- db-wg - mailman.ripe.net

db 1.86 and descr objects
by Peter Hessler 19 Apr '16

19 Apr '16

Hi all New member of the DB-WG here. Some of our objects were affected by the change to the "descr" object. FWIW, I fully support the change to the object type and removing required attributes. HOWEVER, I am EXTREMELY UPSET that my objects were edited without my consent or even a warning. 11 April, clean-up existing "descr:" attributes where the RIPE NCC enforced organisation names In our objects, we wanted to keep our org name in the descr attribute. Having our objects unilaterately changed by RIPE NCC as a "clean up", is frankly not acceptable. And worse, it only affected some of our objects, not all of them as I would have expected. IMHO, the worst part is the "last-modified" field was not updated, nor was a "your object has changed" email generated. Many people use the descr field for things, as an example: the "name" attribute at bgp.he.net. When browsing through the ASes in Germany, I noticed many companies that were likely hit by this (they showed a partial or complete address in the "name" field, instead of the name of the company), including one of the largest ISPs in Germany. I was unable to find a discussion of the _clean-up_ in the WG archives. Why was it decided not to inform the affected members, or even all members via the announce mailing list? Is that a standard policy? -- Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

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Release 1.86 deployed to RC
by Thiago da Cruz Pereira 13 Apr '16

13 Apr '16

Dear working group, We have deployed release 1.86 to the Release Candidate environment. With this release we will: = Make "descr:" tribute optional for all object types as discussed in the Database WG. = Prevent RIPE-NCC-RPSL-MNT to be used as mnt-by We encourage all users of the database to test their tools. Kind regards, Thiago da Cruz Software Engineer - RIPE NCC Database Team

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Call for agenda items, DB-WG and planned Routing-DB meeting during RIPE72, Copenhagen, Denmark
by Piotr Strzyzewski 12 Apr '16

12 Apr '16

Dear DB-WG participants It is now only a bit more than a month to the next RIPE Meeting. This is about time to ask you for agenda items. This time we are reaching out to you for agenda items for _two_ sessions during the RIPE72 meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, 23-27 May 2016: - the usual Database Working Group, - the _planned_ joint Routing-DB session. The DB-WG session is currently scheduled as it was the last time, for Thursday (May 26th), starting at 14:00 local time, after the lunch break. The length of our timeslot is 90 minutes. Please be aware that the date and time provided could change as the meeting itself still has the draft plan. The planned joint Routing-DB does not have time and date set up yet. As it was announced by Rob Evans at the Routing-WG mailing list, it purpose is to see if we can actually make some progress around the topic of non-authoritative routing registry information in the RIPE DB. Please submit your items or topic suggestions directly to the WG chairs or to the list for public discussion. The draft agenda will be published soon. Looking forward to see you all in Copenhagen. All the best, Job, Nigel & Piotr -- gucio -> Piotr Strzyżewski E-mail: Piotr.Strzyzewski(a)polsl.pl

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Locking unmaintained PERSON and ROLE objects in the RIPE Database
by ipmaster＠bt.com 08 Apr '16

08 Apr '16

reg id: uk.bt Dear Trudy Prins, Can you tell me what will happen at present with our current PA assignments to our end customers when we try to register them on the RIPE NCC database against an unmaintained person object. Will it fail, or will it pass and we just get a warning? Or, is the process now as stated in your proposal set out in your email ? Regards Myrna Goedluck BTnet IP Master Team Tel: 0800 085 0223 Option 3 +44 (0)331 666 2729[X] Email: IPMASTER(a)BT.COM British Telecommunications plc Registered Office: 81 Newgate Street London EC1A 7AJ Registered in England no.1800000 This electronic message contains information from British Telecommunications plc which may be privileged or confidential. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual(s) or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic message in error, please notify us by telephone or email (to the numbers or address above) immediately. Activity and use of the British Telecommunications plc E-mail system is monitored to secure its effective operation and for other lawful business purposes. Communications using this system will also be monitored and may be recorded to secure effective operation and for other lawful business purposes.

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New on RIPE Labs: Improved Syncupdates in the RIPE Database
by Mirjam Kuehne 06 Apr '16

06 Apr '16

Dear colleagues, Over the last couple of months we've been putting a lot of focus on improving the usability of the RIPE Database web interface. We started with tightly integrating our Single Sign-On system, RIPE NCC Access, into webupdates. We added better validation, auto-complete, "diffs", integrated abuse-contact creation, updates in a text-area and many more tweaks and improvements to enhance the user experience. The last big part of the RIPE Database web interface that was left untouched is Syncupdates. Until now... Please find more details on RIPE Labs: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/AlexBand/improving-syncupdates-in-the-ripe-da… Kind regards, Mirjam Kuehne RIPE NCC

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New on RIPE Labs: How Pingable are the Pingables?
by Mirjam Kuehne 05 Apr '16

05 Apr '16

Dear colleagues, We look at how the "pingable:" and "ping-hdl:" attributes have been adopted in the last five years and how reachable the pingable addresses registered in the RIPE Database are when pinged from RIPE Atlas. Spoiler alert: It could be better. Please find the details on RIPE Labs: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/wilhelm/how-pingable-are-the-pingables?pk_cam… Kind regards, Mirjam Kuehne RIPE NCC

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increase daily db dump frequency?
by Job Snijders 15 Mar '16

15 Mar '16

Hi RIPE NCC, WG, I have a use-case in which secondaire NRTM mirrors can't easily reseed from the data stored at ftp.ripe.net:/ripe/dbase/ because the intermediate NRTM mirror retains less history than the actual delta between when the dump was made and the current serial. In other words, if I want to reseed an IRR instance I have to do so before lunch (UTC), because after lunch the delta usually is too large. This can be mitigated if the dump files in ftp.ripe.net:/ripe/dbase/split are refreshed more often then once a day. Would it be possible to dump every 6 hours instead of every 24 hours? Kind regards, Job

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Fw: [anti-abuse-wg] objection to RIPE policy proposal 2016-01
by ripedenis＠yahoo.co.uk 12 Mar '16

12 Mar '16

Sorry I hit reply instead of reply-all... ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: "ripedenis(a)yahoo.co.uk" <ripedenis(a)yahoo.co.uk> To: Sander Steffann <sander(a)steffann.nl> Sent: Friday, 11 March 2016, 17:06 Subject: Re: [anti-abuse-wg] [db-wg] objection to RIPE policy proposal 2016-01 Hi Sander I was not making any decision just expressing an opinion just as Elvis expressed his opinion on my implementation :) cheersdenis From: Sander Steffann <sander(a)steffann.nl> To: denis <ripedenis(a)yahoo.co.uk> Cc: Database WG <db-wg(a)ripe.net>; "anti-abuse-wg(a)ripe.net" <anti-abuse-wg(a)ripe.net> Sent: Friday, 11 March 2016, 16:54 Subject: Re: [anti-abuse-wg] [db-wg] objection to RIPE policy proposal 2016-01 Hello Denis, > Sorry Elvis but you are neither a software engineer nor a regular user inputting data into the RIPE Database. So your unsubstantiated statement of 'poor' does not carry much weight. Excuse me, but you do not get to decide that a fellow working group member's contribution does not carry much weight. That is the working group chairs' job when deciding on consensus, and from experience I know that even the chairs only do that in very rare circumstances. Consensus is based on content and supporting arguments, not on whether you judge somebody worthy... Cheers, Sander

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objection to RIPE policy proposal 2016-01
by Ruediger Volk 11 Mar '16

11 Mar '16

Dear colleagues, I object to passing the policy as proposed. There is no serious need for the policy, and at this time and under curent circumstance it would actually be harmful. I believe that the supposed good intentions would be better served by other actions, and the policy focussing on enforcement is ill advised. I understand that the current implementation of the RIPE database allows legacy holders to enter abuse-c attributes for their legacy resources if that's currently not possible the required extension of the database should be discussed (in the approprioate wg) and implementation would NOT require the PDP (as more drastic changes have been done to the database - and that extension hardly would contradict existing policy). No PDP is needed to send friendly invitations to legacy holders to populate their data objects with abuse-c information; I'm sure asking the RIPE NCC to do this would not create an undue burden or serious problem. Enhancing the invitations with some additional information potentially helpful to the recipients could be considered too: - some hints/guidance about expected use and support of that mailbox (active members of the abuse handling community probably will NOT be the typical recipient! and no injuries are expected if any community member sees that information:-) - specific suggestions what to put into the abuse-c field (whatever the RIPE NCC might use to extrapolate abuse-c from existing data) The working group should contribute helpful information to be included. I'm quite certain running a second invitation campaign would be even less of a problem and effort for RIPE NCC; I cannot predict how much the information provided in a later campaign can be improved based on feedback and experience from an earlier one. You may argue, that such more friendly approach could have been used also earlier - and I would very much agree and I certainly complained and suggested that at least the forced population of missing abuse-c should be postponed until friendly information was made available. Now we do NOT HAVE TO repeat past errors... Specifically with legacy resource holders it would be a good idea for RIPE community and NCC to address them with an inviting and helpful approach; as there is a sad history of seemingly coercive and unfriendly communications towards legacy holders. REPEATING the error now - even considering the much lower number of relevant records - is however actually MORE SERIOUS in DAMAGING the CREDIBILITY of the working group (and as a consequence the RIPE NCCs position) because of the accumulated history. Repeated requests for information on supposed use und handling of abuse-c has been answered by pointing out that it is required by a policy that was consciously created without any such information. The new policy proposal painfully fits into the sad observation that the anti-abuse working group as a community has constantly put effort into enforcing creation and population of abuse-c data but not (even tried) to provide to the rest of the world helpful explanations on requirements and expected handling at the requested mailboxes. That observations leads to the question whether the community is not able to come up with some helpful explanation or whether it does not care... :-( In both cases asking for enforcement does seem neither appropriate nor acceptable and means that the request cannot be taken serious - bad for the perception of RIPE and RIPE NCC activety by parties that are not heavily involved in the community processes. Consider the typical person confronted with a request to define abuse-c: how deeply is he involved with the anti-abuse working group (where a common understanding might exist - I consider myself only occassional observer and not a member and don't know)? Trying to close more quickly and on a more constructive perspective let me skip to elaborate here on my judgement: at close inspection the rationale and arguments look quite broken. The policy content does actually not matter that much - look for a sketch of a potential harmless implementation approach above in this message. What matters is appropriate use of the PDP (it can be abused!!!) and what are good goals of the working group and good ways of achieving them. The assumed good goals (as I understand it) are (a) improving quality of abuse-c information in order to (b) improve abuse reporting and report handling processes and (c) extending the abuse-c coverage for Internet number resources in the RIPE NCC registry The policy proposal references (a) and (b) quite explicitly; I took the liberty to interpolate (b) which actually seems to be the primary goal, and it looks like the working group decided that this will be helped by means of creating distinctly identified mailbox information to be put into abuse-c. The criterium for gauging (a) seems to be whether "improved data" actually helps "improve processing" (b) - what else? Creating abuse-c entries of better/good quality obviously depends on the recipient being appropriate and informed about expected potential messages and preparing to deal with them. Forcing creation of abuse-c in any other way is not going to create better quality but actually looses information (you loose track of which entries have the "quality of informed and [potentially] prepared recipient"). We have to assume that Internet number resource holders requested to establish abuse-c - usually are NOT focussed an abuse handling (different core business:-) - in many cases are not members of the anti-abuse working (and unlikely to have insight into undocumented potential consensus views of the working group or the larger abuse-c activist community) - in general willing to cooperate (we really should care for those and help them! ... yes, there are others - from "don't care" to "evil") For making a reasoned decision about the recipient for abuse-c and preparing for handling messages one obviously needs some understanding/explanation of what is expected. If no such helpful information is offered at the time of requesting abuse-c setup, many well intentioned parties will *something* (not really good "quality") to fill required fields and little motivation to followup will remain. If they care to ask for helpful information and the answer stays "this is required by policy, and it consciously declines to explain", they are likely to conclude that they have to submit to RIPE policies and the policy makers+process that cannot be taken serious... I note that for goal (b) of course some common understanding of expected use and handling for the abuse-c mailbox is a prerequisite on BOTH sides (senders also!) I do not expect to see formal, precise, and exhaustive definition of requirements and intended/expected use of abuse-c use - that would seem fairly impossible and certainly would not provide a practical answer to the issue. The working group needs to followup it previous abuse-c policy by starting to create practically useful explanations, before considering more "enforcement" (actually IMHO all enforcement activety should [have] be[en] postponed - potentially replaced by friendly invitations). It may take considerable effort to develope consensus on such documentation - but is it reasonable to rely on all relevant outside parties to have the first contact figure out completely on his own and explain to his management, consultants, service providers, etc... what needs to be done? (what aggregated cost and what "quality" implications do you expect?) It's ok to have working groups that just have internal fun between some birds of a feather. If a working group feels like making demands (e.g. policies) to a larger community it should also consider what support it needs to provide to serve the purposes of that larger community. Thanks for your attention and consideration. Ruediger Volk P.S.: Sorry, for a painfully long message. Trust me I had more painful time writing - and making it shorter would have been worse - with termination not secure:-) I hope that the painful length does not obscure - valid concern - constructive suggestions

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ROUTE objects for non RIPE resources
by denis 10 Mar '16

10 Mar '16

Hi guys For the last 2 or 3 RIPE Meetings a conversation has started just before the meeting and carried on during the meeting. It is the same conversation about what to do with ROUTE objects in the RIPE Database for non RIPE resources. The same possible solutions have been proposed at each meeting. By the end of the meeting the same conclusion is drawn...something needs to be done. Then.....silence....until just before the next meeting when the cycle is repeated. In fact if you look at the archive for the routing and DB WGs nothing has been said about this on the mailing lists since the start of RIPE 71. So are we going to have this same conversation just before RIPE 72 and end with the same result? Or do you think we could break this cycle and have a different conclusion...decide to do something instead of deciding something needs to be done. Subtle but significant difference. The simple solution I proposed that would solve the consequences of having these ROUTE objects in the RIPE Database was on the table 18 months ago. Most of the software building blocks for it already exist in the database software, so it could be implemented in a month or so. Even if this is not the final solution, as a temporary fix it could be up and running so easily and improve the confidence in the IRR. cheers denis

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