From that point this handle must be included in any updates made to
Folks, Please find below the draft document to implement RIPE handles in the RIPE database. Please read it carefully, since it will impact registration of people. Current timescales: from draft to official document: Dec 13th (1 week from now) implementation: Dec 20th (2 weeks from now) Comments please. -Marten Internet Handles and the RIPE Database Daniel Karrenberg Marten Terpstra Document ID: ripe-nh ABSTRACT This document describes the need for unique iden- tifiers for Persons and the way they are assigned and used in the RIPE database. Why Internet Handles Like other registry databases the RIPE Network Management Database [ripe-013] stores information about contact persons for various other object types stored in the database such as network numbers, DNS domains and autonomous systems. Data about each contact person is stored in a "person" object which in turn is referenced by the other objects. This way data about a real person is stored only in one place, the person object. This has the advantage that any necessary changes need to be done only in one place rather than in each object the person is a contact for. Originally each person was uniquely identified by their full name and references were implemented by storing the full person name in the contact attributes of other objects. A side effect of this was that the database could not store more than one person with the same full name. When this ("John Smith") problem became an issue another attribute was needed to disambiguate persons with the same name. Since the InterNIC was already using a "NIC Handle" scheme and it was hoped to unify the registry databases quickly these handles were used. NIC handles are unique identifiers consisting of two or three aphabetic cahracters and a serial number. A "nic-hdl" attribute was added to the person object. If present this "nic-hdl" is now used together with the "person" attribute to uniquely identify a person. The value of nic-hdl is a search key for the database and can be used to reference a contact person in the contact attributes of other objects. A side effect of this is that all persons needing a handle to ripe-nh.txt - 2 - disambiguate them from another person need to be in the InterNIC database in order to obtain a NIC handle. This was not considered a problem because quick unification of the databases was expected quickly. As it turns out the assignment of globally unique handles from a single number space is not likely to be feasible. Therefore there is a need for more local assignment of unique handles. These handles will also be used in the database exchange between regional regis- tries. The regional registries agreed to create separate handle spaces by appending a suffix identifying the registry to handles creating a unique Internet handle. This document describes the procedures to implement this in the European Regional Internet Registry. RIPE Handle Internet handles issued by the RIPE NCC are called RIPE handles. The purpose of a RIPE handle is to uniquely identify a person in the RIPE network management database and other related databases that choose to use it. A RIPE handle is a string of 2-3 letters immediately followed by a serial number without leading 0s followd by the string "-RIPE". Legal RIPE handles are: AB1-RIPE AXA123-RIPE XYZ99-RIPE Normally the letters are chosen to be the initials of the person. The -RIPE suffix is used to disctinguish RIPE-handles from Internet handles issued by other registries. Internet handles issued by the InterNIC in the RIPE database will be suffixed by the string "-INIC" to distinguish them from other handles. All persons in the RIPE database must have an Internet handle. Every person in any of the databases keeping contact information should only use Internet handle. Assignment RIPE handles are assigned by sending a person object to the normal update address <auto-dbm@ripe.net> with "nic-hdl" value of "assign". The update process will then generate a unique handle, insert the person object with the new handle in the database and report back the handle. In case there already are persons with the same full name in the database the update process will include them in the ripe-nh.txt - 3 - report so that the user can check whether he inadvertently created a duplicate person object. Users wishing to obtain a specific RIPE handle (vanity handle) can request that by specifying it after the "assign" string, e.g. "assign JB007-RIPE". If the handle in question is available it will be assigned. It should be noted that the RIPE NCC only issues RIPE handles and not other Internet handles. Usage The primary use of RIPE handles is to reference a specific person in the RIPE database, either in another object or a database query. Contact attributes can have the following types of values: John E. Doe full name not recommended AXA123-RIPE Internet Handle John E. Doe (JED12) full name (handle) recommended Wherever possible the use of full names on their own should be dis- continued. These references can become ambiguous unnoticedly at any time by another person with the same name being registered. The handle plus full name syntax is recommended because it makes it possible to detect typing errors in handles. Handles can also be used when querying the RIPE whois server. Matches will occur for either the full handle (AXA123-RIPE) or just the part before the suffix (AXA123). In the latter case all persons in the queried databases with a handle starting in AXA123 will match. Transition For the database exchange with the InterNIC it is neccessary for each person in the RIPE database to have a unique Internet handle. Therefore the NCC will assign a RIPE handle to each person without a NIC handle in the database on the 20th of December 1993. that person entry. The handle should be used in all references to a person in other database object. For the conversion of local databases the RIPE NCC will provide local registries and other interested parties with a tool which adds ripe-nh.txt - 4 - RIPE handles to persons in database objects. The tool will accept RIPE database formatted input files without syntax checking and will output the file unchanged but with handles added. The tool queries the RIPE database and can thus be run only after handles have been added to the RIPE database. Becuause there is no syntax checking the tool should work for databases with local attributes or objects as long as they adhere to the general RIPE database format. ripe-nh.txt