automatic DB cleanup proposal

Re everybody,

following up to some personal talks during the RIPE meeting I propose
an automatic cleanup of orphaned person and role objects in the RIPE
DB.

Motivation
----------
In the light of data privacy issues raised by governmental
organizations and in RIPE Database Working Group sessions during
RIPE-39 and RIPE-40, as well as following the Great Dangling Person
Objects Deletion after de.* ccTLD move-out I propose an automized
garbage collection procedure to remove personal data that is
unreferenced for a certain amount of time.

Proposed Change
---------------
An additional attibute ``expire:'' with two values should be added
to all person and role objects.  The values to this attribute would
be a reference counter and a modification timestamp.

The reference counter would contain the number of objects still
refering to this object, and thus be analog to the link counter of
an inode in a UNIX file system.

The modification timestamp would be updated whenever the object is
updated or the link counter changes.  The analogy in the UNIX file
system would be sort of a mix of ctime and mtime.

Both values could be combined into a single value, but each value
of it's own may be of interest to some people.  Combining both
values would leave the resulting value useless to human interpretation.

A garbage collection process running on a periodic basis should
then delete all objects with a reference counter of ``0'' and a
modification timestamp of more than e.g. 8000000 seconds (approx.
3 month) ago.  The expiration period is to be discussed and agreed
upon in the community.

An additional switch to the whois client should be added to make
the otherwise invisible attribute visible, the DB should consequently
not accept ``expire:'' attributes in updates.  (The DB could
certainly be made more forgiving about this, but since the move to
v.3 tightened the syntax we should probably not weaken it again.)

Database Objects affected
-------------------------
An additional attribute would be added to all person and role objects.

role:          [mandatory]  [single]     [lookup key]
address:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
phone:         [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
fax-no:        [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
e-mail:        [mandatory]  [multiple]   [lookup key]
trouble:       [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
admin-c:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]
tech-c:        [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]
nic-hdl:       [mandatory]  [single]     [primary/look-up key]
remarks:       [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
notify:        [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
mnt-by:        [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
expire:        [generated]  [single]     [ ]
changed:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
source:        [mandatory]  [single]     [ ]

person:        [mandatory]  [single]     [lookup key]
address:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
phone:         [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
fax-no:        [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
e-mail:        [optional]   [multiple]   [lookup key]
nic-hdl:       [mandatory]  [single]     [primary/look-up key]
remarks:       [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
notify:        [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
mnt-by:        [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
expire:        [generated]  [single]     [ ]
changed:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
source:        [mandatory]  [single]     [ ]

Example
-------

inetnum:   10.0.0.0 - 10.0.255.255
netname:   XMAS
descr:     Santa's Workshop Inc.
           Christmas Toys Manufacturing Facility
           Northern Nowhere
country:   NN
admin-c:   SC12-RIPE
tech-c:    SWT95-RIPE
status:    ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by:    SANTA-SECURITY-MNT
changed:   jbgood at antarctic.nn 19960412
source:    RIPE

role:      Santa Workshop Team
address:   Santa's Workshop Inc.
           Jingle Bell Lane 12
           1224CH Christmastown
           Northern Nowhere
phone:     +12 12 122 3333
fax-no:    +12 12 221 4444
e-mail:    team at antarctic.nn
admin-c:   SC12-RIPE
tech-c:    SC12-RIPE
tech-c:    RD212-RIPE
nic-hdl:   SWT95-RIPE
mnt-by:    SANTA-SECURITY-MNT
expire:    1 849700000
changed:   jbgood at antarctic.nn 19960412
source:    RIPE

person:    Santa A. Claus
address:   Santa's Workshop Inc.
           Jingle Bell Lane 12
           1224CH Christmastown
           Northern Nowhere
phone:     +12 12 122 2121
           +12 12 122 2211 ext. 1221
fax-no:    +12 12 221 1212
e-mail:    santa at antarctic.nn
nic-hdl:   SC12-RIPE
mnt-by:    SANTA-SECURITY-MNT
expire:    3 849700000
changed:   jbgood at antarctic.nn 19960412
source:    RIPE

person:    Rudolf R N Reindeer
address:   Santa's Workshop Inc.
           Jingle Bell Lane 21
           1224CH Christmastown
           Northern Nowhere
phone:     +12 12 122 1111
fax-no:    +12 12 122 2222
nic-hdl:   RD212-RIPE
e-mail:    rudolf at xmas.nn
mnt-by:    SANTA-SECURITY-MNT
expire:    1 849700000
changed:   jbgood at antarctic.nn 19960412
source:    RIPE

-- 
Ulf Kieber                                 email: kieber at gatel.net
Senior Network Engineer                    voice: +49-69-299896-21
Global Access Telecommunications, Inc.     fax  : +49-69-299896-40
internet solutions for business            www  : www.gatel.net

The Database Toothbrush Proposal