X-Notification in the RR

Hi all,

The following is a proposal for a cross notification mechanism in the
Routing Registry. I post it for your perusal and hope to discuss it 
during the Routing WG meeting in Dublin.

The initial suggestion was made by Daniel Karrenberg at the Routing WG
meeting in January, and discussions with Joachim Schmitz and Wilfried
Woeber have helped me work it into the following proposal. 

Such a mechanism was given a high priority by those who participated
in the recent RIPE Database priority survey, so we are hoping to reach
consensus on this at or shortly after RIPE-27.

Greetings,

Carol Orange
RIPE NCC

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Cross Notification in the Routing Registry
A Proposal

Carol Orange, May 1997

At the January meeting of the Routing WG in Amsterdam, various
possible hierarchies for authorization in the Routing Registry (RR)
were considered. During the discussion, a suggestion was made that 
"hierarchical notification" would be useful even in cases where 
authority is not well defined. This suggestion enjoys strong support
of both the Routing WG and the Database WG.

In the following, we propose a simple cross notification mechanism
which will allow routing registry users to be notified of overlapping 
route announcements in the RR. 


Route Announcement Notifications in the RR
------------------------------------------
Suppose you announce a route in your address space covering some
/24. It may be useful when you make the announcement, to know that
the /24 has already been announced in another AS.  Likewise, should 
the user of that address space later decide to become multi-homed, 
it may be interesting to know that as well. Moreover, overlapping 
routes are often unintentionally announced in a single AS. In all of
these cases, it would be useful to get a notification from the RR. 

Consider the route object:

route:       [mandatory]  [single]     [primary/look-up key]    
descr:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]                      
origin:      [mandatory]  [single]     [primary key]            
hole:        [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]                      
withdrawn:   [optional]   [single]     [ ]                      
comm-list:   [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]                      
advisory:    [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]                      
remarks:     [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]                      
notify:      [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]            
mnt-by:      [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]            
changed:     [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]                      
source:      [mandatory]  [single]     [ ]                      

Suppose we add a new field called "x-notify:" (cross-notify) which 

a) can contain either 
	+ a NIC-handle pointing to a person or role object, 
	  the email address of which will get the notification; or
	+ a mntner ID pointing to the maintainer who will be notified
b) is optional

The contact in "x-notify:" will receive an e-mail whenever 

+ a route is announced with overlapping address space
+ the address range in the route being added (with the "x-notify:" 
  attribute) overlaps any address space currently announced in the RR. 


Issues 
------
Does this cross notification satisfy the needs of network operators?

Due to the global nature of the RR, some effort will be involved to
provide notifications in a timely manner. What is an acceptable
upper bound for cross notifications to be sent out?

Using a NIC-handle or mntner for notification is different than the
traditional e-mail address. However, it simplifies data maintenance for 	
users significantly.