[db-wg] Proposal - Maintaining person, role and domain objects

Denis Walker wrote:
[....]
> 
> The first one concerns maintaining all objects in the RIPE Database, which
> followed from a recommendation from the Data Protection Task Force (DP TF)
> (see below). We have already had some preliminary discussions about this
> with the DP TF. They provided the RIPE NCC with some very useful feedback,
> which is incorporated in this proposal.

2 question regarding implementation details...

[...]
> New startup 
> Send an update message to dbupdate to create a person object and a
> mntner object. These must be the first two objects in an update
> message, in any order.

1)
This sentence, and the explanation that follows, implies that exactly
*two* objects are required here and supported. It should work, even
for the cases where admin-c: and tech-c: are (to be) different. Just
double-checking.

2)
I suppose the use of auto-X instead of an explicit handle would be
supported here as well, as in similar chicken and egg situations?

> The references to each other must also be in
> place. The database software will accommodate this. 
>  
>   person:         Den is
>   address:        RIPE Network Coordination Centre (NCC)
>   address:        Singel 258
>   address:        1016 AB Amsterdam
>   address:        The Netherlands
>   phone:          +31 20 535 4444
>   nic-hdl:        DW-RIPE
>   mnt-by:         aardvark-mnt
>   notify:         denis at ripe.net
>   changed:        denis at ripe.net 20040318
>   source:         RIPE
>  
>   mntner:         AARDVARK-MNT
>   descr:          Mntner for denis' objects.
>   admin-c:        DW-RIPE
>   tech-c:         DW-RIPE
>   upd-to:         denis at ripe.net
>   auth:           X509-1
>   notify:         denis at ripe.net
>   mnt-by:         AARDVARK-MNT
>   referral-by:    RIPE-DBM-MNT
>   changed:        denis at ripe.net 20040225
>   source:         RIPE
>  
> The update software will recognise that the first person/mntner object
> references a non-existent mntner/person object. It will check that this
> referenced object is next in the update message. If it is, the "mnt-
> by:" attribute will be removed from the person object. The person and
> mntner objects will be created, and then the person object will be
> modified to add back the "mnt-by:" attribute.
>  
> The objects are now fully configured and can be used. The person object
> can be referenced by any other object where a nic-hdl is referenced. It
> can also be linked to the white pages. The mntner can be used to
> protect any data in the database.
>  
> If the non-existent referenced object is not next in the update message
> then an error message will be generated and the update will fail. This
> is the current behaviour.

Wilfried.