[ editorial: I think this should move from lir-wg@ripe.net to db-wg@ripe.net So, for any follow-up, please use db-wg and remove lir-wg. Thanks. ] Alex,

Then today I got a mail from the .IE domain registry, asking me to remove entries from the RIPE DB for some .ie domains I have.

The RIPE NCC, or the RIPE community never had any authority over the ccTLD name tree in the RIPE-DB. The individual sub-trees were (some still are) managed by the respective TLDs. So, from that point of view, the request in itself is probably valid.

So far so good, except that the .ie domain registry does not have a functional whois database to which we can move this data. If I comply, the data will no longer be accessible from any whois databse.

Well, not necessarily so. What "we" (the people and groups involved to migrate the name sub-trees to dedicated registries, maintined by the TLDs) had in mind was to preserve the "single point of entry" for the RIPE region to query domain names. To that end, the DB software was extended to support a referral mechanism. Assuming that this technology is deployed, you could still send your query to whois.ripe.net and the software would try to find a referred-to server which is authoritative for the name-tree. The RIPE server would then forward the request and send the answer back to the client. Quite a few TLD registries, which already have moved away from using the RIPE DataBase have completed that setup. Others are in the process of fixing migration problems. Other, obviously, have decided to _not_ use that option. Sigh. I'm still working with the RIPE NCC's DB group and CENTR to fixing deployment problems related to the referral mechanism. A couple of days ago, a summary page has become available on CENTR's server: http://www.centr.org/technical/ripe-db.html

Is this therefore a valid request?

Thanks,

Best regards Wilfried (DB-WG chair) _________________________________:_____________________________________ Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber@CC.UniVie.ac.at UniVie Computer Center - ACOnet : Tel: +43 1 4277 - 140 33 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4277 - 9 140 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : RIPE-DB: WW144, PGP keyID 0xF0ACB369 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The strange thing about common sense is that it is so uncommon. Buddah