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Meeting Report

The RIPE 43 Meeting was held recently at the Rhodos Palace Hotel from 9 to 13 September 2002 in Rhodes, Greece. There were a total of 307 attendees comprised of the RIPE NCC membership, the RIPE community and government representatives. Attendees also included representatives from APNIC, ARIN, ICANN, and the emerging RIR, LACNIC.

Highlights of RIPE 43 included

  • the ASO Address Council election;
  • a keynote presentation on the IETF given by Harald Alvestrand, IETF Chair;
  • the first BoF on RIPE Meeting webcasting; updates on AfriNIC and LACNIC;
  • and the commencement of the second RIPE NCC membership survey.

Additionally, the beta test version of the RIPE NCC secure web portal service was unveiled at the RIPE Meeting. The service will greatly increase LIR access to the RIPE NCC and allow self-management of their registry data among other features.

The RIPE NCC would like to thank CentralNIC, Nominet, LINX, Hellas On Line and Anna Valsami for the support they provided to the meeting.

A summary of the RIPE 43 highlights follow:

ASO ADDRESS COUNCIL ELECTION:

Wilfried Woeber was re-elected by a unanimous vote to serve another 3-year term.

LIR AND INTERNET POLICY ISSUES:

The LIR Working Group agreed with the RIPE NCC that no efficient way to check whether an AS Number is actively used is possible. An action was placed on the RIPE NCC to update the current AS Number policy document.

The RIPE NCC was tasked to produce a policy document allowing LIRs to make sub-allocations to downstream organisations and a policy document on assignments for Internet experiments.

The RIPE NCC was tasked to continue the process of moving the 6bone under the framework of the RIRs.

IPv6:

The IPv6 Working Group requested that ns-v6.ripe.net would become ipv6-capable.

Additionally, co-ordination to finalise 6bone transition to the RIRs, specifically ip6.int and .arpa delegations, was requested.

The RIPE NCC was tasked to clarify procedures on IPv6 reverse delegations, which the RIPE NCC will provide as a web page reference.

The WG tasked the RIPE NCC to make preliminary IPv6 Test Traffic Measurements (TTM) available before the end of the year.

RIPE WHOIS DATABASE:

Reports on synchronous and web updates projects were provided. In joint development with the Tools Working Group, minor fixes to these projects will be implemented in the RIPE Database. Further authentication methods may be integrated.

The Early Registration Exchange project, ERX, was noted as moving forward. A task force will propose next steps.

The RIPE NCC was tasked to provide a list of requirements for the ERX web pages with information on each group. Ruediger Volk, Deutsche Telekom, will review comments regarding placement of external references into the database for the routing registry.

The RIPE NCC will investigate the impact of RPS-DIST on the IRRToolSet.

DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM:

The DNS Working Group noted that DNSsec is moving forward in IETF.

It was also noted that ENUM trials are in progress and IPv6 reverse delegation issues are being resolved.

ROUTING:

Randy Bush, IETF Area Director of Operations & Management, provided a presentation on route flap damping. He experimented with inserting and withdrawing routes and observing the effect at different points in the Internet, concluding that current damping parameters may not be good and may even be harmful.

Joao L.S. Damas spoke on RPSLng. The presentation focused on extending the routing policy specification language (RPSL) with capabilities to describe IPv6 and multicast policies. The current proposal will become an Internet draft and submitted to a wider community.

RIPE NCC SECURE WEB PORTAL - BETA TEST:

A limited technical trial of the RIPE NCC secure web portal service was unveiled at RIPE 43. By the time the presentation on the portal was held, forty administration accounts were distributed and seventy contact and address information updates were realised.

TECHSEC:

The TechSec Working Group noted that the availability of finalised DNSsec documents and production software is expected at Q4 2002 - Q1 2003.

Four DNSsec courses are planned for 2002 and twelve in 2003. The courses will be held to familiarise the community on DNSsec protocol and to promote the deployment of DNSsec.

The deployment of DNSsec at the RIPE NCC will continue with the goal to have DNSsec operational on some in-addr zones by Q1/Q2 2003. Additionally, the NSD project will support DNSsec in the next version release (1.1.0).

EIX:

The EIX Working Group noted that IPv6 is becoming a reality at some of the exchanges and that the sector is thriving despite downturns elsewhere.

DNR FORUM:

The RIPE NCC's Daniel Karrenberg gave a talk on the new nameserver code ("nsd"). A discussion on proper implementation of name servers followed.

Jaap Akkerhuis, Internet Domein registratie (NL), presented a progress report on the IETF Working Group's new Whois type directory and invited the community to help define this new protocol.

NETNEWS:

Presentations were given on two NetNews projects designed to store,distribute and manage information regarding NetNews hierarchy systems:

  • The NHNS (NetNews Hierarchy Names System) is based on the DNS system using its own hierarchy.
  • The NAS (Netnews Administration System) has the same objective but uses its own database and protocol.

RIPE MEETING WEBCASTING BoF:

The first BoF on webcasting RIPE Meetings was held at RIPE 43. It was decided that further discussion on the subject was warranted. A new RIPE mailing list has been created for this purpose: <ripecast@ripe.net>

TUTORIALS:

The RIPE NCC IP Request Tutorial, explaining address space assignment and allocation procedures in the RIPE NCC region, was presented at RIPE 43.

HOSTMASTRE CENTRE:

The RIPE NCC Hostmaster Centre was open during RIPE 43. The centre continues to be a useful facility for the meeting attendees and will be provided at RIPE 44.

RIPE 44:

RIPE 44 will be held in Amsterdam from 27 to 31 January 2003 at the Hotel Krasnapolsky.