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Re: FYI: List of current proposals
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

Hi Blasco ! => Thus we have been looking into alternatives and ways of tricking the => web browser into doing things that it wasn't meant for :-) = =Maybe I've lost the point in this discussion but.. I think so. And it was entirely my fault to re-hash this stuff on the db-wg list. Just because I got a useful hint to something that was used already, I copied the list - under the assumption that it might be useful for others as well. Obviously I simply added to the confusion. Apologies. Wilfried. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at Computer Center - ACOnet : Vienna University : Tel: +43 1 4065822 355 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4065822 170 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : NIC: WW144 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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URGENT: database ftp mirror problems and changes on the ftp site
by David.Kessens＠ripe.net 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

Dear all, We had this morning troubles with copying our database files to the ftp site for people that run a secondary mirror. The problems are solved right now. However, I needed to make some changes in the procedures that affect all people that use our non 'gzipped' files. Since I wanted to make these changes anyway, I want to ask you if they are acceptable for you: I only make the 'gzipped' files available from now on. This causes less confusion between the different files available, less network traffic, faster availability of the database files on the ftp server and less load on the database server. Please let me know if you really need the uncompressed or .Z compressed files available and I will change this back. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me again, Kind regards, David Kessens RIPE NCC

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Re: FYI: List of current proposals
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

Hi Peter ! => lookup key. On the other hand I haven't had enough time and expertise => to try to teach a browser about something like => => whois://db-server-FQDN:43/lookup-key = =To my knowledge there are no whois-URLs yet, but you can (ab-)use =gopher-URLs to watch Whois-Entries with your web-browser. =Give it a try with <gopher://whois.ripe.net:43/0WW144> We actually use it in some situations, but there are two major problems involved: - this does no longer work for Netscape V2.x on Windows PCs (while it does work on Unix boxes and V1.x an the PC was fine ;-) - and I think (for good reasons!) the RIPE-NCC is about to discontinue the gopher access to the whois database. It's a fairly limited approach anyway. Thus we have been looking into alternatives and ways of tricking the web browser into doing things that it wasn't meant for :-) Cheers, Wilfried.

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Re: FYI: List of current proposals
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 20 Jun '96

20 Jun '96

=> The basic obstacle that stopped me to make any progress is to find a => way (protocol, port, lookup key transfer mechanism) to query the db and => then to convince the browser to read the text as html. The best I => managed was gopher and interpretation as text. => Not that useful in the end... = =I want to do the following (as dicussed with you earlier in a private =conversation): = =Make a 'whois -w' that let the whois program behave as cgi-bin script: = =The whois server will return you an html formatted document instead of =regular plain text objects. It's then very easy to put such a 'whois' =program in your cgi-bin directory and here you go... The nice thing about =this the unified presentation of objects in a web based context. =Furthermore, people can use url's to specified objects in the database. Do I read this correctly to expect me (the users wanting access) to install some cgi script on the/a local server to provide that interface? That might drastically limit the usefulness of this approach. I'd prefer something that is more along the lines of the good old to be retired gopher interface - I'd like to give a special port number and have the script run at the whois DB server side. I think we do have all the building blocks in place (like telnet to 43), but this breaks 'cause a telnet opens a separate window from the browser and fails to submit the rest of the url to be treated as a lookup key. On the other hand I haven't had enough time and expertise to try to teach a browser about something like whois://db-server-FQDN:43/lookup-key >Example: > >An html document about the escalation procedures for network outages of >an ISP can point directly to a 'role:' object in the RIPE database. That's exactly one of the applications for that approach. Another one would be to have a domain object point to the URL for the application template. And another one would be to do a "whois help" to give access to documentation. And another to reference person objects for people being regularly updated in the DB... >Shall I add such a feature to my proposal list in addition to the WAIS >interface (with a note that the WAIS interface can be enabled quickly >with some hacks as proposed by Blasco) ? My private opinion is: YES. My DB-WG opinion is: probably, but we didn't have it on the agenda - thus as a proposal for future decision Wilfried. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at Computer Center - ACOnet : Vienna University : Tel: +43 1 4065822 355 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4065822 170 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : NIC: WW144 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: FYI: List of current proposals
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 20 Jun '96

20 Jun '96

Hi David ! => => What about the WWW/WAIS interface to the database? = =I will add it to the list. It probably slipped my mind (by my software =engineer perspective) since it is not part of the database software =itself, but a separate project. = =As far as me concerned, it is a very useful addition to the database =interfaces we already have and thus should be high on our priority list =(for the new website). I think that's 2 different issues: - WWW/WAIS access to the information contained in the DB That's probably a separate project that might need some finishing touches from the DB software engineer(s) - WWW/HTML/HTTP functionality in the DB-SW package and the whois-server and whois-client That's from my point of view part of the item to include/provide means to register URLs (in some way or another) in the DB objects. But registering the URL strings itself is not a major problem (we could use a remarks field for that porpose as an interim measure - look at spt1-ripe :-), but the *access* to the objects by way of an http or whois interface is! I haven't found a trick yet to make my browser process an object as html code... For the moment I'd like to concentrate my efforts on the second aspect! David, is there a chance to meet you during the IETF to share some drinks and thoughts? Wilfried.

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Re: FYI: List of current proposals
by David.Kessens＠ripe.net 20 Jun '96

20 Jun '96

Dear Wilfried, Blasco, > Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet writes : > > Hi Blasco ! > > => - WWW/HTML/HTTP functionality in the DB-SW package and the whois-server > => and whois-client > => > => That's from my point of view part of the item to include/provide > => means to register URLs (in some way or another) in the DB objects. > => But registering the URL strings itself is not a major problem (we > => could use a remarks field for that porpose as an interim > => measure - look at spt1-ripe :-), > => but the *access* to the objects by way of an http or whois > => interface is! I haven't found a trick yet to make my browser > => process an object as html code... > = > =It is anyway needed to reformat the DB object in HTML. That is exactly > =what the cgi-bin in our software does. We can cooperate to port > =this part of software in a different context (whois ?). > > How did you solve that? do you use plain vanilla whois towards the DB > and dish out html towards the browser? > > The basic obstacle that stopped me to make any progress is to find a > way (protocol, port, lookup key transfer mechanism) to query the db and > then to convince the browser to read the text as html. The best I > managed was gopher and interpretation as text. > Not that useful in the end... I want to do the following (as dicussed with you earlier in a private conversation): Make a 'whois -w' that let the whois program behave as cgi-bin script: The whois server will return you an html formatted document instead of regular plain text objects. It's then very easy to put such a 'whois' program in your cgi-bin directory and here you go... The nice thing about this the unified presentation of objects in a web based context. Furthermore, people can use url's to specified objects in the database. Example: An html document about the escalation procedures for network outages of an ISP can point directly to a 'role:' object in the RIPE database. Shall I add such a feature to my proposal list in addition to the WAIS interface (with a note that the WAIS interface can be enabled quickly with some hacks as proposed by Blasco) ? David K. ---

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RE: FYI: David K. will be leaving the RIPE NCC
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 19 Jun '96

19 Jun '96

Hi David ! >Dear all, > >After working for nearly 2 years at the RIPE NCC, I feel it is time for a >change. I have found a new job at ISI (Los Angeles) where I will be >involved with the RA project. I will leave the RIPE NCC at the end of July. As I said previously in a private message, sometimes it's a pity staying behind at the wrong side of the pond... I don't want to add to Mike's general praise - he has worded it much better than I could. Instead I'd like to extend our thanks to you wearing my hat as the RIPE-DB-WG convenor. It was, and still is, a pleasure to work with you, both professionally and personally. All the best for your new position! I sincerely hope to keep in contact and to continue the successful collaboration as close as possible. Again - both personally and professionally! Cheers, Wilfried. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at Computer Center - ACOnet : Vienna University : Tel: +43 1 4065822 355 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4065822 170 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : NIC: WW144 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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FYI: David K. will be leaving the RIPE NCC
by David.Kessens＠ripe.net 19 Jun '96

19 Jun '96

Dear all, After working for nearly 2 years at the RIPE NCC, I feel it is time for a change. I have found a new job at ISI (Los Angeles) where I will be involved with the RA project. I will leave the RIPE NCC at the end of July. As for the RIPE database: We currently plan to bring out the long expected 2.00 release version as soon as possible to keep some time left while I am still at the RIPE NCC in case problems arise. You can soon expect a message from me at the database working group maillist with all the open proposals (as promised during the last RIPE meeting). I would like to thank the RIPE community for their support of and input on my development work on the RIPE database and the reverse delegation tool. I hope that I will be able to collaborate as productively with you in my new job as we have in the past. Kind regards, David K. RIPE NCC ----

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FYI: List of current proposals
by David.Kessens＠ripe.net 19 Jun '96

19 Jun '96

Dear all, I have completed the action point of the RIPE database working group to make a list of active proposals. List of current proposals: 1) AUTO NIC handles (included in 2.00 release) 2) Role object (included in 2.00 release) 3) AS macro syntax (included in 2.00 release, if the minutes are published) 4) inverse lookup 5) whois -tv 6) referral mechanism 7) INADDR 8) NEW 9) stronger authorization 10) extended as-in 11) stored/processed attribute 12) name tag 13) url attribute 14) syntactic cleanup You can find a more detailed description below. Please let me know if you know of any other proposals that I forgot about, Kind regards, David K. ---- 1) AUTO NIC handles: Auto assignment of NIC handles Current state: half way done Time estimation: long, will be included in 2.00 release Syntax: nic-hdl: AUTO-#[Initials] where: # - is an arbritary identification number Initials - optional, advises the database software to use initials for the generation of the NIC handle. will cause NIC handles to be generated automatically. The number is needed to give the possibility for autogenerating and referencing more then one person object (that doesn't have a NIC handle yet) under every condition in one RIPE database update. AUTO is used as a prefix to avoid any confusion between real NIC handles and requests for auto generating NIC handles. Example: person: NIC Handle nic-hdl: AUTO-45NH [... stuff deleted ... ] person: Nick Hansson nic-hdl: AUTO-3NH [... stuff deleted ... ] inetnum: x.y.z.0 - x.y.z.255 admin-c: AUTO-45NH tech-c: AUTO-3NH [... stuff deleted ... ] Will assign a NIC handle with Initials NH and the first free number to 'NIC Handle' and NH and the next free number to 'Nick Hansson'. It will also fill these NIC handles in the right attributes of the objects. 2) New role objects Current state: half way done Time estimation: medium, will be included in 2.00 release Syntax: The definition of the object: - name will be 'role:' - will have the same attributes as a person object - will have a 'tech-c:' and 'admin-c:' attribute - A NIC handle will be generated just as with person objects How to reference the object: - The object can be referenced from 'tech-c' and 'zone-c:' attributes only - recursive lookups go only one level deep 3) AS macro syntax New syntax for community and AS macros Current state: nothing done, need approval of the RIPE minutes first Time estimation: very short, will be included in 2.00 release if the database workinggroup minutes are approved in time New syntax: community: Format: <string> The <string> must satisfy the following constraints and the constaints for as macros (see below): + It must not start with the any upper or lower case permutations of the character "A" followed by the character "S". That is, the pattern "[Aa][Ss]" is not legal at the start of a community name. + It must not be the same as any of the routing policy expression keywords. (See RIPE-181, Appendix A for a complete list of these keywords.) It can expected that the keywords that the IETF Routing Policy System (RPS) working group defines for RPSL will be added to this list of keywords. as-macro: Format: AS-<string> The <string> must satisfy the following constraints: + It must be at least two characters long. + It must contain only upper case letters, lower case letters, digits, or dashes (underscores (_) were dropped to avoid confusion between dashes and underscores) + It must start with a letter + It must end with a letter or digit All comparisons will be case insensitive. 4) inverse lookup Current state: No proposal, nothing done Time estimation: medium What is it? Inverse lookup makes it possible to find objects that match a certain key in a specified attribute. Example: whois -i admin-c,tech-c,zone-c DK13-RIPE gives all objects that have DK13-RIPE as their admin-c, tech-c or zone-c. 5) verbose templates/whois -tv Current state: data collection (from the RIPE documents) started Time estimation: short/medium, see note below Notes: - This will probably be a joint project with Merit. - The data collection part takes most time but is needed for some other projects anyway: We need documentation on all our objects for our own documentation, the RPSL IETF working group and future work to get the InterNIC and RIPE syntax synchronized. What is it? Verbose templates are meant to give more information on object templates then we give now. It is intended that 'whois -v -t inetnum' will give the syntax of the attribute (as with 'whois -t'), a short description of the attribute and a 'minimal' regular expression to give a better idea on how the attribute should look like. 6) referral mechanism Current state: No detailed proposal, nothing done Time estimation: short/medium Notes: This is not a agreed on proposal but is interesting to implement for experimenting with the topic, although it is of use for the community even in an experimental phase. More sophistacted designs might come up that will need much more time to implement and can be regarded as separate projects. What is it? We want to have an automatic referral mechanism that will make it possible that RIPE database objects refer to other whois servers and your client can then search that servers automatically. Example: domain: NL refer: WHOIS domain-registry.nl 7) INADDR reverse delegation integration with the RIPE database Current state: nothing done Time estimation: short/medium This proposal will allow for sending your reverse delegation requests directly to the RIPE database. The updated objects are sent to the reverse delegation robot after the update succeeded if a special keyword (INADDR?) is present in the Subject: line of your message. 8) NEW Current state: nothing done Time estimation: short substitute the <auto-assign(a)ripe.net> mail box by the keyword NEW in the update to the RIPE database. Only new objects will then be accepted for addition to the RIPE daatabase. 9) stronger authorization Current state: No proposals, nothing done, see note Time estimation: ??? Note: - Merit has a mechanism, but it is unclear if it is general enough and might need too much human intervention when dealing with a database as big as RIPE has. Also, import restrictions might disallow us to use Merit's code. No proposals on how to do this exactly are available right now. 10) extended as-in extended as-in/as-out attribute Current state: Proposal circulated, nothing done at RIPE, see note Time estimation: ???, but probably not too long if Brian Renaud's implementation is good. Note: - Brian Renaud (Merit) has made an implementation and has sent it in. I haven't had time to really look at it. It looks promising. Previous concerns that I had because his implementation required certain external tools seems like they have been addressed What is it? See proposal by Cengiz Alaettinoglu <cengiz(a)ISI.EDU> that is circulated to the RPSL IETF working group mail list. 11) stored/processed attribute Current state: Proposal approved. Nothing implemented yet. Time estimation: short/medium What is it: Attributes added to all objects that contain a time-stamp and serial number. This allows for better knowledge on the history and age of objects. The attributes will also make the near real time mirroring more robust then it is now. In the future features like rolling back and forth to certain database states can be supported but need to be addressed in a separate project. A proposal has been circulated and appoved to the RIPE database working group. 12) name tag handle (Full name of person) data in tech-c/admin-c/zone-c attributes Current state: No detailed proposal has been made yet. Time estimation: short/medium (might be more complicated then expected right now) The proposal makes trouble shooting with disappeared person objects easier (esspecially when person might be located in a different database). The proposal als allows for non-recursive lookups in many cases when the user has enough info when seeing the name only. 13) url attribute Current state: No proposal yet Time estimation: short What is it? Attribute that can be used in any database object for references to any other site by using an url. No exact proposal has been made yet, but the idea seems to be very useful. 14) Syntactic cleanup Current state: Nothing done yet Time estimation: short/medium It is perceived by the user community as well as by the software developers for the routing registry that some of the syntax is unecessary complicated and/or makes more confusion then it solves. Therefor it was decided on the last RIPE meeting to remove the following features: - the ripe-181 line continuation will no longer be supported. People that used it will be asked to update their objects. - The syntactic sugar words will always be mandatory to avoid all kind of interesting problems (for example with deletions). The raw database file will also contain the syntactic sugar. We will announce this change long in advance to the proper lists to give people the chance to make changes to their software if necessary. ========

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Route Object Editor: New tool
by Cengiz Alaettinoglu 12 Jun '96

12 Jun '96

Hi, A new tool, roe (route object editor), is available: DESCRIPTION roe is a Tcl/Tk program that lists the routes registered by an AS. roe can be used to find discrepancies between the registered routes and the routes that are actually being routed. roe can be used to find all the holes that are punched in the AS's routes, or all the holes the AS punches in other routes. roe can be used to easily add, delete and update route objects in any IRR registry (hence the name editor). For example, one can register all the routes which are routed but not registered in couple of mouse clicks. It is part of RAToolSet v 3.3.2 and is available at: http://www.isi.edu/~cengiz/software Your feedback and bug reports are greatly appreciated. Thanks. Cengiz -- Cengiz Alaettinoglu Information Sciences Institute (310) 822-1511 University of Southern California http://www.isi.edu/~cengiz

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