RIPE Database beta-software trials ...

[Apologies for all who received this message on the dns-wg list already,
that was obviously a mistake ... -Marten]

Dear all,

We finally have some beta software running at the NCC for the database, and
we would like you to test some things. We have created an empty test RIPE
database on ncc.ripe.net running with the new whois daemon. You can send in
updates to:

testdb at ripe.net

It will be processed and incorporated in a test database running on
ncc.ripe.net (also a whois daemon running on that database). You should
receive a ack mail back (to the Reply-To field, or From: is no Reply-To field
present) and you should be able to find it in the whois server immediately.
Acks should be sent to you within minutes.

You can also delete objects in that test database, by simply adding a delete:
line to an object. So,

person:    Marten Terpstra
address:   RIPE Network Coordination Centre (NCC)
address:   Kruislaan 409
address:   NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam
address:   Netherlands
phone:     +31 20 592 5065
fax-no:    +31 20 592 5090
e-mail:    marten at ripe.net
nic-hdl:   MT2
changed:   marten at ripe.net 930503
source:    RIPE
delete:    just try and delete this thing

should delete this object in the database, if all fields are the same as in
the database. The ordering of fields does not matter, just as long as
attributes with the same name are in the same order, ie in the object above
you cannot change the place of two "address:" fields. Also the place of the
delete field does not matter, it can be anywhere in the object. Updating
should be very quick, ack mails should be sent to you within minutes.

Please try some stuff and see what happens. Comments on the format of the ack
mail are also appreciated. Currently verbose ack is default ie you get at
least a one line ack per object you send in, and the full object if there
were errors or warnings. If you send in objects with a source other than RIPE
it should complain that this is an unknown source and should refuse the
update.

-Marten

PS All requests are already properly logged so be careful with those
deletes ;-)

PPS The syntax checker for this test database is VERY strict, simply because
there is no manual intervention from the NCC any longer. It may well be that
existing objects in the real database are no longer accepted ;-)