Thor Kottelin wrote:

Folks,

Email is the preferred communication medium when troubleshooting internetworking problems. Time and time again, "inetnum" objects with no valid email address cause grief. In the absence of relevant "e-mail" attributes, desperate administrators sometimes send mail to addresses found in "changed" and "notify" attributes. Sometimes the only option left is resorting to telephone calls, regardless of the expenses, time differences and language barriers often involved.

The argument against making the email attribute mandatory has always been the bootstrapping problem... In the olden days (defined by my children as "when Daddy was young") it was genuinely possible for a person in the RIPE database to not actually have an email address during the setting up phase of a LIR. I would however agree with Thor, that this circumstance no longer exists. Anyone can get a temporary email address, hotmail via the local cybercafe, if nothing else, to tide them over the bootstrapping period.

I would therefore like to suggest making the "e-mail" attribute mandatory for the "person" object. If this isn't acceptable, then maybe at least one of the "person" or "role" objects referred to by an "inetnum" object should carry an "e-mail" attribute. Additionally, in order to enhance address validity, I would like to suggest performing some kind of validation on these "e-mail" attribute values - perhaps simple syntax checking, or maybe even full round-trip SMTP testing, or something in between.

Your comments, please.

Thor

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