Piet Beertema <Piet.Beertema@cwi.nl> writes: The location of that server is not a technical issue, it's a political one. True. And it will stay that way on this continent, ....
The RIPE DNS WG met and there was consensus that root servers should be connected through a dedicated address prefix and AS. Connectivity of the KTH based server will be re-engineered like this. The LINX based server will be set up like this. Further there was consensus that we should move *towards* a situation where the RIPE NCC is responsible for operating all root servers in the European region under the guidance RIPE and funded as an NCC core activity. It fits the principles for such activities extremely well (see below). It is important to note that while the NCC will have the operational responsibility this does not exclude interested parties to contribute to nameserver operation in any way. To the contrary the efforts of individuals and organisations like KTH, NORDUNET, LINX and VBCnet are very welcome and essential for reliable operation of the root nameservers. Given those two design decisions, root servers are not so closely bound to their location and can be moved around the network topology with relative ease as topology changes and other engineering parameters suggest. Although I am alightly biased in the RIPE NCC matter ;-) I think that this consensus both very sensible and quite solid. Daniel Principles for NCC Activities The RIPE NCC performs activities for the benefit of the Internet service provider s (ISPs) in Europe and the surrounding areas; primarily activities that the ISPs need to organise as a group, although they may be competing with each other in other areas. The RIPE NCC must therefore observe strict neutrality and impartiality with respect to individual service providers. In particular it refrains from activities that are clearly in the domain of the ISPs themselves. Activities are defined, performed, discussed and evaluated in an open manner. Results of activities such as software tools are made available to the public. Budgets as well as actual income and expenditure are published. Individual data will be kept in confidence where required. For example the amounts of address space allocated and assigned are published as are database entries of individual assignments including the relevant contact data; however the information supporting individual assignment requests is kept in strict confidence. While an activity may result in services being provided to an individual ISP, performing the activity as a whole must benefit the European ISPs as a group. For example address space registration services are provided to ISPs individually, but the activity as such benefits all ISPs by distributing address space according to common standards as well as maintaining a neutral and accessible registry.