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call for agenda items, DB-WG meeting, RIPE 46 @ AMS, NL
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 21 Aug '03

21 Aug '03

"Somewhat" urgent: Call for agenda items! >Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 12:01:21 +0200 > >Dear WG Chair, > >We are less than three weeks away from the RIPE Meeting. To make sure >that we have all Working Group Agendas published and printed on time, I >kindly ask you to send us your agenda. > >The deadline is Wednesday 20 August. Although the deadline has passed already (and I am wading through and sorting and trashing a mail backlog of 5K+), we need an agenda for the WG meeting. I am going to include the "usual stuff" from my end, plus an item for discussion on WG mandate. And I have (during my absence for vacation - which I dearly needed ;-) received a couple of requests already which will make it into the 1st draft. Everything alse has to come from the community, so submit your input and ideas, please!! Thanks, see you in AMS, Wilfried.

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Fwd: [db-wg] X.509 authentication in the RIPE Database, take II
by Joao Luis Silva Damas 20 Aug '03

20 Aug '03

On Friday, August 15, 2003, at 04:23 PM, Shane Kerr wrote: > Joao, > > Joao Luis Silva Damas wrote: >> adding a new strong authentication method to the Database, is in my >> own personal opinion, a good thing(tm), particularly if the same >> credential can be used for other interactions with the RIPE NCC, make >> user's life easier. >> I wonder however about a few questions: >> - will this auth method be available only to RIPE NCC members? Is it >> not seen as a valuable general addition for non-member users of the >> IRR part of the RIPE DB? > > Initially it will only be available for RIPE NCC members. Another interesting change in the model? When you say initially, does this mean it will be extended or not? Shall on read the current proposal as implicitly stating this? > There are three ways we could extend the service to non-LIRs: > > 1. Accept certificates from certain "well-known" CAs, for example > Thawte, Verisign, etc. > > 2. Issue certificates from a RIPE NCC CA established for this purpose, > and accept them. > > 3. Accept all certificates, including self-signed certificates. > > #1 is relatively easy - the main overhead would be maintaining the > Certificate Revokation Lists from the CAs. Deciding which CAs to > support may also be tricky. #2 is also relatively easy, since we > already have the technology. #3 is more difficult, and would require > a slight change of the design, and administration issues (see below). For DB authentication purposes, why do you need to verify the certificate? As with the PGP model[1], the only assumption one needs to make is that the message issuer is the holder of the private part of the certificate. If the RIPE DB is going to start making assertions about the real identity of the message sender, rather than just authorise or refuse updates, this seems to be a change in the model that warrants discussion in the working group. Is this so, or am I misinterpreting your description of the mechanism? > >> - Why the choice of not publishing the pulic part of the certificated >> in the DB? The choice to have a key-cert for the PGP method was not >> to do with issues of web of trust but rather for purposes of helping >> the users with their data maintenance. As a matter of fact the >> recommendation regarding the use of PGP in the RIPE DB, as described >> in the RFC and the minutes of the DBSEC TF, was to use a PGP key for >> this purpose that was not used elsewhere. > > When you receive a PGP-signed message, you need the public key of the > signer to verify the signature. The program that updates the Database > needs this information, and it is stored in the key-cert objects(*). > > With S/MIME, the certificate is sent with the message, and this > certificate is signed by the CA. Since the database is configured to > know how to verify certificates issued by specific CAs, we can verify > the signature. No key-cert is necessary. > > But if we decide to allow any certficate, including self-signed, then > we need some way to allow users to store this information in the > database, for example key-cert objects. Unfortunately, this may cause > problems, because (for instance) someone could create a key-cert > object for a CA run by another organisation with bogus data, > preventing users from using certificates *actually* issued by that CA. > > We could possibly require these sort of key-cert objects be reviewed > by some method, for example RIPE DBM. However, if the RIPE NCC has no > relationship with the CA, we have no real way to know the validity of > any one request. Why do you need to verify the certificate. Also, part of the idea of having a key-cert object was to allow users to check, not the DB, and to maintain DB self-consistency. Are these no longer desired features? Joao [1] RFC 2726

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Re: [address-policy-wg] IP Addressing policy on personal contact info (kf)
by Shane Kerr 20 Aug '03

20 Aug '03

Pascale Julienne, Pascal Julienne wrote: > In France there is such a thing as unlisted phone numbers which > remain private and unknown. Further, the RIPE DB is becoming the > best spam list in the world. So yes, responsability lays with LIR, > yes let's clean the DB, yes respect privacy. I think there are two sides to this issue. One is what the RIPE NCC can and has done to increase the privacy of people who have contact information in the Database. We have been trying to increase the privacy protections in the Database over time: - person/role objects removed from public FTP site - DB automatically rate limits access to person/role objects - mntner/irt objects removed from public FTP site - .DE person object deletion - automatic cleanup of unreferenced person/role objects The Allocation Editor on the LIR Portal should allow LIRs to keep their contact data up-to-date. We have talked with the Dutch Data Protection Authority about the Database as well, to make sure that we don't run afoul of the EU privacy directives. There has been some discussion at the last RIPE meeting about how the Database both aids and hinders spammers. Suggestions such as checking validity of contact information, as well as possibly putting fake entries in the Database and tracking spam they receive were mentioned. The second issue is deciding on what contact data *should* be in the Database. This is the job of the address-policy-wg, and perhaps the db-wg. A related issue is how the data should be accessed, which is also something that can be decided by the same groups. Katri Forsberg did a service by raising the issue. As a final issue, I am curious why you say the RIPE Database is becoming the best spam list in the world! I think that it probably generates a lot of spam for LIRs, because they have their contact information on many objects in the Database. I don't know any way to avoid this if the Database is public. I hope that for the end users who's information is in the Database for only a small number of addresses that they do not get much spam originating from the publication in the Database. The RIPE NCC is certainly interested in mechanisms that we can set up to prevent such use, as it is explicitly *not* allowed by the license that we provide for the Database. -- Shane Kerr RIPE NCC

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X.509 authentication in the RIPE Database, take II
by Shane Kerr 18 Aug '03

18 Aug '03

All, [Apologies for duplicate e-mails] Attached please find a proposal for X.509 authentication in the RIPE Database. From the Database point of view (that is, syntax and semantics), it is the same as the one sent 3 July 2003. The difference is that it contains only the specific details of the change, in a straightforward fashion. I hope that we have addressed questions about the use of X.509 that arose in earlier discussions. -- Shane Kerr RIPE NCC Addition of X.509 authentication to the Database Proposal: To add an X509 authentication type to the "auth:" attribute. Attributes with this type will use the Distinguished Name (DN) of the certificate to identify it. Motivation: X.509 allows a single authentication method to work for both e-mail and the web. LIRs can receive an X.509 certificate through the LIR Portal, and should be able to use this to update records they control in the Database. X.509 is "strong", like PGP, although a different trust model is used. Details: The "auth:" attribute of the mntner class will have a new authentication scheme, X509. The DN, as defined in RFC 2253, will be used to identify the specific certificate used. Note that there is no key-cert object for the X509 scheme. Instead, the certificate must be signed by a trusted authority. The trusted authority will be the RIPE NCC Certificate Authority (CA) that is currently only available to LIRs. It is possible to configure additional CAs in future, should this become desirable. For instance, existing commercial CAs could be allowed, or the RIPE NCC could create a CA to issue certificates to non-LIRs for this purpose only. Below is an example of a maintainer with X.509 authentication: mntner: EXAMPLE-MNT descr: Sample maintainer for example. admin-c: SWK1-RIPE tech-c: RD132-RIPE tech-c: HOHO-RIPE upd-to: ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net mnt-nfy: ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net auth: X509 C=NL, O=RIPE NCC, OU=Members, CN=zz.example.user1 auth: X509 C=NL, O=RIPE NCC, OU=Members, CN=zz.example.user2 notify: ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net mnt-by: EXAMPLE-MNT referral-by: RIPE-DBM-MNT changed: ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net 20030813 source: RIPE Usage: E-mail updates for objects maintained by a maintainer with X509 authentication must be sent in S/MIME format and signed (not encrypted) using the private key associated with the issued certificate. Synchronous updates for objects maintained by a maintainer with X509 authentication must use an SSL connection using the private key from the issued certificate on the client side. Web updates for objects maintained by a maintainer with X509 authentication can use a browser with the certificate loaded. The web updates screens will allow users to specify that they want to identify themselves using the client-side private key, over an SSL connection.

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Draft: "status:" re-evaluation
by Shane Kerr 15 Aug '03

15 Aug '03

All, We recently proposed changes to the "status:" attribute values in the RIPE Database: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/draft-documents/status-attributes.html We have received input from APNIC on the subject. They proposed a simpler layout, and we think their suggestion makes sense. However, we would like to go forward with a slightly modified version that incorporates the "organisation" object we are working on. In the meantime, we do not want to delay the implementation of the Sub-Allocation policy. For that reason we'd like to have an interim status attribute value for that. Proposal: Add "SUB-ALLOCATED PA" to the allowed "status:" values. "SUB-ALLOCATED PA" inetnum object may have an "ALLOCATED PA" or an "LIR-PARTITIONED PA" less specific inetnum object. A range of IP's can only have a single "SUB-ALLOCATED PA" in it. That is, you cannot sub-allocate twice. -- Shane Kerr RIPE NCC

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RIPE Whois Server version 3.2.0
by DB-News 14 Aug '03

14 Aug '03

Dear Colleagues, [ Apologies for multiple messages. ] The RIPE NCC is pleased to announce the release of version 3.2.0 of the RIPE Whois server. This software is compliant with both RPSL (RFC-2622) and RPS-Security (RFC-2725). This release adds several user-visible improvements: - dbupdate has been rewritten almost from scratch - the server now limits the number of concurrent connections per IP - transaction support is added on MySQL side - query parsing is revised Detailed release notes can be found at the following URL: ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/dbase/software/RELEASE-NOTES-3.2.0 You can download this release by anonymous FTP from the following URL: ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/dbase/software/ripe-dbase-3.2.0.tar.gz If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Best regards, Engin Gunduz RIPE NCC Database Group

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Announcement Routing Registry Training Course
by RIPE NCC Training 13 Aug '03

13 Aug '03

------- Apologies for the previous mail as there was an error in mentioned dates. Please find the correct dates in this mail. **** Dear Colleagues, [apologies for duplicate postings] As a service to its members the RIPE NCC offers the "Routing Registry Training Course". 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 Routing Registry Training Course is conducted in the English language and is free of charge, since it is covered by the membership fee. More information about the Routing Registry Training Course can be found at: http://www.ripe.net/training/rr/ REGISTRATION: You can register for a Routing Registry Training Course at the following URL: http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/trainingform.pl.cgi Or by completing the registration form at the end of this e-mail and replying to <training(a)ripe.net> . In order to register for a Routing Registry Training Course you must be an employee of an LIR and either: - be an LIR contact - be confirmed by an LIR contact LIR contacts are those employees of an LIR who are registered with RIPE NCC as authoritative contact persons. It is expected that most of those interested in the Routing Registry Training Course will not be an authoritative contact person for their LIR, and therefore will be, refused by the course registration "robot". In order to be admitted to the course, a confirmation e-mail must be sent to <training(a)ripe.net>. Please approach the LIR contacts from your organisation personally, since the identity of LIR contacts is confidential, and the RIPE NCC is unable to divulge contact persons for any given LIR. Kind Regards, The RIPE NCC Training Team ************************************************************************* COURSE DATES AND VENUES ======================== Date: Friday 29 Augustus 2003 Time: 0900 - 1700 Location: Helsinki, Finland AND: Date: Monday 8 September 2003 Time: 0930 - 1700 Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands AND: Date: Tuesday 21 October 2003 Time: 0900 - 1700 Location: Geneva, Switzerland AND: Date: Friday 14 November 2003 Time: 0900 - 1700 Location: Paris, France AND: Date: Friday 28 November 2003 Time: 0900 - 1700 Location: Moscow, Russia AND: Date: Friday 12 December 2003 Time: 0900 - 1700 Location: Lisbon, Portugal ************************************************************************* REGISTRATION FORM ================= %START PART 1 - Registration 1) Your name Enter First name, Last name in full e.g. John Doe Mary-Beth Walton # NAME [ ] 2) Your Registry ID (format: country-code.<name of registry>) # REG [ ] 3) Your e-mail address # EMAIL [ ] 4) Your NIC handle (optional) # NICHANDLE [ ] 5) The course you plan to attend (date and location) # COURSE [ ] %END

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mnt-routes attribute in aut-num objects
by Frank Bohnsack 07 Aug '03

07 Aug '03

Dear Colleagues, how exactly is this meaning of MNT-ROUTES in AUT-NUM objects in case of routes object creation/modification ? RFC2725 is not realy detailed here. Means the existance of an MNT-ROUTES attribute in an AUT-NUM object that ONLY this/these referenced maintainer(s) will be able to authorized route creation/modification and the referenced MNT-BY maintainer(s) will not be used? Or should not the MNT-BY maintainer(s) checked if all MNT-ROUTES maintainer(s) authorisation fails? The current RIPE software checks MNT-ROUTES maintainers only. Thanks Frank > > From: "Frank Bohnsack" <Frank.Bohnsack(a)deu.mci.com> > > Subject: LONGACK > > Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 23:42:06 +0200 > > Reply-To: Frank.Bohnsack(a)deu.mci.com > > Message-ID: <FAEKJBKGENGFILMMECELOEHICAAA.Frank.Bohnsack(a)deu.mci.com> > > ... > > DETAILED EXPLANATION: > > > ***Warning: Invalid keyword(s) found: LONGACK > ***Warning: All keywords were ignored > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > The following object(s) were found to have ERRORS: > > > --- > Create FAILED: [route] 139.8.32.0/24AS702 > ***Error: Authorisation failed > ***Info: Syntax check passed > > route: 139.8.32.0/24 > descr: DE PI route > origin: AS702 > member-of: AS702:RS-DE, > AS702:RS-DE-PI, > AS702:RS-DE-PULLUP > mnt-by: WCOM-EMEA-RICE-MNT > changed: rice(a)lists.mci.com 20030804 > source: RIPE > > ***Info: Authorisation for parent [route] 139.8.0.0/16AS702 > using mnt-by: > authenticated by: WCOM-EMEA-RICE-MNT > > ***Info: Authorisation for origin [aut-num] AS702 > using mnt-routes: > not authenticated by: UUNETDK-MNT, AS1270-MNT, AS1849-MNT, > AS1890-MNT, IWAY-NOC, AS702-MNT, SE-UUNET-MNT, UUNETDE-I > > ***Info: Authorisation for [route] 139.8.32.0/24AS702 > using mnt-by: > authenticated by: WCOM-EMEA-RICE-MNT > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > > For assistance or clarification please contact: > RIPE Database Administration <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net> > > > >

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Announcement on parent notifications
by Denis Walker 05 Aug '03

05 Aug '03

Colleagues, Notification on more-specific object creation authorisation ----------------------------------------------------------- The latest dbupdate binary to be put into production has implemented the change regarding parent notifications that was proposed to the Database Working Group in March 2003. This will cause some users to receive additional notifications. A summary of the change is outlined below. When the creation of an object requires authorisation by a less-specific object, normal notification rules apply to the mntner(s) in the less-specific object. In other words, "upd-to:" is notified of failure, and "mnt-nfy:" is notified of success. Where there are multiple maintainers, only one is needed to successfully authorise the creation, but all the maintainers in the list will be notified. For example: inetnum: 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 . . . mnt-by: EXAMPLE-MNT mnt-lower: ANOTHER-MNT mnt-lower: YET-ANOTHER-MNT If the successful creation of the more specific inetnum: inetnum: 192.168.201.0 - 192.168.201.255 . . . mnt-by: SOME-MNT Is authorised by YET-ANOTHER-MNT in the less specific inetnum, notifications will be sent to the "mnt-nfy:" listed in both ANOTHER-MNT and YET-ANOTHER-MNT in addition to the "mnt-nfy:" listed in SOME-MNT. In the case of route creation, the parent may be a route or an inetnum, and it may also be an exact match. Also notifications will also be sent to the mntner(s) listed in the origin aut-num of the route object being created. The original proposal can be found here: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail-archives/db-wg/2003/msg00034.html Regards Denis Walker Database Engineer RIPE NCC

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Re: mnt-routes attribute in aut-num objects
by RIPE Database Administration 05 Aug '03

05 Aug '03

Dear Frank, As RFC2725 says on page 18: Having found the AS and either a route object or inetnum, the authorization is taken from these two objects. The applicable maintainer object is any referenced by the mnt-routes attributes. If one or more mnt-routes attributes are present in an object, the mnt- by attributes are not considered. In the absence of a mnt-routes attribute in a given object, the mnt-by attributes are used for that object. The authentication must match one of the authorizations in each of the two objects. I.e. if "mnt-routes" attribute is present, then at least one of mainatiners from "mnt-routes" should pass the authorisation. If none of them passes, the creation is refused - no further check is done with "mnt-by" attribute in case of "mnt-routes" failure. "mnt-by" attribute is used only if "mnt-routes" is not present. This applies only to route object creation. For route object modification only "mnt-by" of the object itself is used to check the authorisation. If you have any more questions, please contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Regards, Katie Petrusha ____________________________ RIPE Database Administration. Original message follows: ------------------------ Dear Colleagues, how exactly is this meaning of MNT-ROUTES in AUT-NUM objects in case of routes object creation/modification ? RFC2725 is not realy detailed here. Means the existance of an MNT-ROUTES attribute in an AUT-NUM object that ONLY this/these referenced maintainer(s) will be able to authorized route creation/modification and the referenced MNT-BY maintainer(s) will not be used? Or should not the MNT-BY maintainer(s) checked if all MNT-ROUTES maintainer(s) authorisation fails? The current RIPE software checks MNT-ROUTES maintainers only. Thanks Frank > > From: "Frank Bohnsack" <Frank.Bohnsack(a)deu.mci.com> > > Subject: LONGACK > > Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 23:42:06 +0200 > > Reply-To: Frank.Bohnsack(a)deu.mci.com > > Message-ID: <FAEKJBKGENGFILMMECELOEHICAAA.Frank.Bohnsack(a)deu.mci.com> > > ... > > DETAILED EXPLANATION: > > > ***Warning: Invalid keyword(s) found: LONGACK > ***Warning: All keywords were ignored > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > The following object(s) were found to have ERRORS: > > > --- > Create FAILED: [route] 139.8.32.0/24AS702 > ***Error: Authorisation failed > ***Info: Syntax check passed > > route: 139.8.32.0/24 > descr: DE PI route > origin: AS702 > member-of: AS702:RS-DE, > AS702:RS-DE-PI, > AS702:RS-DE-PULLUP > mnt-by: WCOM-EMEA-RICE-MNT > changed: rice(a)lists.mci.com 20030804 > source: RIPE > > ***Info: Authorisation for parent [route] 139.8.0.0/16AS702 > using mnt-by: > authenticated by: WCOM-EMEA-RICE-MNT > > ***Info: Authorisation for origin [aut-num] AS702 > using mnt-routes: > not authenticated by: UUNETDK-MNT, AS1270-MNT, AS1849-MNT, > AS1890-MNT, IWAY-NOC, AS702-MNT, SE-UUNET-MNT, UUNETDE-I > > ***Info: Authorisation for [route] 139.8.32.0/24AS702 > using mnt-by: > authenticated by: WCOM-EMEA-RICE-MNT > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > > For assistance or clarification please contact: > RIPE Database Administration <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net> > > > >

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