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Fwd: [staff] [ncc-announce] [service] Planned RIPE Database Hardware Upgrade: Monday 18 January, 17:00-18:00 UTC
by Tim Bruijnzeels 18 Jan '16

18 Jan '16

Dear working group, In case you missed the announcement we sent last week. We are planning a hardware upgrade later this afternoon/evening that will involve a short outage for updates. Queries should not be affected. Kind regards, Tim Bruijnzeels > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Tim Bruijnzeels <tim(a)ripe.net> > Subject: [staff] [ncc-announce] [service] Planned RIPE Database Hardware Upgrade: Monday 18 January, 17:00-18:00 UTC > Date: 14 Jan 2016 14:37:57 CET > To: ncc-announce(a)ripe.net > > Dear colleagues, > > The RIPE NCC is planning to upgrade the RIPE Database hardware this coming Monday, 18 January. > > With the new hardware we will start to use MariaDB instead of MySQL as the back-end to the RIPE Database. To support this change we will upgrade the RIPE Database software to version 1.84.1. This software has been running in the Release Candidate environment without issues since 9 December. Detailed release notes can be found here: > https://www.ripe.net/manage-ips-and-asns/db/release-notes/ripe-database-rel… > > Queries to the RIPE Database will be unaffected during the upgrade, but there will be a short outage in updates between 17:00 and 18:00 UTC. > > Kind regards, > > Tim Bruijnzeels > Assistant Manager Software Engineering > RIPE NCC Database Group >

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abuse-c: important points on it's usage
by denis 13 Jan '16

13 Jan '16

HI All I make no apologies for the length of this email, but I would ask anyone concerned with abuse handling, RIPE Database data management and RIPE Database maintenance to read it. I am not trying to be a perfectionist or technical purist, but the changes being forced through now do matter. cheers denis When "abuse-c:" was first proposed, Tobias (co-chair of Anti Abuse WG) and I spent a lot of time discussing how to achieve the intended goal. We came up with the current implementation, which after community discussion was approved. But you never think of everything in the first instance. I believe there is one piece missing that allows the whole system to be broken (see later). I also believe the changes being made (without proper discussion) by the RIPE NCC's 'improvements' to Webupdates will break the abuse-c system over time. As a separate issue, but related to this, I think the RIPE NCC should give advance notice to the community of changes to interfaces like Webupdates and allow some discussion on significant changes like ORGANISATION object creation and authorisation and not just 'slip them in', then try to justify them when someone notices. These are major changes to the way the RIPE Database works. They are not just changing the look and feel of Webupdates as an interface tool. So lets start with some history. The goal of "abuse-c:" When the data model was designed there was no thought given to abuse contacts. The internet was much smaller and more personal. The data model was built on the principle of human readability and not programatic parsing. So when the need for abuse reporting was first considered necessary it was good enough to add things like: remarks: In case of abuse contact me(a)here.com You could put this anywhere and someone would find it. Then it got a bit more formal and we introduced the "abuse-mailbox:" attribute. But this was allowed in five or six object types. None of these were the resource objects. So the information was scattered all over the database. This was still almost impossible to find programatically. The goal of "abuse-c:" was: -to have one way of documenting abuse contact details -parsable programatically -very simple for majority of resources -flexible for any other resource situation The "abuse-c:" design Tobias and I considered many options to achieve these goals. What we focussed in on was that most small to medium LIRs may have many resources but only one person/role handling abuse complaints. All these resource objects in the database referenced their one ORGANISATION object. So by adding the "abuse-c:" attribute to the one ORGANISATION object, referencing a ROLE object containing the contact details, we handled a large number of simple cases in a very simple way. All the resources referencing this one ORGANISATION object and all the more specific resources would inherit this contact information from this one location. Easy to set up, easy to maintain. But there are other situations. For example sub allocations. We also considered that accountability is an important element of this public registry database. There is a notion that when a resource is allocated or assigned by the RIPE NCC to an organisation, then that organisation is ultimately responsible for anything that happens regarding that resource. This is why ORGANISATION objects are mandatory for any organisation that wants to hold internet resources. So we considered that if part of the responsibility has been delegated to another organisation with a sub allocation, it is not unreasonable that another ORGANISATION object should be created to reflect this delegated responsibility. If this second organisation handles the abuse reporting for this sub allocation, then another "abuse-c:" attribute can be added to their ORGANISATION object to reflect this. If the LIR who is responsible for this allocation, including the sub allocation, wants to handle all abuse reports for the whole of their allocation then no "abuse-c:" should be added to the second ORGANISATION object. The sub allocation will then continue to inherit the abuse contact details of the LIR who holds the whole resource. Inheritance vs Scattering The data model for the RIPE Database was not designed with inheritance in mind. In many situations duplicated, redundant data is scattered all over the database. There are over 3 million INETNUM objects in the database. They all contain one or more "admin-c:" and "tech-c:" attributes. In reality all these references are to a few tens of thousands of individual roles. These contacts could be inherited from the ORGANISATION objects in the way "abuse-c:" has been set up. The "abuse-c:" was designed to be inherited and not to be duplicated where it is not needed. The changes made recently to Webupdates by the RIPE NCC (without any discussion) breaks the inheritance of "abuse-c:". It forces the scattering of more redundant data throughout the database. If you create an ORGANISATION object with Webupdates it forces the addition of an "abuse-c:" attribute whether it is needed or not. They argue that you can refer to an existing ROLE object making it the same abuse contact. Even if this was set up correctly it is redundant data. In reality people setting this up quickly will just take the easy option of giving any email address (mickey(a)mouse.com). They may not realise the impact of this. But this simple mistake overrides the LIRs genuine abuse contact details from any point in a network where this new ORGANISATION object is referenced. Understanding your network and the RIPE Database What it comes down to is that you should understand how your network is structured. You should at least know who needs to be contacted, for what reason, from which point in your network. Unfortunately with the current data model you also need to have at least a basic understanding of how the data is structured within the RIPE Database. And to be honest if you don't understand the basic structure of the RIPE Database you should not be managing data in it, maintaining it or documenting it. With knowledge of your network and the database you can decide where you need to put "abuse-c:" attributes. DO NOT add extra, redundant "abuse-c:" attributes. What can possibly go wrong? In defence of their unannounced changes to Webupdates, the RIPE NCC has argued that adding additional "abuse-c:" attributes is harmless and will NOT lead to bad data in the database. Forcing users to add additional, redundant data that breaks the principle of inheritance is in itself technically wrong. But without being a technical purist what else can go wrong? Once these additional references have been added, the seeds have been sown for future mistakes. It all depends now on who maintains what and who is notified of what changes. The referenced ROLE object can be changed or the "abuse-mailbox:" value in the ROLE object can be changed. This could be accidental or with good intent, but just got it wrong or even maliciously. Without the proper checks this can easily go unnoticed. Over time some/many of these redundant references may/will get out of sync with what they should refer to. In a few years time someone will argue that all this contact data is messed up, abuse-c did not work and we will invent a new system... The missing bit The "abuse-c:" attribute does work and will work well if used properly. But there is one bit missing from the original design....proper notifications. We need another attribute adding to the ORGANISATION object abuse-notif: [required] [multiple] [] This will allow the resource holder to keep an audit trail of any changes made to the abuse contact details for any parts of their resources. The 'required' (as defined in the database documentation) means it is syntactically optional, but business rules enforce it's presence in some situations. This should be added to any ORGANISATION object referenced by a resource object. Any addition, change or deletion of any part of the abuse contact details ("abuse-c: attribute, referenced ROLE object, "abuse-mailbox:" attribute) at any part of a network will be notified to the resource holder's email address specified in this attribute. Only the "abuse-notif:" referenced via the top level of a resource object will be notified. Any redundant references in more specific objects will be ignored (and should be removed, warned or disallowed). This means the resource holder will always be notified if anything is changed at any point in the resources/networks they are responsible for. I also think it would be useful if RIPEstat could give a visual representation of where abuse contacts are located within a network. This would allow a resource holder to review who is managing abuse for any part of their networks.

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[training] RIPE NCC Webinars - new dates
by Training Services 13 Jan '16

13 Jan '16

Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce the launch of new dates for our Webinars. The RIPE NCC Webinars are live and take only one hour. You can interact with our trainers without leaving your desk. We focus on the topics and issues most important for LIRs. Register now at https://www.ripe.net/lir-services/training/e-learning/webinars Participation is limited to 20 people, so don't hesitate if you want to take part! If you have questions, please email <training(a)ripe.net>. We look forward to seeing you online. Kind regards, RIPE NCC Training Services

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Meanwhile, at ICANN...
by Shane Kerr 06 Jan '16

06 Jan '16

All, Not necessarily RIPE Database related, but I thought I'd point out that ICANN is considering replacing WHOIS for gTLD: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2016-01-04-en Cheers, -- Shane

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Release 1.84 deployed to RC
by Tim Bruijnzeels 09 Dec '15

09 Dec '15

Dear working group, We have deployed release 1.84 to RC. This release was necessary to prepare for hardware upgrades of the whois infrastructure. Note that this release does not include the work for deprecating "changed:". This work will be part of release 1.85 that we plan to deploy to RC on 21 December, and to production on 1 February 2016. We needed to give precedence to this release, so that we will be able to upgrade the server infrastructure in January, while the release for "changed:" is still being evaluated in RC. Even though we plan to deploy 1.85 to RC on 21 December, we will only upgrade the server hardware and move to 1.84 in production in January. This upgrade does not include any API changes, however the hardware upgrade itself will involve a short outage of the RIPE DB updates. We want to do this operation after the end of year holidays when we are fully staffed, and will communicate a more detailed plan closer to the date. Please let us know if you have any concerns, comments or questions. Kind regards, Tim Bruijnzeels Assistant Manager Software Engineering RIPE NCC Database Group

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[training] RIPE NCC Training Courses January-March 2016
by Training Services 07 Dec '15

07 Dec '15

Dear colleagues, Our training team travels the RIPE NCC service region to deliver training courses to our members without any additional cost. Over the next few months, we'll be in Amsterdam, London, Toulouse, Prague, Baku, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Vilnius, Chisinau, Bishkek. Visit the following page to register and to check which training courses we are giving in your area: https://lirportal.ripe.net/training/courses The RIPE NCC delivers the following training courses: - LIR Training Course - RIPE Database Training Course - Basic IPv6 Training Course - DNSSEC Training Course - 2 days Advanced IPv6 Training Course - 2 days BGP Operations and Security Training Course For more information visit: https://www.ripe.net/support/training/courses With kind regards, Rumy Spratley-Kanis Training Services Manager

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anyone using the RIPE Databse MUST now have an SSO account?
by ripedenis＠yahoo.co.uk 02 Dec '15

02 Dec '15

Hi guys When was it discussed, agreed or announced that Webupdates will no longer allow objects to be created or updated with a password? As Webupdates is the only way to access an unfiltered version of your own MNTNER object, it is no longer possible to even retrieve a version of your own MNTNER without signing up for an SSO account. I did not realise this has become mandatory. So has it been agreed that SSO is the only authorisation method allowed to access the RIPE Database? Did I miss the announcement that passwords and PGP are being deprecated? cheersdenis

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revisiting rpsl-related set of rcf documents?
by Wilfried Woeber 26 Nov '15

26 Nov '15

Following up on the discussion here, during the DB-WG session in Bucharest, where changes to different aspects of using the RIPE registry database - including a reference to discussions relating to cross-RIR authorisation - I'd like to ask the following question to the community: Is it about time to revisit the set of RFCs and either get them updated to properly reflect the (more) current reality, or consciously have them declared historic and overtaken by events? What's your point of view? Thanks, Wilfried

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RIPE TEST DATABASE REST INTERFACE PROBLEM
by PRANEETH, MANASVI 25 Nov '15

25 Nov '15

Hi, I have created a maintainer EIPAM-MNT for testing the ripe rest in Test system. But looks like the query/update function is not working through rest Interface. Can you confirm whether the RIPE REST is working for TEST database. [cid:image001.png@01D125DE.B2187610] Request sent: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <whois-resources> <objects> <object type="INET6NUM"> <source id="TEST"/> <attributes> <attribute name="inet6num" value="2001:1be0:1000:1e::/64"/> <attribute name="netname" value="EIPAMGUYATT"/> <attribute name="descr" value="EIPAMGUYATT"/> <attribute name="country" value="US"/> <attribute name="admin-c" value="EP1-TEST"/> <attribute name="tech-c" value="EP1-TEST"/> <attribute name="status" value="ASSIGNED"/> <attribute name="mnt-by" value="EIPAM-MNT"/> <attribute name="mnt-lower" value="TEST-DBM-MNT"/> <attribute name="source" value="TEST"/> </attributes> </object> </objects> </whois-resources> Response received: Errormessage part: <errormessages> <errormessage severity="Error" text="Authorisation for [%s] %s failed using "%s:" no valid maintainer found "> <args value="inet6num"/> <args value="2001:1be0:1000:1e::/64"/> <args value="mnt-by"/> <args value=""/> </errormessage> <errormessage severity="Error" text="The maintainer '%s' was not found in the database"> <args value="EIPAM-MNT"/> </errormessage> <errormessage severity="Error" text="Unknown object referenced %s"> <attribute name="tech-c" value="EP1-TEST"/> <args value="EP1-TEST"/> </errormessage> <errormessage severity="Error" text="Unknown object referenced %s"> <attribute name="mnt-by" value="EIPAM-MNT"/> <args value="EIPAM-MNT"/> </errormessage> <errormessage severity="Error" text="Unknown object referenced %s"> <attribute name="admin-c" value="EP1-TEST"/> <args value="EP1-TEST"/> </errormessage> <errormessage severity="Info" text="To create the first person/mntner pair of objects for an organisation see https://apps.db.ripe.net/startup/"/<https://apps.db.ripe.net/startup/%22/>> </errormessages> Thanks, Manasvi praneeth Nannapaneni INSTAR-EIPAM Development/office:(636) 544-5448/mp418b(a)att.com<mailto:(636)%20544-5448/mp418b@att.com>

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Database release 1.83 deployed to RC environment
by Alex Band 24 Nov '15

24 Nov '15

Dear colleagues, We are happy to announce the deployment of RIPE Database software release 1.83 to the Release Candidate (RC) environment, which has gone live on Friday 30 October. This release is still focussed on seamlessly integrating RIPE NCC Access (SSO) into the webupdates user interface. In addition, several other changes have been made, such as: - Webupdates will show full object details by default - Partial route object creation has been greatly improved, indicating which maintainer needs to complete the authorisation - When deleting a person object, you will be prompted to also delete the associated maintainer if it has no other dependencies - When trying to delete an object that is still referenced, you will get a list of blocking objects - Auto-complete of person, role and organisation attributes is now available throughout the interface - The TEST database now has its own URL instead of having to be selected with a radio button Please let us know if you have any questions or comments. Kind regards, Alex Band Product Manager RIPE NCC

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