- ncc-services-wg - mailman.ripe.net

Page listing IP allocations sorted by country?
by Hank Nussbacher 29 Nov '04

29 Nov '04

There used to be a page listing all IP allocations sorted by country. I can't find it on the new RIPE web site. Can anyone help? Thanks, Hank

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LIR Portal Outage
by Shane Kerr 29 Nov '04

29 Nov '04

Dear Colleagues, On Monday, 29 November 2004, between 13:50 and 15:15 CET, logins were not possible to the LIR Portal: https://lirportal.ripe.net This service is now restored. We apologise for the outage, and any inconvenience this may have caused you. Regards, Shane Kerr Software Manager RIPE NCC

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NRO Response to ITU Comments on the Management of Internet Protocol (IP) Addresses
by Axel Pawlik 15 Nov '04

15 Nov '04

Dear Colleagues, As part of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, a proposal has been made that could dramatically affect the way Internet number resources are distributed and managed. On 21 October 2004, the Director of ITU-TSB published a memorandum, "ITU and Internet Governance" for public comment. This memorandum includes a proposal to create a new IPv6 address space distribution process, based solely on national authorities. This could have a serious impact on RIPE NCC Members, Internet operators and the global Internet community at large. The Number Resource Organization (NRO), on behalf of the Regional Internet Registries, has prepared a public response to the ITU memorandum detailing the flaws of the proposal and the negative impact it would have on Internet operations. A summary of this response is available at: http://www.nro.net/documents/nro18.html The full response is available at: http://www.nro.net/documents/nro17.html The original ITU memorandum is available at: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/tsb-director/itut-wsis/files/zhao-netgov01.doc We urge our members and others in the Internet community to make their views about this issue known. Without your support being *visible* and *explicit* the bottom-up, consensus based model on which the success of the Internet has been founded may be replaced by the top-down bureaucracy of "Internet Governance". To show your support: - RIPE NCC Members: Log in to the LIR Portal and tick the support box. If you do not have an LIR Portal account, please email your expression of support to: contact(a)ripe.net - Non-members: Please email to: im-support(a)ripe.net. An email archive of expressions of support will be available at: http://www.ripe.net/maillists/ncc-archives/im-support/ - ITU-TSB Members: Please also contact your ITU member state representative to voice your concerns you might have. Internet number resource distribution is fair and accessible to all. Its policy development process is open and transparent. It works. Let us keep it that way. Regards, Axel Pawlik Managing Director RIPE NCC

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Service affecting power outage
by Ruud de Kooter 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

Dear Colleagues, On Thursday, 11th November, between 17:45 and 18:20 CET, we faced a power outage in two of our cabinets at our hosting facility. The following services were affected between 18:00 and 18:40 CET: - www.ripe.net - ftp.ripe.net - lirportal.ripe.net - ASO/NRO websites - Whois updates, this service was restored at 21:30 CET We apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused to your operations. Regards, RIPE NCC Operations

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Alex Dempsey/Vodafone is out of the office.
by alex.dempsey＠vodafone.com 09 Nov '04

09 Nov '04

I will be out of the office starting 08/11/2004 and will not return until 22/11/2004. I will be out of the office starting 08/11/2004 and will not return until 22/11/2004. For any urgent queries, please call me on +353 87 6227222, otherwise I will respond to your message on my return. Regards, Alex Dempsey ****************************************************************************** The content of this e-mail may be confidential or legally privileged. If you are not the named addressee or the intended recipient please do not copy it or forward it to anyone. If you have received this email in error please destroy it and kindly notify the sender and postmaster.ie(a)vodafone.com. Email cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free, it is your responsibility to ensure that the message (including attachments) is safe and authorised for use in your environment. Vodafone Ireland Limited. Directors: Peter Bamford Chairman (UK), Pauline Best (UK), Paul Donovan Chief Executive (UK), Gerry Fahy, David Boorman (UK), David Smithwhite (UK), Patrick Teahon, Alfred Kane. Registered in Ireland at MountainView, Leopardstown, Dublin 18. Co Reg No.: 326967 VAT Reg No. IE6346967G ******************************************************************************

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RIPE49 - NCC Services WG Draft Minutes
by Bijal Sanghani 08 Nov '04

08 Nov '04

Dear All, Please see draft minutes from the NCC Services Working Group at RIPE 49. Please send any questions, comments or clarifications to Kurtis, myself or this mailing list. regards, Bijal ---- RIPE 49 Meeting RIPE NCC Services Working Group Date: Tuesday 21 September 2004 Time: 14.00 - 15.30 Date: Thursday 23 September 2004 Time: 14.00 - 15.30 Location: Medici Ballroom ----------------------------------------------------- A. Administrative Matters (5 min) - Welcome - Select a scribe Nathalie Dougall (RIPE NCC) - Distribute participants list - Finalise agenda - Approve minutes from RIPE 48: http://www.ripe.net/wg/ncc-services/r48-minutes.html Minutes approved. ----------------------------------------------------- B. RIPE NCC Update - Axel Pawlik (10-15 min) http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49- services-ncc.pdf *Updates and highlights *Preview of Activity Plan 2005 *Training Services Department *Membership Liaison *Resigning of Standard Service Agreements * Communications *New Projects *Software Engineering *Operations "Membership Focus is the Name of the Game" - RIPE NCC ----------------------------------------------------- C. RIPE NCC Activity Plan 2005 - Axel Pawlik (10-15 min) http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49- services-ncc.pdf *Member Service Desk *Membership Survey 2005 *New Training Methods *Anti-SPAM *More K Rootserver anycast *AP2005 ----------------------------------------------------- D. Anti-Spam Measures at NCC - Jim Reid (10-15 min) http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49- services-spam.pdf - Jim is not representing an LIR nor is he a member, but has been getting spam from the NCC. He has discussed this with some RIPE NCC Hostmasters and software people. The spam issue is also not good from NCC's point of view and Jim wants to tackle this by seeing a better policy in dealing with spam. - Jim gets spam, then replies to the NCC and is told to contact his ISP. He finds this response unsatisfactory and annoying because some spam originates from the RIPE NCC, and not necessarily from the ISP. - Jim feels that the problem should be stopped before it gets to his network and costs him. - Some NCC servers use different programs i.e. Spam Assassin, Blacklist etc. However, the policy is unclear. - Not clear which anti-spam policies are in place regarding the different mailing lists because it depends on the server that it is sitting on. Is there a Policy Vacuum? Documentation/policy and info on the NCC site is difficult to find. Information should be made more visible. Jim asks NCC staff if they could document and suggest improvements. Kurtis asks whether there is any comment on this? Kurtis asks the NCC to come back with some proposals for the mailing list and at the next meting. Daniel makes jabber comment from Webmaster: there is text on the website: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/about/maillists.html Andrei Robachevsky (RIPE NCC): I think you raised an important point, as spam causes problems for the NCC as well, and this is partly because of policy issues. For example: even for group mailing lists, they are quiet and free from spam as we do "human" spam filtering. i.e. only subscribers can post to the list, which reduces a huge amount of spam. We are now making classification of mailing lists and we are developing a consistent policy with regards to spam. Jim Reid (DNS MODA): That would be good. Sometimes my mail gets held up if I'm not a member of other working group lists. Another interesting issue is statistics: it would be nice to have the information of how much spam is arriving on your servers every day and how much is being thrown away. This would be helpful to know, in order to put things in context. Andrei Robachevsky: we can make the statistical poll Kurtis: leave it with Andrei to get back to the mailing list and will discuss at next meeting in Stockholm Kurtis thanks Jim for making proposal and mentions that when the Services Working Group was set up after the RIPE meeting in Barcelona, this was the idea - that members of the community would present to the WG. 14:44 session closes. ----------------------------------------------------- (Thursday:) E. RIPE NCC Billing Procedures and Charging Scheme - Jochem de Ruig (10-15 min) http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49- services-billing.pdf *General Billing Information *Billing Procedure www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/billing-2004.html *Billing 2004 *Outlook for 2005 Comments: - Denesh Bhabuta (Aexiomus): We are told that if you have a VAT number, then it shouldn't appear on the bill, but when we attend meetings, it appears on the bill and its extremely difficult to claim this back. - Jochem de Ruig (RIPE NCC): - in principle, in the Netherlands the VAT is included in your meeting fee and you can claim that back from the Dutch tax authorities if you want to. - Denesh Bhabuta (Aexiomus): This is difficult, but if you can do it with the membership fees, then there's no reason why you can't do it with the meeting fees. - Jochem de Ruig (RIPE NCC): Yes, I wish I could do it. What we say to the Dutch tax authorities is that the service fee is an international transaction, which is why we can shift the VAT from us to you. But with a meeting that is in the Netherlands, it is clear that the service is done in the NL, so we are not allowed by the tax authorities to shift the VAT to you, so I can't put on the receipt saying "VAT shifted" and that you submit it here locally. Unfortunately. Presentation on the Charging Scheme and the Scoring Algorithm http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49- services-billing.pdf *Charging Scheme process *Scoring Algorithm 2004 • Size determined on basis of 2 variables, namely: - Prefix of the allocation/assignment - Age of the allocation/assignment 14:40 Jochem ends. No questions ----------------------------------------------------- F. RIPE NCC Training Team activities and developments - Rumy Kanis (20 min) http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49- services-training.pdf *Outline of courses: LIR, Routing Registry and DNSSec *Seminars and presentations - We have started offering presentations at conferences/meetings - please send requests! *Training in 2004 *Training in 2005 *Developing Training Services *Hosting ----------------------------------------------------- G. Feedback from Recent LIR Mergers - Kurtis (10-15 min) http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49- services-mergers.pdf A presentation on how LIR's work with the RIPE NCC with respect to mergers - we wanted to find out their experiences in dealing with the NCC on this issue. Kurtis outlines the presentation and emphasises that the NCC kept the information received from the LIR's confidential. The NCC contacted all LIR's that have completed mergers in the last 6 months. • 27 members • 22% response rate - all positive • 7.5% had ideas for improvement, namely: • Provide documentation repository • Provide a free IP admin tool to new LIRs • Re-structure audit process • Promote and encourage consultancy firms to new LIRs Comments: - Joao Damas (ISC) - It would seem more reasonable to me to have the NCC publish a well defined interface to their systems for people on the outside, whether private for own use or open source for everyone to use. - Kurtis: who are interested in this? No hands shown...How many people think the NCC should develop a tool like this that should be fully available? No one responds... - Kurtis: How many people use tools, other than an acsci file, to keep track of address space? - 10 people show their hands. How many tools like this are written by yourselves? A lot of response... - Randy Bush (IIJ): I'd like to explain why I think these two seem to be in conflict, but are not... These tools are a small part of our toolset and are integrated with the rest of them. So you are trying to produce a standard one that is not going to fit in with the rest of our puzzle. - Kurtis: Would it be more useful to have a standardised date format tool? - Randy Bush (IIJ): To exchange what with whom? - Kurtis - If you are merging LIR's you need to take the data you have... - Randy Bush (IIJ): I don't have any plans to merge. It would be useful to have this if I could use it today, but to justify spending the money in case there is a merger in the future would be more difficult to sell to my manager. -Kurtis promises to take this discussion and ideas to the mailing list as there appears to be some interest, though it will take a lot of work to get this developed. Jabber question: Someone asks whether a standard format will actually help with mergers? - Kurtis: The feedback was from people who had done mergers, and they said that it would help. My own experience is that I think it would help in a merger process. ----------------------------------------------------- H. Topic's for Discussion - Kurtis Lindqvist http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49- services-discussion.pdf Kurtis will present this as "himself" and as general member of the community. Observation of how the process of activity planning and how the Services Working group is progressing. *Timing of input to the Activity Plan and Budget Rob Blokzijl (RIPE Chair): I think it’s important to have a well-structured way for this group to produce input for the AP. The difference between 3 meetings per year (up until now) and 2 meetings per year, which we will try out next year, is the January meeting. At the January meeting - no one thinks of the AP as it was just agreed at the end of the previous year. The May meeting was the one where, in timely fashion we could bring ideas for AP for following year and the fall meeting in September is last opportunity where we can bring ideas for next years AP. So, in practice, not much has really changed from 3 meetings per year to 2 meetings per year. We only miss the January meeting, where people think that the AP is for "later" this year, anyway. - Kurtis: if we have 3 meetings per year we would have the opportunity to make process better. I do not want to reopen the discussion, it is just an observation. Rob Blokzijl (RIPE Chair): I want to remind all that proposing changes and additions doesn't have a formal date and can happen at any moment of the year. Anyone can generate input to folks who have final responsibility to draft AP. This can happen via mailing lists or working groups, for example. Face-to-face meetings generate more interest. Channels are not being closed or narrowed. End discussion. *Proposal: Increase focus of work A new RIPE meeting plan? The first part of week could be for operational content and the second part of the week could be used for policy discussions. It would mean that people could better focus on topics and attend what they are interested in. Don't know what this would do to attendance numbers though! - Rob Blokzijl (RIPE Chair): I fully support this, and find it a valuable exercise to develop this further. We should go through all the agendas of the WGs and the EOF etc. and see how this week would have worked with such a framework. Based on that, we can try to design something and maybe try it out at the next RIPE meeting. It needs careful thought and preparation, but I see the advantages. - Randy Bush (IIJ): operations of what? - Kurtis: You know what I mean. - Randy - No I don't. I find very little operational content here for what I consider to be operations, as an ISP. - Kurtis: I don't disagree, but if you look at the charter of the working groups, there is a difference between Address policy and the Services Working Group. - Rob Blokzijl (RIPE Chair): On Randy's comment. It would be great to have more operational stuff in, so operators do something! - Joao Damas (ISC): I am just confused. I thought I was attending a RIPE meeting, not a RIPE NCC meeting. I heard you say that decision to go from 3 to 2 meetings per year was based on the NCC membership. - Kurtis: Comment was from NCC Membership Survey. It was discussed at length in the plenary, and it is a discussion that belongs in the plenary, not here. - Joao Damas (ISC): That is exactly my next point. If this is a RIPE meeting, then this discussion should take place in the plenary, not the NCC Services Working Group. A lot of people that come here have no interaction with the RIPE NCC and as time goes by, the purpose is to meet people, do business and eventually learn of operations and hopefully that is part of the content that develops more. So maybe if there is no need to have 3 meetings per year, we can actually follow the NANOG model, have a shorter meeting and skip Address policy? But again, this should be discussed somewhere else if this is the RIPE meeting. No other comments Y. Open Microphone No other business. Z. AOB None.

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RIPE NCC Website Downtime
by Ruud de Kooter 29 Oct '04

29 Oct '04

Dear Colleagues, On Thursday, 28th October, between 20:45 and 23:20 CET, the www.ripe.net website was unavailable, due to technical issues. We apologise for any inconvenience that this downtime may have caused to your operations. Regards, RIPE NCC Operations

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IPv4 policy document and request forms updated
by leo vegoda 28 Oct '04

28 Oct '04

Dear Colleagues, The RIPE NCC has updated the policy document, "IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region". This update documents the recent changes to the policy for allocation sizes as follows: - Minimum first allocation size is /21. - Minimum first allocation size for LIRs operating in Africa is /22. As a consequence of this update, and in order to incorporate other input, we have also updated the following documents: - Supporting Notes for the Provider Independent (PI) Assignment Request Form. - Provider Independent (PI) Assignment Request Form. - Supporting Notes for the IPv4 First Allocation Request Form. - Supporting Notes for the Autonomous System Number Request Form. - AS Number Request Form. There will be no change to the way you complete the request forms. As the updates to the forms listed above are purely textual, the version number of the forms will not change. Kind regards, -- leo vegoda Registration Services Manager RIPE NCC

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RIPE 49 Meeting Report
by Nick Hyrka 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

[Apologies for duplicate mails.] RIPE 49 MEETING REPORT Dear Colleagues, The RIPE 49 Meeting was held from 20 - 24 September 2004 at the Renaissance Hotel, Manchester, United Kingdom. There were 301 participants at the meeting. Attendees also included government representatives and representatives from AfriNIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC and ICANN. HIGHLIGHTS Highlights of RIPE 49 included an update on the Number Resource Organization from Axel Pawlik, Managing Director, RIPE NCC; a discussion on the RIPE policy development process; a proposal to restructure RIPE Meetings into three days on operational/technical content followed by two days on policy related issues. The ASO held an election for a seat on the ASO Address Council. Hans Petter Holen was re-elected. Geoff Huston, APNIC, gave a report on the routing table status for IPv4 and IPv6. This presentation is available at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/ripe49-plenary-bgp.… The European Operators Forum (EOF) featured presentations on peering and core network security. EOF presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/eof.html The RIPE NCC, LINX, TeleCity, Telecomplete and XChange Point Europe are thanked for the support they provided to the meeting. BT Net are thanked for the excellent provision of the meeting Internet connectivity. SUMMARY ADDRESS POLICY WORKING GROUP - It was agreed that IPv6 allocations from IANA to the RIRs had to be increased in terms of block size, and that /12 was the best allocation size to use. - RIPE Chair, Rob Blokzijl, announced that he would publish a draft of the policy development process for the RIPE region. - There was discussion on the usage of HD ratio for IPv4 and the forthcoming formal proposal regarding this. - The 200 End Users requirement for receiving an IPv6 allocation was discussed and it was agreed that a formal proposal to remove it should be sent to the community. Address Policy Working Group presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#ap DATABASE WORKING GROUP - It was agreed that the RIPE NCC should implement the 'abuse-c:' attribute in the 'irt', 'person', 'role' and 'inet[6]num' object classes. - It was agreed that the RIPE NCC should implement the 'poem' object in the RIPE Database. Database Working Group presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#db TEST TRAFFIC MEASUREMENT (TTM) WORKING GROUP - It was noted that ten test boxes, throughout the RIPE region, have been added to the RIPE NCC Test Traffic Measurements matrix in 2004. Test Traffic Working Group presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#tt ANTI-SPAM WORKING GROUP - A tutorial on message headers was given by Rodney Tillotson, Working Group Chair. - The group discussed the issue of improving the RIPE Database for abuse contacts. There was a majority support for a combination of 'irt' objects with some modifications, and for changes to the default Whois behaviour. Anti-Spam Working Group presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#anti-spam IPv6 WORKING GROUP - The RIPE NCC announced that K-root has been IPv6-enabled since August 2004. - Geoff Huston, APNIC, gave an update on multihoming in IPv6. - There was discussion about IPv6 glue for root name servers. IPv6 Working Group presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#ipv6 EIX WORKING GROUP - It was noted that the switching wish list is in last call and that the final review will take place at the Euro-IX meeting in Athens (October 2004). - It was noted that an Inter Providers Traffic Analyzer tool is available from the Milan Internet Exchange. EIX Working Group presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#eix ENUM WORKING GROUP - There was a presentation from the United Kingdom's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on an ENUM Consultation regarding how ENUM should be operated in the UK. - There was a presentation on ENUM deployment in Sweden. ENUM Working Group Presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#enum DNS WORKING GROUP - It was agreed that the DNS Working Group should take up responsibility for documenting the issues around DNS server migration. - It was noted that the DNS Working Group Chair would collect requirements for the DNS samples and statistics. - It was noted that the DNS Working Group Chair would coordinate the production of a RIPE Document based on Fernando Garcia's DNS Server Migration document. DNS Working Group presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#dns ROUTING WORKING GROUP - It was announced that the maintenance of the IRR Toolset has been transferred from the RIPE NCC to the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC). - There was discussion on securing the network through hiding the core. - There was an overview of the RIS project and discussion on the various uses of the myASn BGP monitoring tool. Routing Working Group presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#routing RIPE NCC SERVICES WORKING GROUP - It was agreed that the RIPE Chair would look at the possibilities of reworking the framework of RIPE meetings, so that operational content would come at the beginning of the meeting week and policy discussions would come at the end of the week. - It was agreed that the RIPE NCC would generate statistics on the quantity of spam on the RIPE NCC servers. RIPE NCC Services Working Group presentations can be viewed at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/presentations/index.html#ncc-serv… TUTORIALS The RIPE NCC Training Team presented the RIPE NCC IP Request Tutorial. It explained address space assignment and allocation procedures in the RIPE NCC region: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/lir-course/index.html RIPE 49 WEBCASTING AND ARCHIVES During RIPE 49, the RIPE NCC held trials in collecting feedback from participants watching the webcast. The mediums used for this were IRC and Jabber. Archives of presentations, webcasts and IRC/Jabber feedback from RIPE 49 are available at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/sessions-archive.html HOSTMASTER CONSULTATION CENTRE (HCC) The RIPE NCC Hostmaster Consultation Centre was open at RIPE 49, allowing RIPE NCC Members to discuss issues relating to their business directly with RIPE NCC Hostmasters. "MEET & GREET" The RIPE NCC's "Meet & Greet" was available for first-time RIPE Meeting attendees at RIPE 49. "Meet & Greet" introduces newcomers to the meetings, to key attendees from the RIPE community and to social events throughout the week. More information can be obtained by contacting <meet-greet(a)ripe.net>. RIPE 49 REFERENCE PAGE A complete list of RIPE 49 sessions, tutorials and presentations can be found at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/index.html RIPE 50 RIPE 50 will be held in Stockholm, Sweden from 2 - 6 May 2005. Information on RIPE 50 will soon be made available at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-50/ If you have any questions about RIPE Meetings, please contact <meeting(a)ripe.net>. -- end --

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Recent Database update changes
by Denis Walker 13 Oct '04

13 Oct '04

[ Apologies for duplicate messages ] Dear Colleagues, In preparation of a new release of the Whois software we have fixed several bugs and implemented some of the simple features asked for over the last few months for the update program, dbupdate. A brief description follows of the features implemented. 1) Change to the overall result of a mail update message. During the re-structuring of the dbupdate program we changed the way we report the overall result of a mail update. This caused some confusion and we have now returned to the behaviour of the previous version of dbupdate. To make this clear here are the outcomes we now report: A blank update message - FAILED: ANY object update failed - FAILED: Otherwise - SUCCESS: 2) Handling of keywords in the Subject: line of a mail update. Currently there are only two keywords used by dbupdate. These are NEW and HELP (HOWTO is also valid but taken to mean the same as HELP). NEW forces all objects found in the mail message to be treated as a creation request. Any object that already exists will result in an error. HELP returns help text. To use a keyword it has to be put in the Subject: line of the mail message, with NO other words present. If any other word is found for example Subject: NEW objects then none of the words are actioned as keywords and they are all reported in the acknowledgement reply as invalid keywords. In this context it is impossible for dbupdate to know if a word is a keyword. As many users often include their own reference in the Subject: line it means it is impossible for them to also use a keyword and they always get their references reported in the Warning messages af the acknowledgement. To overcome these problems we have introduced a KEYWORDS: tag. When this tag is found in a Subject: line all text up to and including this KEYWORDS: tag is ignored by dbupdate. Only what follows this tag is checked for valid keywords. The same rules apply as before. If a word is found after the KEYWORDS: tag that is not a valid keyword none of the words are actioned as keywords. In this case all the words following the KEYWORDS: tag are reported as invalid keywords in the acknowledgement reply. Adding the KEYWORDS: tag at the end of a Subject: line means that valid keywords can still be used with a users reference in the same line. By adding the KEYWORDS: tag at the end of the Subject: line with no keywords following it means that the users reference will not be reported as invalid keywords. The default behaviour is unaltered. A keyword can still be placed on a line with no other words and actioned. We could easily make another change, if users would prefer it, so that keywords will ONLY be accepted if they follow the KEYWORDS: tag. This would make the default behaviour ignore the whole Subject: line and not report any of it as errors if the KEYWORDS: tag is not found. This default behaviour may be more appropriate to the way the Subject: line is currently used in most cases. Please let us know if this is preferred. All keywords and the KEYWORDS: tag are case insensitive. 3) Differnce in notification messages We have been asked to highlight changes in the notification message between the old and new objects for a modification operation. This is particularly useful when "import:" and "export:" attributes are changed in large AUT-NUM objects. This has now been implemented as a selectable option. To request it the user includes the keyword DIFF. When this DIFF keyword is used each object in the notification message that is a modify operation will include a difference before the standard output of the old and new versions of the objects. So the output will have the difference listing followed by the old and new objects. For example, a new subject line may look like this Subject: changes to aut-num: as1234 KEYWORDS: DIFF The difference is the standard unix diff, but with one slight change. In our acknowledgement and notification messages we have used three dashes --- followed by a new line to signify the start of a section relating to an object. This is to make it easy to parse the output and find the start of each object in the message. Unfortunately diff also uses --- to seperate lines that have changed. So we have had to replace --- with === in the diff output. If the DIFF keyword is not used the output remains unchanged. Using a simple PERSON object as the example the new output is as follows: --- OBJECT BELOW MODIFIED: Differences in [person] TP10-DB-TEST 7c7,8 < notify: case040-1(a)ripe.net === > changed: dbtest(a)ripe.net 20040101 > notify: case040-2(a)ripe.net person: Test Person address: Singel 258 address: Amsterdam phone: +31 20 535 4444 nic-hdl: TP10-DB-TEST changed: dbtest(a)ripe.net 20020101 notify: case040-1(a)ripe.net source: DB-TEST REPLACED BY: person: Test Person address: Singel 258 address: Amsterdam phone: +31 20 535 4444 nic-hdl: TP10-DB-TEST changed: dbtest(a)ripe.net 20020101 changed: dbtest(a)ripe.net 20040101 notify: case040-2(a)ripe.net source: DB-TEST 4) Include person/role name in creation results. The last additional feature is to include the name of a PERSON or ROLE object in the acknowledgement output after a successful creation. Previously only the new nic-hdl was listed. For example, if two PERSON objects are created using AUTO- nic-hdls for Denis Walker and David Wilkinson the reply would only say DW23-RIPE and DW24-RIPE have been created. The user would then have to do a whois lookup to determine which was which. The reply now states: --- Create SUCCEEDED: [person] DW23-DB-TEST Denis Walker --- Create SUCCEEDED: [person] DW24-DB-TEST David Wilkinson Regards Denis Walker RIPE NCC Software Engineering Department.

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