- db-wg - mailman.ripe.net

Performance of auto-dbm, Thu, 27 Nov 1998
by RIPE Database Administration 26 Nov '98

26 Nov '98

Dear Colleagues, We had some performance problems this morning and we had to temporarily stop updates in order to restore performance to its usual level. Updates were restarted as soon as we had finished working on this problem and the queue of updates was quickly processed. We appreciate your patience and we assure you that your updates were not lost. During this time, they were stored; there is no need to send them again. If you have any questions, please contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Regards, A. M. R. Magee _______________________ RIPE NCC Database Group

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Re: New RIPE database software release
by RIPE Database Administration 26 Nov '98

26 Nov '98

Hi, Basil V. Dolmatov, "Basil V. Dolmatov" <dol(a)east.ru> writes: [..... part of original message deleted .....] * * Request for person creation not answered for at least two hours... * [..... remainder of original message deleted .....] We are having some problems this morning and are working hard to fix them. We appreciate your patience and we shall keep you informed. If you have anymore questions, please contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Regards, A. M. R. Magee _______________________ RIPE NCC Database Group

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RIPE Database incident of 27th October
by Joao Luis Silva Damas 16 Nov '98

16 Nov '98

Dear all, the RIPE NCC Database group has been reviewing the events regarding the RIPE Database incident of 27 October. We have produced a report that can be found at http://www.ripe.net/db/incident.html All data sent to the database, related to this incident, is accessible through this URL. If you have any questions regarding this incident or otherwise related to the RIPE Database we will be glad to answer them. Best regards, Joao Damas RIPE DB Group RIPE NCC

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Re: From Address Forged
by Michael van Elst 11 Nov '98

11 Nov '98

On Thu, Nov 05, 1998 at 06:01:23PM +0100, Siegfried Langenbach wrote: > On 5 Nov 98, at 17:45, Daniel Karrenberg wrote: > > > > > Wilhelm and other colleagues, > > > > it appears that the header forging did only occur in an effort to > > correct mistakes made earlier. Repeat: the updates that caused the > > problems originally were not done using forged headers. This does not > > mean header forging was not very bad judgement, but at least it occurred > > only in an effort to correct earlier mistakes. The RIPE NCC will work > > with Transpac on a post-mortem analysis. More news as it develops. > > Hmm, > if it was needed to forge a header to correct a mistake, > how then the mistake could be done without forging the header? > > siegfried I get tired discussing this. Yes, the original 'mistake' didn't involve forged headers. Yes, old records have been deleted this way. No, these records were not protected by their maintainers (auth: NONE). Yes, the handles were reallocated to other records. Yes, some of these new records were protected by their maintainers. Yes, these new records were deleted using forged mail headers. No, the old records were not restored because the restoring update was sent too early (usually in the same mail which inherently fails). Yes, the yet-again free handles have been reallocated to even more new records again. Yes, deleting the new records caused more inconsistencies and more data loss. No, deleting the new records didn't correct the original 'mistake' at all. Yes, deleting the new records produced more errors outside the RIPE-DB realm (for example, registrations of domains that reference the new-but-then-deleted person records in the RIPE-DB failed). Yes, deleting the new records sabotaged other people's attempt to recover from original 'mistake'. We have thus switched from MAIL-FROM to CRYPT-PW authorization. If I see any unauthorized update in the future, the responsible person gets shot. -- i.A. Michael van Elst / phone: +49 721 6635 330 Xlink - Network Information Centre \/ fax: +49 721 6635 349 Vincenz-Priessnitz-Str. 3 /\ link http://nic.xlink.net/ D-76131 Karlsruhe, Germany /_______ email: hostmaster(a)xlink.net [ Xlink Internet Consulting GmbH, Sitz Koeln ] [ Amtsgericht Koeln HRB 3526, Geschaeftsfuehrer: Michael Rotert ]

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RE: From Address Forged
by Winfried Haug 05 Nov '98

05 Nov '98

First of all, please dont quote complete mails for just 2 lines from you.. > Hmm, > if it was needed to forge a header to correct a mistake, > how then the mistake could be done without forging the header? > if you have attended at this topic you should have noticed that most handles had no protection (just a notify) but were not mounted. So there was no problem to delete these records... Thats it.. Winfried

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Re: From Address Forged
by Daniel Karrenberg 05 Nov '98

05 Nov '98

Wilhelm and other colleagues, it appears that the header forging did only occur in an effort to correct mistakes made earlier. Repeat: the updates that caused the problems originally were not done using forged headers. This does not mean header forging was not very bad judgement, but at least it occurred only in an effort to correct earlier mistakes. The RIPE NCC will work with Transpac on a post-mortem analysis. More news as it develops. Daniel

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Réf. : From Address Forged
by GALL Thierry TPC-SRD 04 Nov '98

04 Nov '98

Actually, the address was "forged" but only partially by Trevor, and Hostmaster was in copy of the mail, More over it was an attempt to repair the original error and to avoid the work necessary to rebuild all the links that have destroyed. Please apologize again for all these perturbations. Thierry GALL

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Re: Events of Tuesday, 27 October 1998.
by Havard.Eidnes＠runit.sintef.no 03 Nov '98

03 Nov '98

Dimitrios Kaloger wrote: > Dear Madam,/Sir > > Mistakes are not improbable, however I can not condone your > inadequate backup procedures. Its totally out of imagination that > you may have rouinned the RIPE database. You have to keep yourself > more dedicated to your work. This cannot stand as is. It is important to understand that the data in the RIPE database is maintained by the users of the database, and not by the RIPE NCC itself. As was already said by the RIPE database administrator: > We would like to stress that the RIPE NCC operates the RIPE Database, > however the responsibility for managing user data lies with the users. I suspect that the problem is that a backup cannot easily be used to restore the current "desired" state (minus the unfortunate update). The reason is that old NIC handles may have been recycled, i.e. reassigned to another object, and that object can subsequently have been referenced by an explicit use of that recycled NIC handle in an update. Sure, the subsequent updates could perhaps be doctored to remedy this, but that is perhaps not easily or quickly done, and would also mean "intervention in the data maintenance" by the RIPE NCC. I would thus tend to turn the argument above on its head and say that we collectively, the maintainers of the data in the RIPE database, have made inadequate use of the already available methods for protecting the data we maintain there from unauthorized updates or removals. Regards, - Håvard

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Events of Tuesday, 27 October 1998.
by RIPE Database Administration 02 Nov '98

02 Nov '98

Dear Colleagues, On Tuesday, 27 October 1998, a user of the RIPE Network Management Database accidentally deleted many [person] objects. The objects affected were either not maintained by a 'mntner' object or were maintained by a 'mntner' object with an authentication mechanism of NONE. The RIPE NCC has investigated this and learned that it was a genuine mistake by this user. When a person object is deleted, its nic-handle is available for re-use immediately. Therefore, you may find that a nic-handle now points to a different person or role object. We recommend that you check the consistency of your data i.e. see if the nic-handles in the admin-c, tech-c, and zone-c lines of your objects refer to the correct person or role objects. We understand that an attempt was made to re-create the deleted objects by the individual who originally deleted them. Please search for your person objects using both the name and the nic-handle. It is possible that your object has been re-created, but with a different nic-handle. If so, you must update your inetnum, route, mntner, etc. objects that refer to the previous nic-handles in the admin-c, tech-c, and zone-c lines. You should replace the old nic-handles with the new ones. To check whether a certain nic-handle is referenced anywhere, you can use the inverse look-up flag. For example, you can do: "whois -i admin-c,tech-c,zone-c <nic-handle>" to see if that nic-handle is referenced anywhere as admin-c, tech-c, or zone-c (e.g. as in domain objects). If one or more of your person and/or role objects have not been re-created, we suggest that you first try to re-create them using the original nic-handle. This way, you do not have to change any of the references that use this nic-handle. If the nic-handle has been re-used, you should try to create the person or role object with the AUTO-1 keyword. In this case, however, you will have to change the inetnum, domain, or other objects that reference this nic-handle to point to the new one. (Use the the "-i" flag mentioned above to find which objects reference the old nic-handle). The RIPE NCC shall, as a part of its service to the RIPE community, support users to restore their data to a consistent state. We estimate that this should take about one working day. Please note that it is the users responsibility to restore their own data. We would like to stress that the RIPE NCC operates the RIPE Database, however the responsibility for managing user data lies with the users. Mechanisms to protect data against unauthorised or unintentional modification exist for several years now. The RIPE NCC has always emphasized the importance of authentication mechanisms and has been recently working to introduce even stronger procedures. We encourage users to deploy these authentication mechanisms. Please read ripe-157, section 2.3 on how this works. If you have any problems with the RIPE Database, please send an email to <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Regards, The RIPE NCC Database Group.

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RE: Database performance - an update.
by Mike Norris 30 Oct '98

30 Oct '98

> I shall begin by saying that I wrote the two messages to > the local-ir, lir-wg and db-wg yesterday. I wrote them > for, and on behalf of, the RIPE NCC Database Group. I > realise that many of you are unhappy that these messages > had no personal signature. The responsibility for this > oversight is mine. In all previous postings to these lists, > I have signed my name. I shall continue to do this. Ambrose, you may not have put your name at the end of the mail, but we knew it was you anyway - your style is inimitable and your sense of humour unique. Keep up the good work and watch out for ghosts this weekend. Cheers. Mike Norris

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Database performance - an update.
by RIPE Database Administration 30 Oct '98

30 Oct '98

Dear Colleagues, I shall begin by saying that I wrote the two messages to the local-ir, lir-wg and db-wg yesterday. I wrote them for, and on behalf of, the RIPE NCC Database Group. I realise that many of you are unhappy that these messages had no personal signature. The responsibility for this oversight is mine. In all previous postings to these lists, I have signed my name. I shall continue to do this. You already know what happened on Tuesday, 27 October, last. Yesterday morning, we had no option but to do preventative maintenance of the database; this was not related to the activity of any user last Tuesday. However, nearly all updates were stopped until around 1630 MET. Unfortunately, there was a higher than usual number of updates sent to the database yesterday. These two facts had one result: a very long delay before your updates were processed. At this time there is still a long queue of unprocessed updates, but updates are being processed again. Obviously, a faster, more powerful machine would process updates quicker than the current machine. On Tuesday, the problem was that it was possible to delete objects referenced somewhere in the database before deleting all references to that object. Imposing such a constraint (referential integrity check) has been already been considered. Tuesday's incident was not a security problem - anyone with the correct authorization can still make a mistake. At the previous RIPE meeting in Edinburgh, we announced new software, including a referential integrity check, and new hardware, a Sun E450 machine. We intended to deploy both of these at the end of October or early November. We had bad luck that several unrelated problems occurred this week, just before the planned deployment of the new code and the new machine. Now, a status report. All your updates have been queued - there is no need to re-send them. We estimate that the situation should be back to normal tomorrow, if not sooner. We still plan to introduce the new software and hardware next week. We thank you all for your support in the past and we assure you of our continuing efforts to support you in your work. Your sincerely, Ambrose Magee -------------------------------------------------- for, and on behalf of, the RIPE NCC Database Group.

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Objects affected by events of 27/10/1998.
by RIPE Database Administration 30 Oct '98

30 Oct '98

Dear Colleagues, We keep detailed logfiles of all updates to the RIPE Database. We processed these files to produce lists of all objects affected by the incidents earlier this week. We have decided to make these files public, to support you when ensuring that your data is consistent. These files contain only the name and nic-handle of affected person objects. These files may be obtained by anonymous ftp from: ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/dbase/981027-incident.Delete ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/dbase/981027-incident.New ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/dbase/981027-incident.Update There are also gzip'ed versions available, using the same filenames, with the .gz extension. If you have any questions, please contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Regards, Ambrose Magee ----------------------- RIPE NCC Database Group

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Big delays with <auto-dbm>.
by RIPE Database Administration 29 Oct '98

29 Oct '98

Dear Colleagues, Last night, there was a higher than usual number of messages to <auto-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Thus, there were some delays in processing these messages. This morning, we carried out some unrelated preventative maintenance and this has led to more delays. Your messages are being stored and will be processed as soon as possible. BTW, this maintenance was not linked to the recent actions of any user of the RIPE Database :-) If you have any questions, please contact <ripe-dbm>. It is either Murphy's Law, or Hallowe'en, or the Great Pumpkin, or whatever, that this happened this week. We thank you for your patience. Regards, --------------------------- The RIPE NCC Database Group.

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RE: Default behaviour for referred domain queries
by Mike Norris 06 Oct '98

06 Oct '98

In coincidence with your input, the db-wg also found that whenever the server shows data from a remote server instead of the local data in response to a query, the response should be preceded by a notice clearly informing the user that the information being displayed is coming from another server that contains the authoritative data. Right. It was also noted that the original proposal did not provide a way to look at the "local" object if it contained a refer attribute. In order to avoid potential confusion from a mode of operation where two objects are displayed, it would be better to provide a whois flag (-R was agreed) that would disable the referral and show the local object. Bear in mind that there could be multiple referrals involved i.e. the process is recursive. Suppose the query is for a third-level domain, that the second-level domain is referred from the RIPE DB to a TLD registry server, and that the target domain is referred onward from the TLD server to an ISP's whois server. Now what will the -R flag deliver - the local object in the RIPE DB? That'll give you the coordinates of the TLD server, which you again query with -R to get the ISP 'local' object. Regards. Mike

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Default behaviour for referred domain queries
by Niall O'Reilly 05 Oct '98

05 Oct '98

I'ld like to give input as requested on this topic. For the TLD people who may have missed the DB session, here is first a brief description of how the referral feature works. I don't know the details at this stage. When a request is received by the "central" server for a domain object marked (locally) for referral, the query is referred to the authoritative server and the data from the authoritative server is returned to the client. If the domain object requested is not found on the "central" server, the specified domain name is truncated (successively, if necessary ?) until a higher-level domain is found to be marked for referral, and the query is then referred to the authoritative server for that (higher-level) domain. The following suggestions seem to be almost agreed, but need to be written down. By default, the response returned to the client for a referred query should include the following elements: Alert that referral has been used Response from authoritative server I expect that the authoritative response will include a copyright and/or AUP banner from the authoritative server, but this is the responsibility of the authoritative registry, and not of the registry providing the referring server. I expect that a 'verbose mode' will provide a response including the following elements: Response from referring server as if no referral was used, including referring registry's standard (C)/AUP banner Alert that referral is spin effect for the domain in question Response from authoritative server Whichever of the modes described above is used, it should be possible to specify whether recursive lookup and display of related person/role (and in future, nameserver) objects is to be done. IHTH, Niall

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Re: NIC handle writeup
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 02 Oct '98

02 Oct '98

[ Apologies for prematurely pressing send. It's Friday afternoon :-( ] => "%" still has mail-related connotations though, although far less so than => "@". => => How about ":"? JA39:APNIC.NET doesn't look like an e-mail address or a DNS => name. It does however look slightly remotely like a URL ;) = = ":" not only has URL significance, its also used w/ IPv6 in the = address. IMHO a poor choice. I don't think that we're going to find any character which isn't badly overloaded already... => Or have I misunderstood the point you were making? = = I think so. Back up a bit and take the 10,000m view. Yup: why do we need a special character at all? Grab a handle, which simply must not contain the "." character, and extend that with the DNS-part as proposed. Done. And it is known to work (DNS SOA record) My good old WW144 would then simply become WW144.INTERNIC.NET. = There are three classes of Internet intangibles that = can be delegated, ASN's, Prefixes, Port numbers. (there = are others, but these will do for this purpose) = = The recipiants of these delegations can be people (admin-c/tech-c), = hosts (HST), organized groups (mntner & role accounts) While this is probably off-topic, I suppose you are mixing organisations and contact information here... = I could make the case that the mntner:, admin-c:, tech-c:, = mnt-by:, nic-hdl:, and the HST (C8-HST) are all, in a very = real sense, NIC HANDLEs. They specify a relationship between = Internet resources and those who are authorized to manage the = delegation relationship. I have to disagree. - We do have mechanisms to describe the privilege(s) for maintaining objects. - And we do have mechanism to get in touch with persons (or helpdesks or NOCs) for operational purposes. = Here, I expect that the handle: = = WM110 = WM110-NSI = WM110-ARIN = = all reflect me, first under the SRI-NIC, then Internic/NSI, then = ARIN. I would hope the design of NIC-handles would allow migration = of data between registries as well as allow for a deeply nested = registration heirarchy. What we've learned from past (failed) attempts: - don't try to mix the issue generating globally unique identifiers with - the issue of data exchange between registries As soon as we've sorted out the first one, we can try to work on the second one. Having the first one done is not going to interfere with solving the other issue, I suppose :-) Wilfried. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at Computer Center - ACOnet : Tel: +43 1 4277 - 140 33 Vienna University : Fax: +43 1 4277 - 9 140 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : RIPE-DB (&NIC) Handle: WW144 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : PGP public key ID 0xF0ACB369 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: NIC handle writeup
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 02 Oct '98

02 Oct '98

From: MX%"bmanning(a)ISI.EDU" 25-SEP-1998 20:56:00.16 To: MX%"jabley(a)clear.co.nz" CC: MX%"db-wg(a)ripe.net" Subj: Re: NIC handle writeup From: bmanning(a)ISI.EDU Subject: Re: NIC handle writeup To: jabley(a)clear.co.nz (Joe Abley) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 11:50:08 -0700 (PDT) CC: db-wg(a)ripe.net > "%" still has mail-related connotations though, although far less so than > "@". > > How about ":"? JA39:APNIC.NET doesn't look like an e-mail address or a DNS > name. It does however look slightly remotely like a URL ;) ":" not only has URL significance, its also used w/ IPv6 in the address. IMHO a poor choice. > > > The only thing that > > > really matters is if we can find the data and that it improves the > > > current situation. > > > > Thats two things. While desirable, the thing that I thought > > NIC handles did was to identify an entity that was responsible > > for some delegated level of responsibility. > > > > This could be a host, person, role, or organization that > > accepted the responsibility over some delegated Internet > > resources (numbers & lables). > > In ripe-181 the habit seems to have been to put contact fields (tech-c, > admin-c) in every record where contact was appropriate, so contact details > via NIC handles are immediately available. In other words, the drill down > path of (for example) inetnum -> netname -> admin-c/tech-c isn't necessary > since there are direct relationships inetnum -> admin-c and inetnum -> tech-c. > > Has this changed significantly in RPSL, so that it is now important to have > netname-type fields which have registry-internal and registry-external > representation? > > Or have I misunderstood the point you were making? I think so. Back up a bit and take the 10,000m view. There are three classes of Internet intangibles that can be delegated, ASN's, Prefixes, Port numbers. (there are others, but these will do for this purpose) The recipiants of these delegations can be people (admin-c/tech-c), hosts (HST), organized groups (mntner & role accounts) I could make the case that the mntner:, admin-c:, tech-c:, mnt-by:, nic-hdl:, and the HST (C8-HST) are all, in a very real sense, NIC HANDLEs. They specify a relationship between Internet resources and those who are authorized to manage the delegation relationship. > > So each of these things would > > have an unambigious lable that could be tied to an assignment > > of responsibility. Those lables should be consistant, regardless > > of where they are listed. They should also have some token that > > indicates the listing origin and may include a method for > > determining the level of trust on the listing. Here, I expect that the handle: WM110 WM110-NSI WM110-ARIN all reflect me, first under the SRI-NIC, then Internic/NSI, then ARIN. I would hope the design of NIC-handles would allow migration of data between registries as well as allow for a deeply nested registration heirarchy. --bill -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return-Path: <owner-db-wg(a)ripe.net> Received: from ns2.univie.ac.at by access.cc.univie.ac.at (MX V4.1 VAX) with SMTP; Fri, 25 Sep 1998 20:55:55 MET-DST Received: from postman.ripe.net (postman.ripe.net [193.0.0.199]) by ns2.univie.ac.at (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id UAA56164 for <woeber(a)cc.univie.ac.at>; Fri, 25 Sep 1998 20:55:54 +0200 Received: (qmail 918 invoked by alias); 25 Sep 1998 18:55:23 -0000 Delivered-To: lists-db-wg-out(a)lists.ripe.net Received: (qmail 916 invoked by uid 66); 25 Sep 1998 18:55:23 -0000 Posted-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 11:50:08 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <199809251850.AA08047(a)zed.isi.edu> In-Reply-To: <19980925102909.B15327(a)clear.co.nz> from "Joe Abley" at Sep 25, 98 10:29:09 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-db-wg(a)ripe.net Precedence: bulk

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Re: NIC handle writeup
by Havard.Eidnes＠runit.sintef.no 25 Sep '98

25 Sep '98

> I think that there will be problems with "@" as the > seperator. It's too much like a viable email address. I > applaude the use of the domain name on the right and a > domain specific unique handle on the left, the concern is > the seperator. Howabout something like "%"? I fully agree. Another option could be ":". Then there is the already established practice of using "-" (as in RIPE's case), I don't see what's so terribly wrong with that. Making NIC handles into something which could be mistaken for an e-mail address just leads to confusion. (No, I don't think it's such a great idea to provide automatic mail forwarding service by the registry.) I also don't think it's such a great idea to use domain names to identify the origin of the data; I think a separate name space should be used instead, e.g. one which could provide more permancence. (As Bill mentioned, what do you do when a registry closes down and its corresponding domain name is subsequently removed?) - Håvard

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Slides from RPS Authorization and Replication Talks
by Cengiz Alaettinoglu 24 Sep '98

24 Sep '98

Hi, As some of you already requested, my slides, both on authorization and IRR distribution, are available at: http://www.isi.edu/~cengiz/talks/ RPSL tutorial slides are available at: http://www.isi.edu/ra/rps/training/ Regards. Cengiz -- Cengiz Alaettinoglu Information Sciences Institute http://www.isi.edu/~cengiz University of Southern California

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Re: Cc: in <auto-dbm> replies
by Steven Bakker 14 Sep '98

14 Sep '98

>>>>> On Fri, 11 Sep 1998, "j" == johnpc(a)xs4all.net wrote: j> The return address from auto-dbm is already something else, not auto- j> dbm itself (it's not nobody, it is in fact a human whose "d" key must j> get more sore than the fire button in a cheap shoot-em-up game from j> all the bounces). (You might've noticed by actually looking at an j> auto-dbm reply! :) j> However, if you start copying Cc: lines, you're in trouble. Think j> about it a little and you'll figure it out. Like: To: johnny(a)rotten.net Cc: auto-dbm(a)ripe.net I agree that replying to Cc: is not a good idea, I'd prefer to use Reply-To:, but note that even then it's still possible to "sewiously scwew up", although accidental screw ups are less likely. However, since the From:- address on a auto-DBM reply is always the same, can't you filter out:- "To: auto-dbm" & "From: ripe-dbm" -> bitbucket Or am I missing something extremely obvious here? Like, does the "ripe-dbm" account ever need to send update messages to "auto-dbm"? Furthermore, the classic way of detecting mail loops is by looking at the "Received:" headers. Your MTA should be able to handle that all by itself, no need to program the RIPE DB for it... Of course, none of the above would protect you from forwarders that strip/modify headers... :-( Cheers, Steven

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whois output and the "changed" line.
by RIPE Database Administration 11 Sep '98

11 Sep '98

Dear Colleagues, Recently, the output of our whois server was modified; the "changed" information is not shown by default. To see it, the new "-c" flag must be used. This requires using the new RIPE whois client. The "changed" information was removed from the default output of whois after a discussion on the mailing list of the RIPE Database Working Group. This discussion was about the funtionality of the "changed" line. A long-term replacement for it (i.e. timestamping of updates) is planned. However, there is the possibility that the existing "changed" lines can be accidently deleted from objects. When users want to update an object, they do a whois look-up and re-direct the output into a temporary file. Then, they edit the file and send it to <auto-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Thus, before the output of the whois server was modified, the update contained all the previous changed fields. Now, unless the user does "whois -c", the "changed" attributes are not shown. But when users want to update an object, they re-direct a whois look-up into a file, edit it and then send it to the database. However, this time, the "changed" lines are missing and the updated version of the object does not contain the previous "changed" lines. This behavior is what would have happened previously if you had sent an update to the db and had deliberately omitted the changed lines. (BTW, if you send an update to the db which only has a new "changed" attribute or has all the old "changed" attributes replaced with a new one, a NOOP is the result. The object in the db is not changed). If all the original "changed" information in an inetnum object is not retained, there may be a delay in getting reverse delegation for the associated address space. This is because <auto-inaddr(a)ripe.net> checks the date when the assignment was originally made and compares it to the assignment window which the local registry had on that date. Thus, the request for reverse delegation is processed manually. So, to keep all the "changed" attributes, do 'whois -c' when you are making a copy of the object before updating it. If you have any questions, please contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Regards, Ambrose Magee ____________________________ RIPE Database Administration.

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Re: Cc: in <auto-dbm> replies
by kissg＠sztaki.hu 11 Sep '98

11 Sep '98

> > I think the database should send any outgoing mails > > with sender address <nobody(a)no.where.ripe.net> or similar Dear Carsten, > come on, you're kidding, aren't you? This would mean to expand > Usenet's bad habits to RIPE email answers. That doesn't seem to > be a really good idea... I just say that *automatic* aswers should be blocked. However I don't think to hide the real sender as spammers do. Any human intelligence can find out easily where the mail came from if the RFC822 header contains a Sender: or X-This-Mail-Really-Came-From: ;-) line. So this header looks absolute correct for me: To: <as required> Cc: <as proposed> From: bit-bucket(a)ripe.net (Do not reply this address) Sender: ripe-db(a)ripe.net (RIPE database engine) X-Comment: This is an acknowledgement, not intended to be replied. Regards Gabor

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Re: Cc: in <auto-dbm> replies
by kissg＠sztaki.hu 11 Sep '98

11 Sep '98

> The suggestion and motivation is excellent, but there are nasty side > effects in practice: > > Including the Cc: field is a nice way to create mailloops. > When the 'Cc:' address would be used too, there is no way for the > database to break the loop since the 'Cc:' address is set by the user > and can possibly contain the automatic mail address of the db and/or > a (local) alias to the db. Hi, David! I think the database should send any outgoing mails with sender address <nobody(a)no.where.ripe.net> or similar nonexistent address. This would break any mailing loop. This is acceptable for humanoid recipients too because generally they don't want to reply the notifications and acknowledgements. Regards Gabor

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Re: Cc: in <auto-dbm> replies
by Gunnar Lindberg 11 Sep '98

11 Sep '98

Actually, if you're already in the "parse 822 addresses" business (Reply-To: is one of them - possibly one of the more controversial) then one would assume you've been through most of the "who am i" problem already. Otherwise I'd be happy to share my copy of UCBMail, 1985, with you; many years later it has actually learned that I am <lindberg(a)cdg.chalmers.se>, not bad, right :-). Sorry, but I couldn't resist :-). Point taken, workaround noted, you <auto-dbm> folks probably have enough things to do anyway. Gunnar >From: johnpc(a)xs4all.net >Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 23:57:20 +0200 >To: David Kessens <davidk(a)ISI.EDU>, > Gunnar Lindberg <lindberg(a)cdg.chalmers.se> >Cc: db-wg(a)ripe.net >Message-ID: <19980910235720.D28191(a)xs3.xs4all.nl> >Subject: Re: Cc: in <auto-dbm> replies >On Thu, Sep 10, 1998 at 06:18:17PM +0000, David Kessens wrote: >> > Folks, I'm not on this list but <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net> suggested I send >> > the idea to you. Right now I hope there is no spam-filter :-). >> > >> > My suggestion: >> > >> > Could you please make <auto-dbm(a)ripe.net> keep the Cc: list and >> > return responses to everybody on it (as well as everybody on To:). >> >> Currently, The 'From:' field (note: not the 'To:' field) is used which >> is a field that is set by the user upon arrival of the update message >> and set by the db after sending the message as the human mail box of >> the database. >I've just tested, and it seems the Reply-To: field is used if present. >So if you want to get the ripe-dbm to reply not only to you, but to >your coworkers as well, simply send the mails using: >Reply-To: you(a)w.ork.com, orkers(a)cow.ork.com > >> When the 'Cc:' address would be used too, there is no way for the >> database to break the loop since the 'Cc:' address is set by the user >> and can possibly contain the automatic mail address of the db and/or >> a (local) alias to the db. >You could break the loop by putting all the Cc: addresses in the To: >field, which isn't examined by the db. Well, unless seriously broken >mailers but the addresses back in the From: or the Cc: lines. But >then there's... > >> With the volume of mail that RIPE receives, broken mail systems and >> user errors like this do happen and would result in an unstable db >> system which is not very desirable. >You're RIPE, right? Just reclaim their IP space and add it to RFC1918/RFC1597 >:) (oh, wait, this ISN'T bofh.general? :) >-- >#! ##### Jan-Pieter Cornet ##### <johnpc(a)xs4all.net> ##### perl >++$_;$!=$_+++$_;($:,$,,$/,$*)=$!=~/.(.)...(.)(.).(.)/;$!=$_+$_; >($(a),$\,$~)=$!=~/(.)(.).(.)/; $_="$,$/$:"; $@++; $~="$~$_";($_)= >\$$=~/\((.)/;$|=++$_;$_++;$|++;$~="$~ $@$:";`$~$/$\$*$, $|>&$_`

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Cc: in <auto-dbm> replies
by Gunnar Lindberg 10 Sep '98

10 Sep '98

Folks, I'm not on this list but <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net> suggested I send the idea to you. Right now I hope there is no spam-filter :-). My suggestion: Could you please make <auto-dbm(a)ripe.net> keep the Cc: list and return responses to everybody on it (as well as everybody on To:). Motivation: Sending a request with a Cc: is usually because you want other people to be aware of what happens. Since <auto-dbm(a)ripe.net> doesn't keep Cc: that doesn't work and you have to forward the response manually. Now, of course *I* NEVER forget such a thing, but others do... :-). Gunnar Lindberg

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