Hello Francis,
>The discussion about the RIPE DB domain object is still open...
>
>I remind you of the current proposal:
> (mininal) change status of zone contact, name server, sub-domain
>and reverse-server (the last one in IP network object) from mandatory
>to optional.
> (medium) change status of this attributes to obsolete.
> (maximal) delete domain object and reverse-server attribute.
my comments to the medium and maximal versions:
I clearly don't want to warm up a discussion which I didn't attend,
however, the current situation in Austria is, that both serviceproviders
and IRs (ACOnet and EUnet) have finally agreed that it is worth the
effort to register second and third-level domains in the RIPE database,
and this is done already for all 2nd-level and for all new 3rd-level
applications, cleanup of 3rd-level up to end of 1994.
Even if there are no tools actively using the domain-objects in the
RIPE-DB, me as a human beeing and network-administrator is considering
it as useful information !!! I definitely LIKE the RIPE-DB and it's
simple tools (WHOIS, WAIS), it's a great help for my daily work, so
please don't lock out valuable information, just because it's not used
by poppy auto-config-tools !!!
> - do you know a real domain where zone contact is not one of the
>technical contacts ?
Yes: e.g. univie.ac.at
zone-c: Gerhard Winkler (is responsible for the nameservers)
tech-c: Ewald Jenisch (is responsible for the router-network)
> - do you know a general tool using name server or sub-domain attributes ?
>(these informations are already available via the DNS then a strong
>argument in favor of these attributes would be a tool using them
>producing or checking the DNS. Another idea is a tool producing domain
>objects from the DNS automa{t,g}ically...).
I would prefer a tool producing DNS-entries from domain objects. When
you are just including in the RIPE-DB the information already available
in the DNS, it wouldn't make much sense. Again, even if there are no
config-tools using the domain-object, human beeings ARE ! To enforce
the administrative registration of a domain in the RIPE-DB you might
consider a tool checking DNS, comparing it with the RIPE-DB and sending
domain templates to the mail addr in the SOA if the domain is not
registered or contains wrong nserver fields (of course this tool could
do a DNS primary/secondary sanity check as well).
>Once again: this relates ONLY to DNS. If you think it's really
>necessary to clog the RIPE database with useless information
>(like nameservers; info that is present already in DNS), you
>have to come with good arguments. And please note that it is
>not forbidden for a [TLD] registrar to keep a *local* database
>with all sorts of additional info about a domain.
If there definitely are no tools using the nserver information at all
and the RIPE-DB has to safe a few kbyte disk space, for my sake drop the
nsfields, but don't drop the whole domain-object !
Regards
Christian
--- Christian Panigl : Vienna University Computer Center - ACOnet ---
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