Draft minutes, DB-WG at RIPE #22

  This is the draft minutes of the RIPE-DB - WG meeting.

  Many thanks to Hans Petter Holen for taking notes (any typos are mine :-)!
  Any additions, clarifications appreciated!
  
  Wilfried.
________________________________________________________________________________

 	Draft Minutes: Database-WG, RIPE 22, Amsterdam, NL
	------------------------------------------------------

0.	Administrative stuff

  Hans Petter Holen, Oslonett AS, volunteered to take notes.

  37 people subscribed to the circulated list of attenders.

  The proposed WG-agenda was accepted.


1.	DB-SW review

  David Kessens went through the Database Development Report, covering
  new functionality that is either being proposed or already in test.
  As usaul the slides for this presentation are available at
  ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/presentations/ripe-m22-david-DB-REPORT.ps.gz

  David reported that the NCC currently works towards making the RIPE-DB
  more reliable. On the hardware aspect the DB-machine is being fitted
  with a RAID system (to guard against single disk drives failures). At
  the same time a "shadow server" for the database is being implemented
  and tests have already begun.

  Some problems with portability and scaling of the database software
  have been reported recently. It was pointed out that the RIPE-NCC
  version of the database software is tested and supported for Perl4.
  There is a couple of known (minor) problems in trying to port the
  software to Perl5 (and to Solaris). Resolving of these problems is not
  the top priority, but will be tackled as soon as possible. In order to
  avoid the scaling problems David recommended to *not* use the -P option
  of netdbm and to eventually move to the Berkley db package. Tests are
  on-going.
  
  New functionality worth noting (for a comprehensive list please refer
  to the presentation slides):
  
  - Hierarchial authorisation schemes to be implemented

  - Referral mechanisms to be implemented, 
    first tests with domain: objects

  - -t option plus -v should give more elaborate descriptive text for
    objects
  
  - The NOC-Object to be implemented soon, according to proposal from
    Havard Eidnes, as circulated shortly after RIPE-21

  - "Synchronized DB" is running in test environment
  
  - There is a proposal to automate and inter-lock the assignment of
    RIPE-Handles. This should eventually remove the need to manually
    obtain unique handles (with the finger mechanism) and the potential
    race condition due to the delay between assignment of a handle and
    submitting/referencing the objects.
    
  - Inverse lookup, initially for person: objects
    The same functionality was requested for other object types during
    the discussion  specifically to get better selection criteria for
    entries in the routing registry. While part of this functionality is
    available by accessing the data through wais, this was seen as not
    really adequate. Still this method should be improved as much as
    possible!
    
  - Authentication and Security
    This is currently under active consideration. In particular both PGP
    and MD5 should be available. There are both legal/logistic issues
    (see below) as well as software issues. In particular we have to
    decide on the method for registering keys and whether to use a
    "standard package" or to move functionality into the database
    software itself.  During the discussion it was suggested to stick
    with "standard packages" because things are not yet stable. (Merit is
    using the "standard package" as well.) The RIPE-NCC is probably
    following the same path.


2.      User interface(s)

  Encryption is probably going to be a legal problem in (at least)
  France. In addition to that there was a comment that part of the
  technology has recently been submitted for patent protection.

  Probably the first thing to be available shall be PGP protection for
  signing messages. The details to guard against snooping and re-play of
  updates are currently be solved. (Detailled input has been received
  after the WG meeting).
  
  A couple of WWW interfaces to the various databases have been made
  available recently. There is not yet consensus whether this is the
  right way to go, especially for submitting updates. The RIPE NCC thinks
  that the DB is not focussed toward the "end user" but towards ISPs.
  Other comments indicated that the WWW interface could be useful for
  all sorts of operational people as a well-known user interface. 

  Both Brian Renaud <renaud at meritedu> as well as Paolo Bevilacqua
  <pab at uni.net> have recently made implementations available:
  - http://black.uni.net/cgi-bin/whois
  - http://www.ra.net/cgi-bin/ra/query-radb.pl


3.	External interfaces

  Exchange of data with the InetNIC is still not happening. All the
  necessary agreements and good intentions are in place, still the
  InterNIC seems to regard it as a low priority issue. European ISPs want
  this to work really soon and regard it as *urgent*. There is not much
  the NCC can do right now.

  The different functionality of the auto-assign vs. auto-dbm mailboxes
  was briefly reviewed. The differences as not widely known, and the
  interlocks could be improved. The NCC thinks about moving towards
  keywords on the subject line, similar to "LONGACK".

	
4.	Input from other WGs

  - MBone
  The expansion of the inet-rtr: object to cover multicast functionality
  is to be progressed now.

  - IPv6
  There is a discussion going on how to handle and possibly abbreviate
  things for IPv6 (macros?). Input welcome. There was a comment that
  similar ideas are being (or have been) discussed in the RPS
  environment.

5.	AOB

  None, thus the meeting was closed.
________________________________________________________________________________
  
List of new actions:

David Kessens: To work with A. Blasco Bonito to improve the WAIS
	functionality for access to the database information on
	info.ripe.net.

Geert-Jan de Groot: To try to follow up with the InterNIC about accepting
	person objects with RIPE-Handles.

RIPE-NCC: To circulate a proposal how to progress the authentication (and
	encryption) method for the RIPE Database.

RIPE-NCC: To analize the merits of implementing special keywords for the
	subject line of update messages, like ADD, MOD, DELETE, to
	possibly replace the functionality of special mailbox names (e.g.
	auto-assign).

RIPE-NCC: To follow up on and implement the NOC-Object.

WW, 27.10.95, yes I know, much too late...