----- Forwarded message -----

From: ripedenis--- via db-wg <db-wg@ripe.net>

To: Cynthia Revström <me@cynthia.re>; Gert Doering <gert@space.net>; Job Snijders <job@instituut.net>

Cc: Tom Hill via db-wg <db-wg@ripe.net>

Sent: Wednesday, 2 September 2020, 00:58:21 CEST

Subject: Re: [db-wg] mntner with misleading primary key

Colleagues

My apologies for once again being a conversation killer :(

Let me try to revive this conversation and see if we have a consensus.

There seemed to be two main issues:

1/ MNTNER names not having a clear 'tag' indicating a MNTNER object

2/ MNTNER names specifically confused with ASNs

For the first part we can add a prefix (MNT-) or suffix (-MNT), or allow both options, and enforce this on all 'new' MNTNER object creations.

For the second part, if there are specific objects that 'look like' ASNs and not belonging to the organisations holding those ASNs, they can be further investigated, if it is considered necessary. Please also bear in mind that PERSON and ROLE objects can also appear to be ASNs. It is also possible to create MNTNER objects that could be confused as IP ranges to unfamiliar database users. There may be other examples of objects that could be confused as a resource object. So if we go down this route where do we draw the line?

Final comments please?

cheers

denis

co-chair DB-WG

On Thursday, 2 July 2020, 15:19:53 CEST, ripedenis--- via db-wg <db-wg@ripe.net> wrote:

Colleagues

"We can't change that anymore" Anything is possible and anything can be changed and any new rules/filters can be implemented. The RIPE NCC can, and has on many occasions in the past, done updates across the whole database to 'fix problems'.

I would suggest that you don't concern yourselves at this stage with 'how' something can be done. Discuss and debate what you think is needed or wanted and justifiable. Bearing in mind that not everyone will agree on either need or want or the justification. If we can reach a consensus on what is needed to be done, then the RIPE NCC can look at the how and the impact.

cheers

denis

co-chair DB-WG

On Wednesday, 1 July 2020, 21:55:20 CEST, Job Snijders via db-wg <db-wg@ripe.net> wrote:

On Wed, Jul 1, 2020, at 19:06, Cynthia Revström wrote:
> I was not suggesting it, I think it is a bad idea, but I interpreted
> the following as Job suggesting it.

> > I think a mandatory "-MNT" or "MNT-" or "-MAINT" is helpful because the maintainers primary key string does pop up from time to time without any context, and this can lead to confusion. See https://seclists.org/nanog/2020/Jan/650 for a fun story about how one person's email error code is another person's BGP autonomous system reference. :-)

Apologies for being not clear.

I can rephrase: it would've been nice if from the start a suffix like "-MAINT" was used to clearly label the object names as the type they are.But that ship clearly has long sailed. We can't change that anymore.

The next best thing we can now do is attempt to rename the ones that actually clash with autnums, which luckily is only a very short list, and prevent future occurrences with a creation filter.

Kind regards,

Job