Dear Colleagues, [Apologies for multiple messages]. The new version of database consistency project, along with whois server usage statistics have been released on the RIPE NCC's web pages, with the following url: http://www.ripe.net/db/dbconstat/ The goal of this project is to find the objects with consistencies not enforced by the database, and provide reports and statistics to help users correct them. It also aims at checking for the necessary protection of objects and tracing the query and update statistics of the RIPE whois server to analyze the current trends of using the database. The goals of the consistency project do not include, for example, reality checks for inetnum objects, but it addresses only internal inconsistencies in the database, such as invalid references. Here are the types of inconsistencies which are addressed in this project: * Inetnum object related: * Inetnum objects without status attribute, * Assigned inetnum objects without allocations, * Overlapping inetnum objects, * Inetnum objects with suspicious boundaries to form a network, * Assigned inetnum objects from assignments, * Inetnum objects with wrong PA or PI status, * Wrongly allocated inetnum objects. * Person object related: * Person objects with multiple identical copies, * Person objects which do not have any references to them, * Person objects not having a valid nic-handle, * Objects which have references to invalid nic-handles. * Maintainer object related: * Maintainer objects which do not have any references to them. * Protection related: * Weak authentications schemes for maintainers. * Inetnum objects with no mnt-lower attribute. Reports about individual inconsistencies are sent only to the maintainers of objects. If you'd like to receive the report for your inconsistencies, send an e-mail to auto-dbcon@ripe.net containing the maintainer name in its body, and the appropriate authentication. * If the authentication of your maintainer is MAIL-FROM, mail should be sent from the appropriate e-mail address, and should contain the following in its body: mntner: <maintainer_name> * If the authentication of your maintainer is CRYPT-PW, mail should contain the following lines in its body: mntner: <maintainer_name> password: <password> * If the authentication of your maintainer is PGPKEY, mail should contain the following line and should be signed with the appropriate key: mntner: <maintainer_name> If you supply an existing maintainer and the proper authentication, the report of the inconsistencies related to the maintainer will be mailed back to you. For questions, comments and suggestions, please contact ripe-dbm@ripe.net. -- Can Bican RIPE NCC