August 2004 - db-wg - mailman.ripe.net

<auto-dbm@ripe.net> is slow this afternoon.
by RIPE Database Administration 17 May '18

17 May '18

Dear Colleagues, Because of a very high level of use this afternoon, the response time of <auto-dbm(a)ripe.net> is longer than normal. I have made contact with those who are responsible and I expect the situation to improve as the machine works through the queue. Please be patient. Obviously we at the RIPE NCC Database Group are continuously working to make the performance of the database as good as possible. However, we cannot make improvements in zero time. We thank you for your co-operation up to now and we ask for your continued co-operation so that everyone receives the best possible service. If you have anymore questions, please contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. Regards, Ambrose Magee ____________________________ RIPE Database Administration.

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Deprecation of the NONE Authentication Scheme
by Ziya Suzen 08 Nov '05

08 Nov '05

Dear Colleagues, As announced at RIPE 47 the NONE authentication scheme will be deprecated. After 26 April 2004 the RIPE Whois Database will not accept updates using the NONE authentication scheme. If you have objects protected by a MNTNER object which has the NONE authentication scheme, please assign another authentication scheme or create another MNTNER object to protect these objects. If you are a RIPE NCC member you can create new MNTNER objects through the LIR Portal or send your update to <auto-dbm(a)ripe.net>. History and details: -------------------- 1. Motivation The RIPE Database protects data from unauthorised modification through the use of references to maintainer objects. The maintainer objects contain an "auth:" attribute which specifiy how a user is authenticated during updates to the database. One of the allowed authentication schemes is "NONE", which is actually not an authentication at all, but rather specifies that no authentication is necessary. NONE is intended to be used consciously, as a notification facility or as a means to tag objects. In April 2003, a proposal was sent to the Database Working Group by Hank Nussbacher: It has come lately to the attention in the Internet security realm that spammers as well as crackers are hijacking IP address space. One easy way to "steal" IP address space is via those that have auth=NONE on their objects. It is likely that in many cases NONE is used simply because it is easy. Currently approximately 500 maintainers use NONE - about 5% of all maintainers. 2. Plan Normally with a database cleanup effort, an announcement is sent to the appropriate mailing lists, posted to the RIPE web page, and also sent to the specific users affected. A period of time for cleanup is given. Finally, if the users have not fixed the data then it is modified. However, for the NONE deprecation, it is inadvisable to do this as it means announcing what is in effect a security vulnerability. Also, our operational experience with past cleanups shows that most users do not really participate through the phases of the effort. Therefore, the plan for MNTNER objects with the NONE authentication scheme is: o Announcement only to db-wg mailing list. (This announcement) o Remove "auth: NONE" attributes from all MNTNER objects, by changing them to a "remarks:" attribute with a URL explaining the change. o If that is the only authentication scheme, update the mntner objects, adding MD5-PW with a generated password. o E-mail the "admin-c:" and "tech-c:" of the objects, and the e-mail addresses listed in the "upd-to:" and "mnt-nfy:" attributes of the objects, explaining the change and including the new password if one is added. o Passwords can be requested via an e-mail to <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. The reply with the password will be sent to the same contacts. After a certain period of time the service will be discontinued. Users wishing to use these maintainers may contact <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net> for assistance. 3. RIPE-NCC-NONE-MNT A maintainer with NONE authentication, RIPE-NCC-NONE-MNT, was added to objects without any maintainer when the database was converted from RIPE-181 format to RPSL format in April 2001. There is a remark in these objects which includes the following: remarks: The RIPE NCC will never use this maintainer object to remarks: enforce any sort of control over user's objects. It is possible this could have been interpreted to mean that no restriction would ever be added to the object. One use of the RIPE-NCC-NONE-MNT has been to allow the creation of objects representing routing policy for resources not allocated or assigned by the RIPE NCC. This is done by using "mnt-routes: RIPE-NCC-NONE-MNT" or "mnt-lower: RIPE-NCC-NONE-MNT" as appropriate. A new maintainer object will be created for these cases, with a well- known password, published in the object: mntner: RIPE-NCC-RPSL-MNT descr: This maintainer may be used to create objects to represent descr: routing policy in the RIPE Database for number resources not descr: allocated or assigned from the RIPE NCC. admin-c: RD132-RIPE upd-to: ripe-dbm-notify(a)ripe.net auth: MD5-PW $1$GUExyzzy$XQtbZHGVqy9GW8BiAckBV1 remarks: ******************************************************* remarks: * The password for this object is 'RPSL', without the * remarks: * quotes. * remarks: ******************************************************* mnt-by: RIPE-DBM-MNT referral-by: RIPE-DBM-MNT changed: ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net 20040301 source: RIPE The main use of this maintainer is for INETNUM objects. There are approximately 60000 such objects - about 6% of the inetnums. Updates for objects with RIPE-NCC-NONE-MNT are rare, less than 2% of all updates. For objects using RIPE-NCC-NONE-MNT: o If there are other "mnt-by:" attributes it will be changed to a "remarks:" attribute. o Otherwise, the "mnt-by:" will be changed to RIPE-NCC-LOCKED-MNT, which has a locked password (or PGP key). o A "remarks:" attribute will be added explaining how to generate a maintainer. o An e-mail will be sent to the "admin-c:" and "tech-c:" of the objects, and the e-mail addresses listed in the "notify:" attributes of the objects, explaining the change and giving a URL which will help to generate a new maintainer or assign another existing maintainer. o At the URL, the object will be automatically updated to have a new maintainer. o After a certain period of time the service will be discontinued. Users wishing to use these maintainers may contact ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net for assistance. 4. Other maintainers with "auth: NONE" The RIPE-NCC-PN-NONE-MNT was used to mark PERSON objects not to be deleted in the 2001 person cleanup. It can be removed and the maintainer deleted. The LIM-MNT is used for limericks. It will have a well-known password similar to the RPSL maintainer. It will also be maintained by another maintainer (not itself, as currently). -- Ziya Suzen RIPE NCC

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domain: object normalization
by Pim van Pelt 06 Sep '04

06 Sep '04

Hi, I keep on bumping into something with the RIPE database. I'm used to the pedantic trailing dot in hostnames, such as 'www.bit.nl.'; I also always write domains like so: '122.109.193.in-addr.arpa.'. $ whois -h whois.ripe.net 122.109.193.in-addr.arpa. % This is the RIPE Whois server. % The objects are in RPSL format. % % Rights restricted by copyright. % See http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/copyright.html %ERROR:101: no entries found % % No entries found in the selected source(s). Without the trailing dot, this works just fine. Is it feasable to have the scanner normalize the hostname/domain into something that your backend can look up ? -- Met vriendelijke groet, BIT BV / Ing P.B. van Pelt PBVP1-RIPE (PGPKEY-4DCA7E5E)

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call for agenda items, DB-WG, RIPE49 @ Manchester
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 31 Aug '04

31 Aug '04

Dear DB WG! The next DB-WG meeting is scheduled for week 39, 2004 in Manchester. Thus it is time again to ask for agenda items for the draft agenda. The "regular" items for the logistics will be provided by Nigel T. and myself, we will again have some contributions from the RIPE NCC, and whatever is contributed by your suggestions! Please note that the WG meeting will be managed by Nigel Titley as I am unable to come to Manchester this time - due to other events being scheduled for the very same week :-( Have a nice and successful meeting and get-together in Manchester! Wilfried ( https://cert.aco.net/ ) _________________________________:_____________________________________ Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Virus Warning from the RIPE NCC
by Gerard Leurs 10 Aug '04

10 Aug '04

Dear Colleagues. We are sorry for duplicate emails. On Monday 9 August 2004, a virus (bagle) was mailed to several mailing lists operated by the RIPE NCC. Unfortunately, the virus passed through the filters of several of these lists. At the moment of writing we know this happened for the db-wg, eof-wg, routing-wg. And the wg-chairs. Please do not open any suspicious .zip files. Please make sure you delete any such mails. The RIPE NCC is working to resolve the issue. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. Regards, Gerard Leurs, Operations department, RIPE NCC.

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(no subject)
by Ripe-dbm 09 Aug '04

09 Aug '04

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(no subject)
by Ripe-dbm 09 Aug '04

09 Aug '04

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(no subject)
by Ripe-dbm 09 Aug '04

09 Aug '04

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The release of RPSLng IRRToolSet
by Katie Petrusha 03 Aug '04

03 Aug '04

[ Apologies for multiple messages ] Dear Colleagues, The RIPE NCC is pleased to announce version 4.8.2 release of IRRToolSet. RPSLng is an effort to extend RPSL language, enabling the language to document routing policies for the IPv6 and multicast address families currently used on the Internet. IRRToolSet implements the Internet Draft Document draft-blunk-rpslng-07 (ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-blunk-rpslng-07.txt) The release contains peval, rpslcheck and RtConfig that support RPSLng. The software can be compiled using GCC-3.x, and also includes numerous contributed patches, bug fixes and changes related to the new draft. Please note that this will be the last release of IRRToolSet made by the RIPE NCC. Further IRRToolSet will be maintained by ISC (Internet Systems Consortium). More details regarding the migration will follow soon. The source code release and binary packages can be downloaded from: ftp://ftp.ripe.net/tools/IRRToolSet You can also check the IRRToolSet project page: http://www.ripe.net/db/irrtoolset Thanks to everyone who contributed the patches and bug fixes. Please contact <irrtoolset(a)ripe.net> for any comments. -- Best regards, Katie Petrusha RIPE NCC

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