- db-wg - mailman.ripe.net

About the Hermes Project
by Andrea Carmignani 06 Nov '00

06 Nov '00

Hi my name is Andrea Carmignani, I belong to the network research group of the university of Roma3. We developed a tool, known as Hermes, able to explore the Internet topology. Its based mainly on the information coming from the databases belonging to some Internet Resource Record like RIPE, RADB, VERIO, CABLE & WIRE, ARIN and BELL in addiction to the BGP routing information coming from the Route Projects of the Oregon University. Hermes is able to dynamically explore the Internet Topology, providing a Map representing the As and their interconnections. For any AS present on the map, it can also provide several information like: AS name, Maintainers, Routing Policies, list of the known border Router, list of the routes originated by the AS and the As macro which the AS belongs. We will be grateful if you could give us some feedback on the real utility of this tool and hopefully some suggestion able to improving it. Please visit the URL: http://www.dia.uniroma3.it/~hermes here you will find a more detailed paper, some screenshot galleries, a screencam of the tool working and you will able to use Hermes through the Applet provided. I think this is the right mailing list where to post this news if not I apologize otherwise Thanks in Advance Andrea

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reimp.ripe.net (rpsl.ripe.net) server is temporarily unavailable
by Andrei Robachevsky 27 Oct '00

27 Oct '00

Dear Colleagues, Yesterday a machine that was used for the new prototype DB server crashed and could not be restarted due to hardware problems. We are working on this and will bring the prototype server up as soon as possible. Sorry for any inconvenience. Regards, Andrei Robachevsky DB Group Manager RIPE NCC

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Re: mark
by Randy Bush 29 Sep '00

29 Sep '00

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > person: Mark Bold > address: Verio/UK sigh. apologies. i think i made this same address book stoopid once before. sorreeeee. randy

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RIPE NCC to shut down rpslii.ripe.net on November 6
by RIPE Database Administration 22 Sep '00

22 Sep '00

Dear All, [This does *not* affect the RIPE whois database at whois.ripe.net] As you know, the RIPE NCC has provided a test RPSL database for a few years. This database software (available for queries at rpslii.ripe.net) was written in perl and was set up so that the community can experiment with RPSL. It was around since the time of RPSL drafts. As the reimplementation project is approaching the end, we have set up two instances of the new software at reimp.ripe.net. One of them is a mirror and the other a test database. The purpose of the new test database is exactly the same as of the old perl version. Therefore we decided to shut down the old RPSL perl server at rpslii.ripe.net. This will happen on November 6, 2000. The data accumulated in that database will be lost. You can use the new RIP Test Database already. Updates to this database should be sent to <auto-rip(a)ripe.net> and you can query this database at reimp.ripe.net port 4343. We would be very pleased if you could test the new implementation and let us know your opinions. Please send your comments and bug reports to the <db-beta(a)ripe.net> mailing list. To subscribe to this list, send a message to <majordomo(a)ripe.net> with the line: subscribe db-beta in the body of your letter. This is a moderated mailing list so some delays in subscription are possible. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Regards, Marek Bukowy ____________________________ RIPE Database Administration.

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Re: auto-dbm quirks
by Steven Bakker 21 Sep '00

21 Sep '00

>>>>> On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, "MR" == Matthew Robinson wrote: MR> I have the "joy" of sitting behind an Exchange server and I can from MR> the 'Format' menu select plain text only which fixes this problem. I MR> suspect that there is more config on the server itself but as an MR> example this message should be plain text. It is, but the Exchange server itself apparently forces the multipart/ alternative, though only for clients that send their mail through the proprietary Exchange protocol. Straight SMTP to the server seems to work fine. In corporate-honcho type environments this may be dandy; keyboard monkeys are less than happy with it. Cheers, Steven (wishing nmh could do "virtual folders" on top of IMAP).

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auto-dbm quirks
by Steven Bakker 21 Sep '00

21 Sep '00

Hi folks, A few people have asked me to help them out with a nasty problem they're having. They are stuck behind a braindead ms-exchange server and corporate standards apparently prevent the use of SMTP, POP or IMAP. Hence, these people have to communicate using the Exchange protocol. Now, when the Exchange server has to send mail to the real^H^H^H^Houtside world, it will use a pesky "connector". And here's the catch: that connector has been configured to send mail as both plain text _and_ HTML, resulting in, you guessed it, one of those wonderful "multipart/alternative" hybrid freaks (can you tell I'm not a fan?). So, what's the big deal, you ask? These friends of mine are trying to send updates to the RIPE database, making do with the crummy mail software they have at their disposal. Unfortunately, the auto-dbm robot does not understand multipart/alternative, nor any other MIME encoding. In fact, as far as I can tell from its diagnostics, it completely ignores any Content-Type: header and simply treats the message as plain text. Now, I agree, the Exchange mail setup leaves a lot to be desired, but the mail it sends out _is_ standards compliant. The auto-dbm is the one that's non-compliant. There are two ways that I can see to fix this: 1. Look for a content-type:- header and INSIST on text/plain. This doesn't solve my friends' problems, but it would at least provide more intelligent diagnostics. 2. Do some MIME parsing, allowing both text/plain and multipart/alternative. In the case of multipart/alternative, INSIST on a text/plain part. Maybe even decode base64 or quoted-printable? Would be handy in case there are more crummy mail systems out there... I don't think the MIME parsing would be so difficult. Decoding base64 or quoted-printable shouldn't be that hard either. Is this something that can be done quickly, or at least put on a priority list? I foresee that in the near future more people will be forced to embrace the MS-Office dogma and suddenly find they cannot update their RIPE objects anymore. Cheers, Steven

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DB RPSL migration task force
by kieber＠ga-telecom.net 15 Sep '00

15 Sep '00

Re, at RIPE37 we have agreed to put a task force in place to prepare for migration to the new RPSL database, and I'd like to take the opportunity and solicit for members to this task force. Purpose of this task force should be finding the bugs in the new code before it is put to real work. Please review the migration plan at http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/reimp/new-transition-v3.ps We also want to raise awareness that the new database is actually in RPSL format, so there are some significant changes to RIPE-181 format. If you are using scripts to query or update the database its very likely you have to adapt those scripts and the task force would like to benefit from your experiences when playing with the new database and testing your tools. While RIPE NCC is using a test suite to test the new database the best test is having real users beat on it. Remember, you will have to live with the bugs the task force doesn't find. If you are interested in participating, please, get back to me and I'll have you added to the mailing list <reimp-mig-tf(a)ripe.net> -- Ulf Kieber email: kieber(a)ga-telecom.net Network Engineer voice: +49-69-299896-21 Global Access Telecommunications, Inc. fax : +49-69-299896-40 internet solutions for business www : www.ga-telecom.net

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CERT Object and friends
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 15 Sep '00

15 Sep '00

Dear Andrei! Following up on today's discussion, could you please send the CERT Object (pre)draft, that you were showing to me a short while ago, to the DB-WG List? Then we can start to think about any modifications (or alternate approches), and what a presumed deployment could look like. TIA, regards, Wilfried.

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Whois discussions
by Patrik Fältström 14 Sep '00

14 Sep '00

The name of the whois-ext mailing list is: ietf-whois-ext(a)imc.org What has been discussed so far is drafted in draft-faltstrom-whois-04.txt (which doesn't mean that should be the basis for the discussions up to the BOF in December). Randy talked about differnet things at the talk today, and the RPSL specification didn't exist when Mark and myself wrote the draft. Patrik

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draft agenda (v4), for DB-WG meeting, RIPE 37, Amsterdam
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

Dear WG list members, fellow chair persons, "meeting"! Attached please find the 4th draft, proposed agenda for the DB-WG Meeting. This draft is the result of our attempts to resolve the WG schedule collisions. The proposal is to rearrange items, to run an extended 1st part (in _parallel_ with Routing), an then to continue with a _joint_ Routing and DB-WG session (after a probably belated coffee-break) to deal with items closely related to both camps. My apologies for this mess, but I guess this is the best thing that we could do - given the constraints that were imposed on us. Still, comments, suggestions and additions are welcome. Wilfried. ______________________________________________________________________ Proposed Agenda for the Database Working Group Meeting RIPE-37, Sept. 2000, Amsterdam, NL 4. Draft Thursday, Sept 14, 2000 starting at 09:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Part I: DB-WG Meeting PI-A. Administrative stuff (WW, chair) . volunteering a scribe . list of participants . agenda bashing . minutes distributed PI-B. Actions Items . PI.C. RIPE DB, operations update (RIPE NCC) 20min PI.D. IRRd: experiences, registration software weaknesses (G.Winters, MERIT) 20min PI.E. Activity Plan proposal(s) for next year (N.N.) . summary . next steps (requirements?) PI.F. Recommendation on the use of auth. methods in the DB (WW) 10min . mechanisms documented on NCC web pages . recommendation from the community . operational impact PI.G. Globally unique handles for person:/role: ? (R. Bush) 10min? . is there a need for globally unique handles? . what could they look like? . how to obtain and use such a handle, and for what? PI.H. IRT-Pointer for DB Objetcs (WW) 10min . consensus to go ahead? . which Objetcs? PI.Y. Input from other WGs - CENTR Tech: . protect vulnerable TLD objects? . remove "bogus" TLD objects? . "best before" on person (& role) objects? PI.Z. AOB: Part II: Joint Session with Routing PII.A. New Database implementation (RIPE NCC) PII.B: RE-Implementation/Migration TF . Test Reports/Feedback . Deployment Plan . Next steps ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WW, 12-SEP-2000 19:56:46 _________________________________:_____________________________________ Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at UniVie Computer Center - ACOnet : Tel: +43 1 4277 - 140 33 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4277 - 9 140 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : RIPE-DB: WW144, PGP keyID 0xF0ACB369 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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