[db-wg] cmd line asused and webasused

Hi Nina,

Thanks for bringing up asused. It is a tool that was written and maintained by the RIPE NCC many years ago and later handed to the open source community, where it can be found in packages such as Debian:
http://packages.qa.debian.org/a/asused.html

This, along with the fact that is was written in a very platform specific manner, is the reason why the tool is no longer actively developed and supported by the RIPE NCC. On the other hand, we have always kept the existence of asused in mind, which means that we would never intentionally change anything to our (whois) configuration that would break asused. I want to assure you that we'll try to fix any issue that you may have on a best effort basis. 

We have recognised the wish from the Community for the functionality that asused provides. Currently we offer this in the shape of Web Asused: http://www.db.ripe.net/cgi-bin/webasused.pl.cgi
The advantage of offering it like this is that we control the platform on which the tool runs, making it manageable and maintainable. However, it comes with obvious downsides that you have mentioned. 

This is why we are currently developing a new implementation of the asused functionality that resides in the LIR Portal. The advantage of this is that it allows for a much more comprehensive overview of the address space, because it can use internal Registry data and doesn't solely rely on the public RIPE Database. To make sure this integrates with your current workflow, we understand that you wouldn't want to be locked into (solely) using the LIR Portal web interface. This is why we will offer an API to make sure you can script against it. You can expect the first iteration of this functionality to appear in the LIR Portal within just a couple of weeks. We want to work with you and everybody else who is depending on this functionality to make it as useful and seamless as possible.

As always, we appreciate and look forward to your input.

Kind regards,

Alex Band
Product Manager
RIPE NCC



On 17 Jan 2012, at 14:04, Nina Hjorth Bargisen wrote:

> 
> Hi all
> 
> Last year I learned - by asking around - that the asused
> tool commandline script was no longer supported by RIPE - that was after
> not being able to find it on the usual ftp site.  We have since managed
> to get by with an old copy but now it seems that this is no longer able
> to get output from the RIPE db and hence all our adress usage and other
> homemade scripts are now broken.
> 
> I assume that this step has been taken after some discussion that I
> myself have been too lazy to follow in this working group, but as I cant
> manage to find any reference of it in a brief search in the archives and
> my mailbox that holds mails from a few years, I hope someone in the
> group can enlighten me about why this step was taken.
> 
> I have tried to use the webtool, but as it spams *every* person in the
> LIR contact list with several mails and all the output is jammed together in one long list,
> I am not really too happy about rewriting all my scripts to some how use
> the webtool to give me the nessercary output.
> 
> So - Is there *ANY* chance of somehow get support of a similar tool to the
> old asused used, that one can install and run from our own box and with
> the support of the same options as before or does all tools now focus on
> small LIRs with very and hence very easily manually managed
> addressspace?
> 
> /Nina
> 
> TDC dk.teledanmark
> 
> 
> 
> 
>