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Re: draft minutes of DB-WG meeting at RIPE 25
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 10 Oct '96

10 Oct '96

=> The various checks, when they get implemented eventually, should at least => generate warnings, both at the time of an update and on a regular basis. = =One note on this one: = =The new software doesn't create a new object anymore when adding a NIC =handle to an existing object. It will only do this when there are other =differences between the new and old object then the 'changed:' and the =added NIC handle attribute. Thanks for the note. => Daniel proposed to add that functionality toi the software itself, probably => by adding a whois -T with -v and possibly whois -T to report all objects. => This is is already available for listing the schema for an individual object. = =Wasn't this proposal on the wish list for a long, long time (and even =accepted by the database working group as a good thing) ?!? = =davidk> List of current proposals: =davidk> =davidk> 5) whois -tv Yes it was. I'll re-word that to properly reflect history. From the technical point of view, it doesn't hurt to propose it again for implementation :-) => Action (11) on RIPE NCC (Ambrose Magee), => To change the DB-SW to obsolete the advisory: attribute in inetnum: objects. = ^^^^^^^^ = =No further comments ... ;-) That's the fate of lazy people (like me) who do a cut-n-paste from the local *broken* copy. Yours, standing at the corner of the room, and facing the walls, Wilfried.

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Re: Fwd: Re: Short summaries of WG sessions [DataBase]
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 09 Oct '96

09 Oct '96

Hi David ! => Z. AOB => - clarification abou mailing lists => - obsolete advisories in inetnum objects => => Action (11) on RIPE NCC (Ambrose Magee), => To change the DB-SW to obsolete the advisory: attribute in inetnum: objects. = =Just to avoid even more confusion on this trickey advisory topic: = =I assume you are talking about the 'aut-num:' object since the 'inetnum:' =object never had support for this ... You're right, of course. I was mixed up, and John's notes are correct anyway! Could the minute folks at the NCC (Roderik?) please fix the text ? Thanks and apologies, Wilfried.

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Fwd: Re: Short summaries of WG sessions [DataBase]
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 08 Oct '96

08 Oct '96

The attached text fragment for the RIPE 25 Minutes was submitted yesterday. You might want to have that as an interim summary while the full DB-WG minutes are being worked on... Cheers, Wilfreid. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here's the Summary for the DB-WG Meeting, RIPE 25, Amsterdam I might again be too verbose, I don't know. Please feel free to fix my typos and any broken sentences. Roderick, apologies for the one-day delay over the promise... Wilfried. Chair: Wilfried Woeber Scribe: John LeRoy Crain Participants: 51 (according to the sign-up list) The following agenda was agreed: A. Administrative stuff - volunteering of the scribe - WG-agenda bashing B. DB-SW status report by the RIPE NCC - recent changes, V2.0 - new features: experience, feedback C. DB consistency and sanity checks - at time of transaction (create/modify) - at regular intervals - input from other WGs - input from the NCC (address space handling) - RIPE/(NIC)-Handle space, special cases, like ROLExxx-RIPE, RIPExxx-yyy, AUTOxxx-RIPE D. Inverse lookup discussion - recursive lookup on by default, should this change? - extending the list of attributes that can be use in -i lookup? E. Documentation - structure and contents as proposed by the NCC - user input F. New functionality - things on the consolidated wish-list - url handling - inet-rtr object extension Y. General input from other WGs - DNS WG: registration of 2nd level (and lower) domains - Local-IR WG: proposal to have the SW enforce mandatory attributes (status, NIC-handles) Z. AOB - clarification abou mailing lists - obsolete advisories in inetnum objects ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ The following summary is not necessarily following ] [ the actual agenda and sequence of discussions, for ] [ a complete report refer to the WG minutes, please! ] Results and decisions The usual report about the status of the DB and the DB software was offered by the RIPE-NCC (Carol Orange) and well received by the group. There is still a couple of minor bugs around (as can be expected anyway when implementing a major new softeware release), these bugs are being fixed asap. The behaviour of the software when doing an inverse lookup ("-i" flag) is to be changed to imply "-r" (recursion disabled). NIC-Handles (in general) and the status: attribute for inetnum: objects should be enforced by the DB software. This is to bring the software in line with the requirements in the address allocation guidelines documentation. The proposed flag day for these changes is 1.1.1997. In order to avoid confusion, the string AUTO (which is used to request and control automatic handle assignment) shall be reserved (not to be used for a real handle). There was general consensus that the quality and consistency of the data in the RIPE-DB should be improved. The group formally supports this activity which is also part of the RIPE NCC Activity Plan for 1997. A project has been set up with the Free University of Amsterdam to look at the consistency issues. Students may wish to interview selected users. Current thinking is that there shall be more sanity checking at the time of a transaction (each time) and that we need some background checks that can be performed at regular intervals. These should then catch inconsistencies which can not be properly detected by the transaction tests. Making this process succeed is expected to require collaboration and some effort from Local-IR folks as well as from the routing folks. Ambrose Magee was introduced as the new primary maintainer of the DB-SW. He then reported on the proposed structure of the Documentation for the RIPE Database objects, the usage and the software. The group endorsed the concept with some minor proposals for improvement and stressed the importance of the documentation, and in general, the importance of consolidation vs. new functionality. Input received from the DNS-WG asked for a referral mechanism in the RIPE-DB to support registering 2nd and lower level domain objects at the site of a TLD Administration, but still offering access with whois by way of the RIPE-DB. There was a reasonable number of TLDs represented that promised support on their end for implementing that approach. The decision reached calls for an interim solution to add a referral mechanism to domain: objects. This would only be used in (TLD) domain: objects that describe the TLD and point to the authoritative DB that holds the 2nd and any lower level data. During the discussion of the DB-SW behaviour of handling multiple maintainer entries, it was clarified that there is no hierarchy involved. The software just scans all entries and tries to find a match. The first match found is honored. This is in line with the current concept and design. New actions: Action (1) on Wilfried Woeber and Carol Orange, To come up with a technical proposal for better DB consistency checking. Action (2) on all WG members, To think about implications of the proposed DB consistency checking and to provide input. Action (3) on RIPE NCC (Carol Orange, Daniel Karrenberg), To report about the FUA findings (on DB consistency) at next ripe meeting. Action (4) on RIPE NCC (Carol Orange, Daniel Karrenberg), To document the approach to find and change references to person objects in order to support migration to mandatory handles (using inverse look up and "search and replace") and send it to the list. Action (5) RIPE NCC (Ambrose Magee) (time allowing), To implement the change that "whois -i ..." implies "whois -i -r ..." Action (6a) on Wilfried Woeber, To ask on the DB-WG mailing list about the need of improved inverse lookup functionality (more attributes allowed for -i). Action (6b) on Daniel Karrenberg, To look at query logs for "failed" -i attempts. Action (7) on Ripe NCC (Ambrose Magee), Produce the RIPE-DB Documentation a.s.a.p. and according to the agreed structure. Action (8a) on RIPE NCC (Carol Orange), Publish the "known bugs" list, on the Web or on the FTP-Server. Action (8b) on RIPE NCC (Carol Orange), Publish the "open issues" list (consolidated wishlist) on the Web or on the FTP server. Action (9) on RIPE NCC (Ambrose Magee, Carol Orange, Daniel Karrenberg), To propose and implement (a.s.ap.) a referral mechanism for TLD domain: objects (only). Action (10) on Wilfried Woeber and the RIPE NCC, To make a proposal on the technical and procedural requirements of making the status: attribute for inetnum: objects mandatory. Action (11) on RIPE NCC (Ambrose Magee), To change the DB-SW to obsolete the advisory: attribute in inetnum: objects. Action (12) on RIPE NCC (Ambrose Magee), To add mailing lists with their descriptions to the database documents. WW, 7-OCT-1996. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at Computer Center - ACOnet : Vienna University : Tel: +43 1 4065822 355 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4065822 170 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : NIC: WW144 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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TEST database.
by RIPE Database Administration 04 Oct '96

04 Oct '96

Dear Colleagues, The test version of the RIPE database is back on-line. Requests for maintainer objects in the test database should be sent to <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net>. This is to be changed in the near future. Participants in the RIPE Database 2.0 Workshop during the recent RIPE meeting had test objects and maintainers created for them in the test database. If you wish these objects to remain in the test database, please send a message to <ripe-dbm(a)ripe.net> as soon as possible. Regards, Ambrose Magee ____________________________ RIPE Database Administration.

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Re: mnt-lower attribute not allowed?
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 04 Oct '96

04 Oct '96

Hi Steven et.al. ! => => The AS object that matches the origin AS of a route object could be the => parent object of the route object, but then people are still able to put => route objects in with another origin AS which might not be desired by the => owner of the non-portable CIDR address space. Furthermore, a second => hierarchy exists: the IP prefix tree. => => You might want to try to formulate a proposal that is not too => complicated and also addresses the concerns of most people ... = =How about making the inetnum object the parent of the route object? =I think it would make sense to allow the "owner" of the inetnum to create =the route objects.. I'm not convinced that this is the way to go. For two major reasons: - in many environments the routing is handled differently from the address allocation. In particular, where filters or other things are (semi-)automatically derived from objects in the DB, it's certainly not feasable to have the customers ("owner" of the address space) change things without coordination. If they do, it might not reflect reality at all or it might interfere with local logistics. And there's the issue of porting PA address space for a limited amount of time to a different ISP. - I think we should come up with a concept that works as well outside the RIPE-coordinated address space and the central registry concept. I think we should . come up with a solution that works for routing-registries that do not include an address registry in the same DB, . find a solution that works uniformly across all parts of the address space (A, B, C-19[3-5], TWD, et.al.) = You can also keep the owner in the "notify:" field of =the route object, so once you delegate maintenance of the route object to =someone else, you can still keep track of what's happening with it. = =Or does this sound ludicrous? No, it made me think, thus it was a very useful approach :-) I'd favour an approach that is (conceptually) similar to the handling of domain objects - something like an upstream search based on the AS #. Although I haven't a clear picture of how it could work in reality, because the "tree" is certainly less well-defined than in the DNS namespace. Cheers, Wilfried. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at Computer Center - ACOnet : Vienna University : Tel: +43 1 4065822 355 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4065822 170 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : NIC: WW144 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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mnt-lower attribute not allowed?
by Schmitz＠rus.uni-stuttgart.de 04 Oct '96

04 Oct '96

Dear colleagues, yesterday I tried to apply the hierarchical authorisation scheme on route objects. However, I did not succeed. As an example, have a look at this: route: 193.174.0.0/15 descr: DFN-AGG-1 origin: AS1275 mnt-by: DFN-MNT mnt-lower: DFN-MNT changed: poldi(a)dfn.de 950907 changed: noc(a)noc.dfn.de 961001 source: RIPE password: ... resulted in: Update FAILED: [route] 193.174.0.0/15 route: 193.174.0.0/15 descr: DFN-AGG-1 origin: AS1275 mnt-by: DFN-MNT changed: poldi(a)dfn.de 950907 changed: noc(a)noc.dfn.de 961001 source: RIPE *ERROR*: attribute "mnt-lower" unknown in route object Is this just an error in typing (I took the same spelling as given in the RIPE database 2.0 workshop), or is hierarchical authorisation not done for route objects (in the workshop there was only an example for inetnum objects), or is it just not implemented yet? If it was implemented only for inetnum objects I do not see any reason why it should not be also possible for route objects. Could anybody please give a hint? Regards Joachim _____________________________________________________________________________ DFN Network Operation Center, Dr. Joachim Schmitz, (finger help(a)noc.dfn.de) >>>>>> mailto: noc(a)noc.dfn.de <<<<<< Rechenzentrum Universitaet Stuttgart, Allmandring 30, D-70550 Stuttgart Phone: 0711-685-5810, 0711-685-5576, FAX +711 6788363 (business hours) EMERGENCY phone +711 1319 139 with answering machine and pager _____________________________________________________________________________

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Hierarchical Authorisation.
by RIPE Database Administration 02 Oct '96

02 Oct '96

Hi, Joachim ! Hierarchical authorisation is currently available for inetnum and domain objects. >From the HELP & HOWTO document: - You can protect against people *creating* (only creating) objects direct (one level) below in the hierarchy of an object type (only for 'inetnum:/domain:' objects) by using your maintainer in a 'mnt-lower:' attribute. The authorization method of this maintainer object will then be used upon creation of any object direct below the object that contains the 'mnt-lower:' attribute. This is also mentioned in the Release Notes of the new software. Hope this helps. Regards, Ambrose Magee ____________________________ RIPE Database Administration.

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More attributes for indexing?
by Steven Bakker 02 Oct '96

02 Oct '96

Hi folks, At the last RIPE meeting there was some discussion about which attributes would be useful to keep indices on. Well, since our office move last weekend, I came up with a (rather predictable) one: $ whois -i ad "Lockton House" % ignored attribute "address" since it is not indexed as a reference % no attributes specified for -i query $ _ Dang! It would be nice to have an index on address, although such an index might become veeerrrry large, due to the fact that you can specify multiple "address" attributes per object; dunno. Any thoughts? Cheers, Steven

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Re: interesting person entry...
by Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet 27 Sep '96

27 Sep '96

=> I personally feel that this should be done through the config file: give => every attribute a property of allowed empty lines or not. For example => 'remarks:' lines can be read easier when they may contain empty lines => while empty rev-srv: lines are useless. => I roughly agree about the approach, but see below. > Wilfried: I suggest a collection of all attributes should be analyzed > to see where empty lines are useful and where not. I currently do not > have an overview of all attributes but I feel that > - single ones > - attributes used as reference (e.g. tech-c) > - attributes necessary for administrative database purposes (e.g. changed > or source) > must not be empty (just as it came to my mind). Agreed. > I wonder how many > attributes might be left over which could carry empty lines. I feel that > the address attribute should not have empty lines. However, empty lines > could be useful as David noted on the remark attribute. I think all the lines where syntax checking is being done should *not* allow empty lines. To some degree I can see the usefulness of *single* empty lines within a *block* of attributes that allow free format text. Currently remark:, trouble:, and address: comes to my mind - and maybe a few more. But even then, the optical effect that is described can easily be obtained by e.g. putting a "." or "-" as the only character into the value field. I suppose that would remove some complexity from the software to support this "cosmetic sugar". Thus it would be my personal proposal to disallow empty lines altogether (empty in the sense of an attribute having no value supplied). Your input is very welcome, and yes, that could be put onto the draft agenda for RIPE-26 if there is no clear consensus or any strong feelings. Wilfried. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber(a)CC.UniVie.ac.at Computer Center - ACOnet : Vienna University : Tel: +43 1 4065822 355 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4065822 170 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : NIC: WW144 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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interesting person entry...
by Schmitz＠rus.uni-stuttgart.de 26 Sep '96

26 Sep '96

Dear colleagues, dear Ambrose, by accident I discovered a person entry which in its form is definitely not wanted: *pn: Stefan Seiz *ad: Herdweg 73 *ad: \ ... > 128 empty address lines!!! *ad: / *ad: 70174 Stuttgart *ad: Germany *ph: +49 711 18748-0 *fx: +49 711 18748-32 *em: index(a)schwaben.com *nh: SSE2-RIPE *ny: noc(a)ecrc.de *ch: wer(a)ecrc.de 951115 *so: RIPE I am in no position to decide whether the entry was done including these empty lines or whether this is an error of the database software. I think a check should be implemented during acceptance of new database objects (or updates) which - removes empty input lines (or fields which do contain nothing but white space) - afterwards checks whether all mandatory fields for the object are filled in should be done (actually I expect such a test to be performed anyway...) Could anybody please check what is wrong here? Thank you! Joachim _____________________________________________________________________________ DFN Network Operation Center, Dr. Joachim Schmitz, (finger help(a)noc.dfn.de) >>>>>> mailto: noc(a)noc.dfn.de <<<<<< Rechenzentrum Universitaet Stuttgart, Allmandring 30, D-70550 Stuttgart Phone: 0711-685-5810, 0711-685-5576, FAX +711 6788363 (business hours) EMERGENCY phone +711 1319 139 with answering machine and pager _____________________________________________________________________________

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