General Information About RIPE And The RIPE NCC

About RIPE

RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) is a collaborative organisation open to all European Internet service providers. The objective of RIPE is to ensure the necessary administrative and technical coordination to allow the operation of a pan-European IP network. RIPE does not operate a network of its own. RIPE is the IP activity of RARE.

RIPE has been functioning since 1989. Currently more than 60 organisations participate in the work. The result of the RIPE coordination effort is that the individual end-user is presented on his desktop with a uniform IP service irrespective of the particular network his or her workstation is attached to. Today more than 170.000 computers throughout Europe are reachable via networks coordinated by RIPE. The total number of systems reachable worldwide is estimated at more than 800.000.

About the RIPE NCC

The RIPE Network Coordination Centre supports all those RIPE activities which cannot be effectively performed by volunteers from the participating organisations. Besides supporting RIPE activities in general the NCC provides the following services to network operators:

• network management database containing information about IP networks, DNS domains, IP routing policies and contact information
• delegated Internet registry, a clearing house distributing IP network numbers
• coordinated network statistics gathering
• domain name system (DNS) coordination
• graphical maps of IP networks (planned)
• repository for network operations software
• RIPE document store
• interactive information service

The RIPE NCC currently has 3 permanent staff members. The RARE association provides the formal framework for the NCC. Funding for the first year of operation of the NCC is provided by the national members of RARE and EARN.

To learn more about the RIPE NCC and its services you can consult the appropriate leaflet, the interactive information server or contact the NCC by electronic mail, telephone or fax.

RIPE NCC Contact Information

Address:
RIPE NCC
Kruislaan 409
NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Phone: +31 20 592 5065

Fax: +31 20 592 5155

Electronic Mail: ncc@ripe.net

RIPE NCC Interactive Information Service

Information about RIPE and RIPE NCC services can also be obtained using the Interactive Information Service. This menu-driven service allows browsing through the RIPE document store, reading documents and sending them by electronic mail. It can be reached by telnetting to host info.ripe.net. The service is also available via the public X.25
networks at 0204129004331 and via the IXI X.25 network at 020430459300031.

Access to the RIPE Document Store

All RIPE documents and Internet RFCs are available via anonymous FTP from host ftp.ripe.net. The same documents are also available via a "gopher" server at gopher.ripe.net and a "WAIS" server at wais.ripe.net. Access via "World Wide Web" and OSI- FTAM will be available in the near future.

Access to the RIPE Database

The RIPE network management database can be accessed via the whois (RFC 954) server running on host whois.ripe.net. The database can also be accessed via the RIPE NCC interactive information service.