Hello Francis,

The discussion about the RIPE DB domain object is still open...

I remind you of the current proposal: (mininal) change status of zone contact, name server, sub-domain and reverse-server (the last one in IP network object) from mandatory to optional. (medium) change status of this attributes to obsolete. (maximal) delete domain object and reverse-server attribute.

my comments to the medium and maximal versions: I clearly don't want to warm up a discussion which I didn't attend, however, the current situation in Austria is, that both serviceproviders and IRs (ACOnet and EUnet) have finally agreed that it is worth the effort to register second and third-level domains in the RIPE database, and this is done already for all 2nd-level and for all new 3rd-level applications, cleanup of 3rd-level up to end of 1994. Even if there are no tools actively using the domain-objects in the RIPE-DB, me as a human beeing and network-administrator is considering it as useful information !!! I definitely LIKE the RIPE-DB and it's simple tools (WHOIS, WAIS), it's a great help for my daily work, so please don't lock out valuable information, just because it's not used by poppy auto-config-tools !!!

- do you know a real domain where zone contact is not one of the technical contacts ?

Yes: e.g. univie.ac.at zone-c: Gerhard Winkler (is responsible for the nameservers) tech-c: Ewald Jenisch (is responsible for the router-network)

- do you know a general tool using name server or sub-domain attributes ? (these informations are already available via the DNS then a strong argument in favor of these attributes would be a tool using them producing or checking the DNS. Another idea is a tool producing domain objects from the DNS automa{t,g}ically...).

I would prefer a tool producing DNS-entries from domain objects. When you are just including in the RIPE-DB the information already available in the DNS, it wouldn't make much sense. Again, even if there are no config-tools using the domain-object, human beeings ARE ! To enforce the administrative registration of a domain in the RIPE-DB you might consider a tool checking DNS, comparing it with the RIPE-DB and sending domain templates to the mail addr in the SOA if the domain is not registered or contains wrong nserver fields (of course this tool could do a DNS primary/secondary sanity check as well).

Once again: this relates ONLY to DNS. If you think it's really necessary to clog the RIPE database with useless information (like nameservers; info that is present already in DNS), you have to come with good arguments. And please note that it is not forbidden for a [TLD] registrar to keep a *local* database with all sorts of additional info about a domain.

If there definitely are no tools using the nserver information at all and the RIPE-DB has to safe a few kbyte disk space, for my sake drop the nsfields, but don't drop the whole domain-object ! Regards Christian --- Christian Panigl : Vienna University Computer Center - ACOnet --- --- VUCC - ACOnet : -------------------------------------------- --- --- Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Internet: Christian.Panigl@CC.UniVie.ac.at --- --- A-1010 Vienna / Austria : Tel: +43 1 4065822-383 (Fax: -170) ---