Synchronous Updates in RIPE Database
Introduction
Syncupdates is the facility of the RIPE Database to enable updates
synchronously, meaning, the result is returned immediately to the user. It
is meant to be an infrastructure for applications which need to update the
RIPE Database and receive the result afterwards.
This document describes the basic usage of the infrastructure that is
sends the update and receives the result.
An interface can easily be created in any language that has
support for "http".
Protocol
The syncupdates frontend is actually implemented as a CGI script, which accepts
input as either a POST or a GET method. It responds with the response header
and the acknowledgement (if any) in text/plain format.
Sending The Update
Syncupdates accepts the following variables:
-
DATA This variable should contain the actual update message.
-
NEW This variable can be either yes or no. If it contains yes, the
update will fail if it contains changes to existing objects.
-
HELP This variable can be either yes or no. If it contains yes, the
help message of the whois server will be given as the output.
-
ORIGIN This variable should contain the the IP address of the machine
submitting the update if it's different from the IP address that is
sending the update. It is useful for proxy applications.
For general information about the RIPE Database, please see the
RIPE Database Reference Manual.
Receiving The Input
After composing the input and sending it as a POST or a GET request, the server
will return the usual http headers and the body if an acknowledgement exists.
The first line of the header will give the result of the transaction, in
the form of:
HTTP/1.1 (code) (message)
where (code) is a 3-digit number which is a code for the message. The
first digit of the code denotes the type of the message. The rest of the digits are
unique for all messages:
- 2XX denotes a successful transaction,
- 3XX denotes that further action needs to be taken by the user agent in order
to fulfill the request,
- 4XX denotes that the request could not be understood by the server due to
malformed syntax,
- 5XX denotes that the server is aware that it has erred or is incapable of
performing the request.
If the code begins with 2, there will be an acknowledgement in the body of
the response, in the form of text/plain.
Here are the codes returned specifically by the syncupdates:
- 200 Acknowledgement follows
- 413 Data exceeds maximum allowed size
- 418 No input
- 419 Command not understood
- 506 Generic syncupdates error
We provide help via e-mail through working hours. You can communicate your problems and
questions about the service to ripe-dbm@ripe.net. Any suggestions about the system can be directed to dbtools@ripe.net.
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