RIPE Database Template for Networks ----------------------------------- D.Karrenberg 1 April 1992 ref.: ripe-50 What is the RIPE Database ? RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) coordinates TCP/IP networking for the research community in Europe. It operates under the auspices of RARE (Reseaux Associees pour la Recherche Europeene). One of the activities of RIPE is to maintain a database of European IP networks, DNS domains and their contact persons. This database content is public information. This supports NICs/NOCs all over Europe to perform their respective tasks. A network and its contact persons are represented by different database objects. This means that for each network there has to be a network object describing the network and one or more person entries describing the persons. Objects are described by attributes one per line separated by empty lines. The information stored about netowrk 192.16.192.0 consists of four objects, one network object and 3 person objects and looks like this: inetnum: 192.16.192.0 netname: RIPE-X25 descr: RIPE X.25 net descr: Europe country: NL admin-c: Rob Blokzijl tech-c: Piet Beertema tech-c: Daniel Karrenberg connect: RIPE gateway: cwi kth cern inr udo ukc remarks: country is really Europe rev-srv: mcsun.eu.net sering.cwi.nl changed: dfk@cwi.nl 900911 source: RIPE person: Rob Blokzijl address: NIKHEF section H address: Science Park Watergraafsmeer (WCW) address: Kruislaan 409 address: NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam address: The Netherlands phone: +31 20 592 0413 fax-no: +31 20 592 5155 e-mail: k13@nikhef.nl changed: dfk@cwi.nl 900802 source: RIPE person: Piet Beertema address: CWI address: Science Park Watergraafsmeer (WCW) address: Kruislaan 413 address: NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam address: Netherlands phone: +31 20 5924112 fax-no: +31 20 5924199 e-mail: piet@cwi.nl nic-hdl: PB13 changed: dfk@cwi.nl 900802 source: RIPE person: Daniel Karrenberg address: CWI address: Science Park Watergraafsmeer (WCW) address: Kruislaan 413 address: NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam address: The Netherlands phone: +31 20 5924112 fax-no: +31 20 5924199 e-mail: dfk@cwi.nl nic-hdl: DK58 nic-hdl: DK85 changed: dfk@cwi.nl 900802 source: RIPE How to access the Database ? The database is public. It can be accessed via a whois server on host whois.ripe.net (tcp port 43). The whole database is also available via anonymous ftp from ftp.ripe.net as file ripe.db in directory ripe/dbase. How to submit information to the Database ? Database updates should be sent via electronic mail to auto-dbm@ripe.net Below you find two templates, one for network objects and one for person objects. Be sure to supply a person object for each contact person mentioned in the network objects. Of course you need not supply person objects if they are already present in the database and the information is still correct. Before submitting please delete all indented explanatory text from the templates to save mail bandwidth. The text you submit should start in column one. Thank you for your cooperation. RIPE Database Management ------------------------------------------------------------------ inetnum: IP network number Format: dotted quad including trailing 0s Example: inetnum: 192.19.2.0 Mandatory netname: Official network name Format: capitals, numerals and "-" only, starting with capital Example: netname: TBIT-BUGS Mandatory descr: Description of the network. Give organisation and place. Postal address is not needed, this can be found via the contacts. You can't send postal mail to a bunch of routers and transceivers, can you? The country is given in country:. Format: free text, one line per entry, multiple lines in sequence Example: descr: Network Bugs Feeding Facility descr: Terabit Labs Inc. descr: Northtown Mandatory country: Country where the network is located. Format: ISO3166 two letter code. We know this gives problems for networks crossing national boundaries. Choose most appropriate country in this case, probably the location of the admin-c. Example: country: IE Mandatory admin-c: Name of administrative contact person. This is someone who will be contacted about administrative things such as network registration etc. This must be the same string as in the corresponding person entry. Such a person entry has to exist. If the person name is ambiguous, use the nic handle. Format: Example: admin-c: John E. Doe Mandatory, Multiple tech-c: Name of technical contact person. This is someone to be contacted for technical problems such as routing, (mis)behavior of hosts on the net etc. See admin-c above. connect: Connectivity Indicators. This attribute is used for data about routing policy routing in general. Its values are a combination of the strings defined below. New strings can be registered at the database update address. The definition of this is arbitrary and should be replaced by something more rational as e.g. AS's that may be traversed or some such later. If you are not sure what to fill in here, put ? and RIPE will try to fill in something sensible. Format: A sequence of the strings blow separated by white space. LOCAL This means routing updates will be blocked in RIPE routers. RIPE European This means RIPE routers will distribute routes for this net. NSF NSFnet This means the net is (supposed to be) in the NSFnet routing database and thus has access to NSFnet EU member of InterEUnet NORDU member of NORDUnet Example: connect: RIPE EU NSF Mandatory aut-sys: Autonomous system number the network belongs to. The definition of this is not clear yet. Format: AS number Example: aut-sys: 4711 Optional nsf-in: NSFnet routing. Inbound announcements to NSFnet. This is used for consistency checks with the NSF routing database. Format: = = Example: nsf-in: 1=703 2=224 3=97 Optional nsf-out: NSFnet routing. Outbound announcements from NSFnet. This is used for consistency checks with the NSF routing database. see nsf-in: gateway: RIPE gateway for this network. This attribute was the first attempt at putting routing information in the database. It is for local use and slated for removal. Optional rev-srv: Reverse address translation servers for this network. White space seperated list of domain names of the servers serving this network's reverse mapping subdomain of in-addr.arpa. Optional remark: Remarks Format: text string Example: remark: currently inoperative remark: will be operational 01-apr-91. Optional changed: Who and when changed this last. Format: YYMMDD Example: changed: johndoe@terabit-labs.nn 900401 source: RIPE Source of the information. This is used to separate information from different sources kept by the same database software. Format: RIPE Mandatory ----------------------------------------------------------------------- person: Full name. This must be the same as the corresponding contact attributes. Format: first names first, no commas etc. Example: person: John E. Doe address: Postal address Include everything necessary for paper mail to be delivered. Format: multiple lines of text City and post code on a single line. Country on the last line. Example: address: Terabit Labs Inc. address: Industrial Estate North address: North Perpendicular Road 12 address: NN-1234 Northtown address: Northern Nowhere Mandatory phone: Telephone Multiple numbers in the desired order please (secretariats etc.). Format: International + If no direct inward dialing is available, please append "ext." and extension number. Example: phone: +31 20 12334676 phone: +44 123 987654 ext. 4711 Mandatory, Multiple fax-no: Telefax see phone e-mail: Electronic mail address. Format: Valid domain address please (if possible no !, %, ::) Example: e-mail: johndoe@terabit-labs.nn nic-hdl: NIC handle. An identifier used by SRI-NIC to unambiguously refer to Internet people. Format: NIC format Example: nic-hd: JD0401 Optional but strongly suggested for those who have a NIC handle. remark: Remarks Format: text string Example: remark: RIPE coordinator Northern Nowhere Optional changed: Who and when changed this last. Format: YYMMDD Example: changed: johndoe@terabit-labs.nn 900401 source: RIPE Source of the information. This is used to separate information from different sources kept by the same database software. Format: RIPE Mandatory