Change to NIC handle usage in the RIPE Database

Dear Colleagues, On Thursday, 10 September the RIPE NCC implemented a change to NIC handle usage. It is no longer possible to re-use an old NIC handle. Additional checks are made when an update is sent to the RIPE Database to create a ROLE or PERSON object. If the NIC handle is in use, or has previously been used and deleted, the update will fail and a new error message will be returned in the acknowledgement: ***Error: The nic-hdl 'name' is not available. This change was requested by the Data Protection Task Force and discussed by the Database Working Group at RIPE 58: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/db/minutes/ripe-58.html In the new implementation, users can select any NIC handle they wish in the same formats as before. The choice of characters and numbers is at the discretion of the user, within the same limits as before. The only difference is that when a NIC handle is chosen that has already been used, the update will fail. The main consequence of this is that if you delete a PERSON or ROLE object you cannot re-create it with the same NIC handle you had previously. Under the old system there was always a chance someone else could have taken your old NIC handle by the time you wanted to re-create it; this was the main reason for the change. The new system ensures that NIC handles map to people or roles uniquely over time. This change does not affect automatically generated organisation names. But we would like to hear feedback on whether it makes sense to also have these map to organisations uniquely over time. Regards, Denis Walker Business Analyst RIPE NCC

Denis, On Mon, 2009-09-14 at 13:25 +0200, Denis Walker wrote:
This change does not affect automatically generated organisation names. But we would like to hear feedback on whether it makes sense to also have these map to organisations uniquely over time.
The organisation objects are required to be created with AUTO-n as their identifier. IIRC, this was done to insure that they had no meaning, other than as arbitrary database identifiers. They do use the name of the organisation to pick some letters for the identifier, or you can specify the letters to use, so it is not completely random. This use of organisation name to get letters was done for aesthetic reasons, and also as a nod to tradition. Because of the AUTO-n requirement, it seems likely to me that the use of old handles is even less of a problem than with person/role objects. It is crazy that any identifier in the database is ever reused. Madness! -- Shane
participants (2)
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Denis Walker
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Shane Kerr