RIPE Tools Working Group

                           Minutes for the
                     Tools Working Group Meeting

               RIPE-41, Jan. 14-18 2002, Amsterdam, NL
                              Draft 0.1

                       Number Of Attendees: 63


A.  Administrative stuff (Manuel Valente, Chair)

  * Ziya took the minutes
  * Manuel's introduction to Tools WG & agenda bashing
  * No comments were received for the previous meeting in RIPE40


B. Warning About Whois-CGI:

  * When it is deployed on web servers DoS might be an issue. But
   there are ways around it and help can be provided on request.
   (mainly by DB group).


C. Web IP Request (Maldwny Morris, RIPE NCC)

  * URL: check http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/tools/

  * Basicly existing interface is improved.
    URL for existing interface:
    http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/webiprequest/webiprequest.cgi

  * Now sending an email to NCC can be done directly within the CGI by
    pressing the 'Send as Email' button.

  * Maldwyn made a simple demo of this cgi.

  * No questions asked.

  * There were about 10 people who wants to deploy it on their
    servers.

  * An unofficial meeting about IPMT announced for the same 
    night by Maldwny.


D. PGP For Hostmasters (Kevin Baker, RIPE NCC)

  * URL: check http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/tools/

  * Kevin explained the implementation details of the project.

  * A question came from one of the attendees about how SSH keys
    are added. Kevin explained that an administration program does 
    that job.

  * Timur Bakeyev asked a question to community about mime
    encapsulated PGP signed messages. Only one member responded that
    they can handle it.

  * Manuel announced a PGP Signing Party most likely to be organised
    for the next RIPE meeting (42)


E. Whois Parsing Library (Shane Kerr, RIPE NCC)

  * URL: check http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/tools/
  
  * Shane demonstrated how the library can be used with some code
    examples in C and Perl.

  * A question asked about which GCC version is used. Shane said he
    thinks it is >=2.95 but <3.0.

  * Another question was 'Will the source be published'. 'That is the
    plan' Shane said.

  * Manuel emphasised the importance of this parser and gave the newly
    introduced 'Emergency Response Team' Object, how easy it would have
    been to add this object to applications if they were using this
    library.

  * Joao asked if any of the members finds it useful. One member said
    it might be useful for filtering while mirroring the whois DB.


F. Further Announcements

  * Manuel announced future development of an LIR tool which will be
    'Secure Web Services'. And added that the PGP mail signing was a
    start for this, in the means of secure communication between NCC
    and LIRs.

  * Manuel asked for any presentation any attendee might want to
    present. No request was made.


Y. I/O with Other WGs
   
  * None


Z. AOB

  * A question asked if there were any client side tools present for IP
    Allocations especially. Manuel said that the only tool present now
    is the ticket status queries which can be reached via web. He added
    that NCC is focused on the NCC-LIR communications security issues
    and explained that NCC is working on this first of all in the means
    of LIR side 'IP Allocation Tools' or such tools like that.

  * Manuel also mentioned IPMT 'IP Management Tool' -which is a tool for
    LIRs to manage their own IP Address space- is currently under
    development and will be available to all LIRs hopefully in the near
    future.