personally with folks at the NCC who are responsible for maintaining and developing the DB Software, Jos and I would like to come forward with the following proposal, in order to - ease the burden and formal overhead of keeping the DB-SW Documentation up-to-date and in synch with the software development, to - remove the formal RIPE Document status from ripe-401, ripe-252, "ripe-draft" and ripe-402, and to - create a *new* "formal" RIPE Document which acts as an anchor for the (new or updated) set of documentation and as a cross reference to the relevant operational manuals. This new RIPE Document may also include procedure- related topics that might be of special interst regarding implementation of the software at the NCC. The big advantage of this approach is to help with keeping the software and the documentation in synch and up-to-date, even for non-fundamental changes, instead of having formal and stable "baseline documents" and - over time - a set of change notices. Or, worse, outdated documentation :-) I hope this approach does not raise any fundamental concerns with the community and I will put that topic onto the DB-WG's draft agenda for RIPE55, for feedback and an update on where we are. If you do see major problems or have objections, please let us know as soon as possible on the mailing list! Thanks, Wilfried.

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Re: RIPE NCC Scheduled Network Maintenance - Tuesday, 28th August 2007
by James Aldridge 28 Aug '07

28 Aug '07

--On 23 August 2007 16:59:31 +0200 James Aldridge <james(a)ripe.net> wrote: > The RIPE NCC will perform planned network maintenance work on Tuesday, > 28th August 2007 between 17:00 and 18:00 (UTC). This work has been completed successfully. Regards, James -- James Aldridge, Senior Systems & Network Engineer, RIPE NCC Tel: +31 20 535 4444 / Fax: +31 20 535 4445

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RIPE NCC Scheduled Network Maintenance - Tuesday, 28th August 2007
by James Aldridge 23 Aug '07

23 Aug '07

Dear Colleagues, The RIPE NCC will perform planned network maintenance work on Tuesday, 28th August 2007 between 17:00 and 18:00 (UTC). We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause. If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to <ops(a)ripe.net>. Regards, James -- James Aldridge, Senior Systems & Network Engineer, RIPE NCC Tel: +31 20 535 4444 / Fax: +31 20 535 4445

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Announcement Routing Registry Training Courses
by RIPE NCC Training 16 Aug '07

16 Aug '07

------- [Apologies for duplicate e-mails] Dear Colleagues The RIPE NCC Training Services Department invites you to register for one of our upcoming Routing Registry Training Courses: Date: Friday 14 September 2007 Time: 09:00 - 17:00 Location: Lisbon, Portugal AND Date: Friday 28 September 2007 Time: 09:00 - 17:00 Location: Tbilisi, Georgia AND Date: Thursday 8 November 2007 Time: 09:00 - 17:00 Location: Southampton, United Kingdom AND Date: Tuesday 13 November 2007 Time: 09:00 - 17:00 Location: Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic AND Date: Friday 16 November 2007 Time: 09:00 - 17:00 Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands AND Date: Monday 3 December 2007 Time: 09:00 - 17:00 Location: Barcelona, Spain Hosted by: CESCA: http://www.cesca.es/en/on/index.html AND Date: Friday 14 December 2007 Time: 09:00 - 17:00 Location: Athens, Greece The main objective of the "Routing Registry Training Course" is to familiarise the LIRs with the features of the Routing Registry, while introducing the relevant tools and services of the RIPE NCC. The course also offers practical exercises. OVERVIEW OF TOPICS COVERED IN THE COURSE: - Routing Registry as a part of the RIPE Whois Database and the Internet Routing Registry (IRR) - Specifying routing policies using (RPSL) Routing Policy Specification Language and the RtConfig tool - IRRToolSet - Routing Information Service (RIS) - Routing Registry Consistency Check Project Please note that this is an advanced course. It will: - NOT teach the basics of routing - NOT teach the basics of RIPE Database operations - NOT describe how to receive Internet resources from the RIPE NCC - NOT describe how to operate a Local Internet Registry (LIR) The target audience of the course are technical staff of LIRs: e.g. network operators, engineers etc. This course is not intended for administrative or management staff (e.g. Hostmasters) . It is assumed that all attendees will be familiar with Border Gateway Protocol routing and with the RIPE Database (i.e. creating/modifying objects). This course is based on interactive exercises in a local network set-up. Please bring your laptops equipped with the following: - A working Ethernet card, - Three meters of Ethernet cable, - A secure connection client, - A web browser. Please be prepared to share your laptop (or at least allow another attendee to "look over your shoulder") if necessary. The course is free of charge. We provide lunch and printed training materials. We do not cover any of your travel expenses or accommodation. We give all of our training courses in English. You can find more information about the course at: http://www.ripe.net/training/rr/ How to register: --------------------- You can register up to two people from your LIR for each course. (If there are places left nearer the time of the course, you can register more people). To register for this course, you can either use the LIR Portal at: https://lirportal.ripe.net/lirportal/training/course-list.html Or the online registration form on our website: http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/trainingform.pl.cgi If you have any questions, send an e-mail to <training(a)ripe.net>. Kind regards, Rumy Kanis Training Services Manager RIPE NCC

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IM contact
by Max Tulyev 14 Aug '07

14 Aug '07

Hi! I think there is a good idea to add InstantMessenger (ICQ, Jabber, Skype, etc) contact field in person, organization, irt objects. Is there any support? -- WBR, Max Tulyev (MT6561-RIPE, 2:463/253@FIDO)

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Fwd: Re: [db-wg] IM contact - addition
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 14 Aug '07

14 Aug '07

What I forgot to include explicitely, sorry for that... >From: Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet <Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at> >[...] >> Is there any support? >> >At first glance from this end: NO. *this was worded in my role as a regular netizen, I was NOT wearing my WG-Hat* >[...] Wilfried.

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New RIPE Database server deployed
by Katie Petrusha 17 Jul '07

17 Jul '07

Dear Colleagues, On 1 August 2007, we updated the RIPE Database so that IP queries return IRT objects by default. The following changes were deployed: * The "-c" flag behaviour has become the default for all IP queries. This means that when querying an IP address or range, any query not containing the "-L", "-l", "-M", "-m" or "-x" flags will return the IRT object referenced by the closest less specific inet(6)num (if such a reference exists) by default. * A new "-C" (uppercase) flag has been implemented to provide the old behaviour and ensure backwards compatibility. The behaviour of the "-c" flag itself has not changed, and there were no changes for those queries that include other IP flags ("-L", "-l", "-M", "-m" or "-x"). You may need to adjust the software that you use to query the RIPE Database. The test server test-whois-default-irt.ripe.net has been decommissioned. If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. -- Regards, Katie Petrusha Database department RIPE NCC

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RIPE NCC Service Outage 09/07/2007
by Brian Riddle 17 Jul '07

17 Jul '07

Dear Colleagues, Due to a network switch problem, RIPE NCC experienced a temporary loss of service between 11:41 and 12:15 (UTC) today. This affected our layer2 network and our services were therefore unreachable during this period. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. Regards, Brian Riddle IT Manager RIPE NCC

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Proposal - Maintaining person, role and domain objects
by Denis Walker 11 Jul '07

11 Jul '07

[Apologies for duplicate mails] Dear Colleagues, As a result of discussions during the Database Working Group session at RIPE 54, the RIPE NCC has nine proposals and implementation plans to present to the community. Although most of them are now in the final stages of preparation, we will send them out one at a time over the next few weeks for consideration by the community. The first one concerns maintaining all objects in the RIPE Database, which followed from a recommendation from the Data Protection Task Force (DP TF) (see below). We have already had some preliminary discussions about this with the DP TF. They provided the RIPE NCC with some very useful feedback, which is incorporated in this proposal. Regards Denis Walker RIPE NCC Maintaining person, role and domain objects ------------------------------------------- * Introduction * Proposal * Illustrations of how the checks work - New startup - Closing down - Modifying existing data * Implementation - Stage 1 - Stage 2 - Stage 3 * Statistics Introduction ------------ It was agreed at RIPE 54 that the "mnt-by:" attribute would be made mandatory on all objects. Currently, for person, role and domain objects, "mnt-by:" is optional. Making "mnt-by:" mandatory on person objects raises two clear issues: 1. It creates a chicken and egg situation between person and mntner objects. 2. Many person objects are not changed for years, so any change to syntax may take a long time to be reflected in the database. Many un-maintained person objects could therefore remain so for many years. Proposal -------- Making "mnt-by:" mandatory on role and domain objects does not cause any technical difficulties. To address all the issues relating to the person objects, we suggest a slightly different approach. 1. Make "mnt-by:" mandatory in person objects. 2. Provide a mechanism in dbupdate to handle the startup case where a new person and mntner objects are required. 3. Provide a mechanism in dbupdate to handle the closing down situation where the last person and mntner objects are to be deleted. 4. Extend the referential integrity checks so that a person object cannot be referenced unless it is maintained, except in a mntner object. 5. Extend the referential integrity checks so that a mntner object cannot be referenced unless the person objects it references are maintained. This does not include the cyclic case of a person and mntner object referencing each other. The referencing checks sound complicated in words, but are actually quite simple. The illustrations below explain how it works in practice. This approach has a number of advantages: 1. It accommodates the chicken and egg situation. 2. We already do referential integrity checks. Whenever there is a reference to a person object, the database software checks if the person object exists. We only have to extend this check to see if the person object is also maintained. 3. Whenever there is a reference to a mntner object, the database software checks if the mntner object exists. We only have to extend this check to see if the person objects referenced by the mntner are maintained. 4. Each time any other object (say an inetnum or aut-num) is modified, the referenced person objects need to be maintained. If not, the update will fail. This will not prevent anyone from working. If they are going to modify an inetnum object, they must be authorised to do so. They can apply the same mntner to any un-maintained person objects. This encourages users to maintain the existing person objects. A CGI script may be provided to make this process simple and quick if it is considered to be helpful. 5. No un-maintained person object can be linked to the white pages to avoid deletion. (The white pages will be explained in a later proposal.) Illustrations of how the checks work ------------------------------------ New startup Send an update message to dbupdate to create a person object and a mntner object. These must be the first two objects in an update message, in any order. The references to each other must also be in place. The database software will accommodate this. person: Den is address: RIPE Network Coordination Centre (NCC) address: Singel 258 address: 1016 AB Amsterdam address: The Netherlands phone: +31 20 535 4444 nic-hdl: DW-RIPE mnt-by: aardvark-mnt notify: denis(a)ripe.net changed: denis(a)ripe.net 20040318 source: RIPE mntner: AARDVARK-MNT descr: Mntner for denis' objects. admin-c: DW-RIPE tech-c: DW-RIPE upd-to: denis(a)ripe.net auth: X509-1 notify: denis(a)ripe.net mnt-by: AARDVARK-MNT referral-by: RIPE-DBM-MNT changed: denis(a)ripe.net 20040225 source: RIPE The update software will recognise that the first person/mntner object references a non-existent mntner/person object. It will check that this referenced object is next in the update message. If it is, the "mnt- by:" attribute will be removed from the person object. The person and mntner objects will be created, and then the person object will be modified to add back the "mnt-by:" attribute. The objects are now fully configured and can be used. The person object can be referenced by any other object where a nic-hdl is referenced. It can also be linked to the white pages. The mntner can be used to protect any data in the database. If the non-existent referenced object is not next in the update message then an error message will be generated and the update will fail. This is the current behaviour. Closing down The same situation occurs when closing down and deleting all the data. It is possible to delete all data except for the last person and mntner objects in the normal way. To delete these last two, send them together in an update message, both marked with the "delete:" pseudo attribute. Only these two objects should be in the update message. The update software will recognise that the first person/mntner object to delete is referenced in a mntner/person object. It will check that this referencing object is next in the update message and also marked for deletion. If so the person object will be modified first to remove the "mnt-by:" attribute. The mntner object will then be deleted, followed by the person object. Modifying existing data Suppose some data is to be modified and there is a reference to an un- maintained person object. Suppose you already have this data in the database: inetnum: 193.0.0.0 - 193.0.7.255 netname: RIPE-NCC descr: RIPE Network Coordination Centre descr: Amsterdam, Netherlands remarks: Used for RIPE NCC infrastructure. country: NL admin-c: DW-RIPE tech-c: DW-RIPE status: ASSIGNED PI mnt-by: AARDVARK-MNT mnt-lower: AARDVARK-MNT changed: bit-bucket(a)ripe.net 20060221 source: RIPE person: Den is address: RIPE Network Coordination Centre (NCC) address: Singel 258 address: 1016 AB Amsterdam address: The Netherlands phone: +31 20 535 4444 nic-hdl: DW-RIPE notify: denis(a)ripe.net changed: denis(a)ripe.net 20040318 source: RIPE mntner: AARDVARK-MNT descr: Mntner for denis' objects. admin-c: DW-RIPE tech-c: DW-RIPE upd-to: denis(a)ripe.net auth: X509-1 notify: denis(a)ripe.net mnt-by: AARDVARK-MNT referral-by: RIPE-DBM-MNT changed: denis(a)ripe.net 20040225 source: RIPE The inetnum and mntner objects both reference a person object that is not maintained. This situation can continue for the foreseeable future with no problem. The situation becomes problematic when some data needs to be changed. An attempt to modify the inetnum object will fail. This is because it references a person object that is not maintained. It also references a mntner object which references un-maintained person objects. (This will only happen in stage three of the implementation) These person objects will have to be maintained before the inetnum object can be modified. A CGI script will be provided to allow this to be done quickly and easily. When all referenced person objects are maintained, the original update can be resubmitted and will proceed. Implementation As with the CRYPT-PW deprecation this will have a staged rollout. Stage 1 * No new person, role or domain objects can be created without a "mnt-by:" attribute. * Any un-maintained person, role or domain object cannot be modified without adding a "mnt-by:" attribute. * Any update where objects reference an un-maintained person object, either directly or through a mntner with such references, will generate a warning message in the acknowledgement. In this stage the acknowledgement message may include these warnings: ***WARNING: Un-maintained person object referenced [DW-RIPE] ***WARNING: Un-maintained person object referenced [DW-RIPE] in mntner [AARDVARK-MNT] Stage 2 * Any update where objects reference an un-maintained person object, either directly or through a mntner with such references, will generate a warning message in the acknowledgement. * Any NEW reference to an un-maintained person object or to a mntner which has such references will generate an error message in the acknowledgement and the update will fail. In this stage the acknowledgement message may include these warnings and errors: ***WARNING: Un-maintained person object referenced [DW-RIPE] ***WARNING: Un-maintained person object referenced [DW-RIPE] in mntner [AARDVARK-MNT] ***ERROR: New reference to un-maintained person object [DW-RIPE] ***ERROR: New reference to un-maintained person object [DW-RIPE] in mntner [AARDVARK-MNT] Stage 3 * Any update where objects reference an un-maintained person object, either directly or through a mntner with such references, will generate an error message in the acknowledgement and the update will fail. In this stage the acknowledgement message may include these errors: ***ERROR: Un-maintained person object referenced [DW-RIPE] ***ERROR: Un-maintained person object referenced [DW-RIPE] in mntner [AARDVARK-MNT] Statistics ---------- While not a very statistically valid survey, we looked at a few days just after the RIPE meeting to see how many new person objects were created with and without mntner objects. We also queried the new objects some time after creation to allow for a "mnt-by:" to be added later. We also noted how many unique person objects were referenced in any objects in update messages with and without mntner objects. AUTO- references were ignored in both creations and updates, and multiple instances of the same person object being referenced many times were counted as one. -------------------------------------------------------- | Date |Created |Created |Referenced |Referenced | | |with |without |with |without | |--------------------------------------------------------| | 20070515 | 156 | 89 | 925 | 726 | | 20070516 | 111 | 67 | 1022 | 486 | | 20070517 | 85 | 48 | 476 | 185 | | 20070518 | 82 | 18 | 679 | 445 | --------------------------------------------------------

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proposal to maintain all objects
by Denis W 05 Jul '07

05 Jul '07

Hi Wilfried There have been no comments against this proposal and a few in favour of the move. Can the RIPE NCC regard this as a consensus now to implement Stage 1 of the proposal? We will seek further consensus later for the other stages. regards Denis Walker RIPE NCC --------------------------------- New Yahoo! Mail is the ultimate force in competitive emailing. Find out more at the Yahoo! Mail Championships. Plus: play games and win prizes.

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