RIPE NCC Quarterly Report
Issue 5 June 1993
Document-ID: ripe-90
1. Introduction
RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) is a collaborative organisation
open to all European Internet service providers. The
objective of RIPE is to ensure the necessary administrative
and technical coordination to allow the operation of a pan-
European IP network. Much of this work is achieved through
voluntary effort. RIPE does not operate a network of its
own.
The RIPE Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) is a
European organisa- tion with a charter to support RIPE. It
is specifically focused on undertaking those activities
which cannot be effectively performed by volunteers from the
participating organisations. As such, it provides a wide
range of technical and administrative support to network
operators in the Internet community across Europe. The RIPE
NCC currently has 3 permanent staff members. The RARE
association provides the legal and financial framework for
the NCC.
This is the fifth quarterly report produced by the RIPE NCC.
This report differs from the previous four issues in that
there has been a conscious effort to avoid duplication of
information. Instead there will be references to the
relevant quarterly report.
As always, comments and suggestions are very welcome.
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Note on Statistics
The arrangement of categories including country
codes in some statistical tables and figures have
been standardised to make the data more easily
comparable between different tables and editions
of these reports. As a consequence some
categories appear with no data and/or seemingly
nonsensical combinations. See Appendix D for
domain table.
In the PostScript version of this document much
information is presented both in graphical and in
table form. This apparent duplication is
necessary because the graphics cannot be
represented in the ASCII version of the document
which has to contain the same information as the
PostScript version.
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2. Management Summary
The European Internet continues to grow steadily as the
number of hosts registered in the domain name system will be
in excess of 400,000 at the end of the reporting period.
All NCC activities have run smoothly during the reporting
period.
Delegated Registry
The number of local registries has increased to some 61.
Together with the NCC they have assigned 3511 class C and 14
class B network numbers during the reporting period. Still
only about 10% of the assigned networks are routed on the
Internet while usage of the internet protocols and thus
demand for addresses continues to expand in all areas.
Since the European registry system runs smoothly, the
highest priority in this area remains automatic alignment of
regis try databases with the global Internet registry.
RIPE Database
There are now more that 30,000 objects in the RIPE database
and the NCC is still processing around 500 update requests
on an average working day. A complete re-design of the
database software has been completed and implementation is
progressing. Additional efforts to increase database
coverage and to provide pro-active maintenance are required.
This and the software implementation will be the highest
priorities during the next quarter.
Documentation
The document store is running reliably and is being used
worldwide. In addition to a number of new RIPE documents a
leaflet describing registry services has been produced.
Joint Projects
The two running projects have almost completed and are
successful. While the projects have been very valuable to
the NCC and vice-versa they have required more resources
from permanent NCC staff than expected. A follow up project
PRIDE (Policy-Based Routing Implementation and Deployment in
Europe) has been proposed with this experience in mind.
Funding for this project has been secured almost completely.
The NCC has started its second year of operation
successfully continuing a high level of service. We are
looking forward to the results of the first-year review and
to the subsequent revision of the NCC activity plan. Based
on the growing European Internet community and the
increasing demand for service and new activities, the NCC
will need additional resources in the medium term.
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3. RIPE NCC Core Services
3.1. DNS Coordination
DNS Hostcount
Nothing has changed to the hostcount procedure. The June
1993 hostcount shows a total of over 404,900 hosts in
Europe, where Cyprus (CY), the Czech Republic (CZ), Egypt
(EG), the Faroe Islands (FO), Georgia (GE), Liechtenstein
(LI), Malta (MT), the Slovak Republic (SK) and Turkey (TR)
are added to the hostcount.
In the hostcount, any machine that appears in the Domain
Name System with an A record is counted as a host. Hosts
with more than one A record are counted once, and hosts with
the same A record, but different domain names inside the
same top level domain are also counted just once.
All DNS output, not just the A records, are saved and are
available in the RIPE document store, two files for each
country: the standard output, and the error messages.
Please check the README file in ftp.ripe.net:ripe/hostcount
for more details.
Hostcount History
1990
Oct 26141
Nov 33665
Dec 29226
1991
Jan 43799
Feb 44000
Mar 44506
Apr 46948
May 52000
Jun 63267
Jul 67000
Aug 73069
Sep 92834
Oct 104828
Nov 129652
Dec 133000
1992
Jan 141308
Feb 161431
Mar 167931
Apr 170000
May 182528
Jun 196758
Jul 213017
Aug 221951
Sep 232522
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Oct 254585
Nov 271795
Dec 284374
1993
Jan 303828
Feb 322902
Mar 355140
Apr 366164
May 385522
Jun 404930
3.2. Internet Registry
Delegated Internet Registry (IR)
The Delegated IR service has been provided successfully by
the RIPE NCC for almost one year (the function was
officially delegated on July 31st, 1992). On a daily basis,
requests for IP numbers are received as faxes, e-mail
messages and by telephone.
A new RIPE NCC leaflet has been produced "Delegated Internet
Registry" which attempts to clarify the process of acquiring
IP network numbers. See the section on "RIPE NCC Information
Leaflets" for details on how to obtain copies.
Local Registries
We are pleased to report that the number of local registries
in Europe, both provider and non-provider continues to
increase. There are now a total of 61 organisations acting
as local registries and to whom blocks of class C network
numbers have been delegated. Of these, there are now 21
non-provider local IR's.
To date, local non-provider registries exist for the
following countries: Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark,
Spain, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Israel, Italy, The
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, The Soviet Union
(covering the states/countries which comprised the former
Soviet Union), Estonia, Bulgaria and Iceland. New
registries since the last quarter are Turkey, Ireland and
Finland. Thanks are extended to those who voluntarily
perform this activity to serve future Internet users in
their country. Furthermore we would like to encourage other
organisations or individuals to make themselves known to the
NCC if they feel that they are able to undertake this work.
Organisations wishing to become local registries must first
confirm that they have read and understood "RIPE NCC
Internet Numbers Registration Procedures" (Doc ID: ripe
-72).
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Common Template
Since the 15th RIPE meeting, the revised European IP network
number tem- plate has been available. To get some
indication of the usage of the template, a poll was taken
via the general RIPE mailing list. Of the 61 registries on
file, replies were received from 32 organisations. Of these
21 registries currently use the template with a further 8
registries expecting to use the template in the near future.
An updated version of the European Common Template (now Doc
ID: ripe-88) has been placed in the document store.
Class B Network Numbers
The RIPE NCC performs all actual class B network number
assignments to European Organisations. There have been 14
class B allocations this quarter, of which 12 were referred
to the RIPE NCC via the local registries.
For details of class B allocation criteria see the revision
of RFC1466 (which updates 1366). This revision incorporates
a number of comments from RIPE and the RIPE NCC.
Reverse Name Lookup for 193.x.y.0 Networks
At the 15th RIPE meeting in April, the procedures for the
delegation of blocks in the 193.in-addr.arpa domain were
finalized. They are available as ripe document number
ripe-85. In total 57 blocks have been delegated in the
193.in-addr.arpa domain at the end of this quarter. So far,
no problems have been reported. The NCC is providing
secondary name service for all these blocks. It also
performs a check of the initial reverse zone setup before
delegation.
NCC Workload and Performance
Once again the NCC has kept a log of the actions related to
the delegated registry function. The numbers in brackets
relate to the previous quarter.
The total number of applications received over the reporting
period quarter was 95 (143). Of these 20 (51) were received
from the IR, 14 (5) were received from the local registries
and 61 (86) were sent directly to the NCC. Simple referrals
to the appropriate local registry without receiving an
application are not included in these numbers. More requests
are being made directly to the NCC instead of going through
the global registry.This positive trend continues from the
last quarter. The relative stability of these numbers
should not be taken as an indicator of the total number of
registration requests, but rather as an increase in the
number of requests dealt with by the local registries
without the intervention of the NCC. The portion of
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requests handled vie E-mail has risen slightly during the
reporting period. Of all the requests, 80% (82.5%) were
answered (not only acknowledged) the day they were received.
92.1% (97.9%) of all requests were answered within seven
calendar days of receipt by the NCC. The average elapsed
time of a class C allocation via the NCC is just under four
days (previously five). Taking into account that class C
allocations via the NCC frequently concern large blocks with
all the needed technical justification, this is a good
average. The average elapsed time of a class B allocation
is just under 15 days (previously 10). Over the reporting
period more "difficult" class B applications have been
received - many on recommendation from the local NICs. This
accounts for the lengthened period of allocation for a class
B network number.
Address Space Usage
During the reporting period, the NCC assigned a total of 14
class B network numbers, delegated 14 blocks of class C
network numbers and have reserved 7 blocks of class C
network numbers. The assignment and reservation of class C
blocks was done in accordance with the CIDR scheme to allow
route aggregation in the future. It should be noted that
blocks are reserved based on usage estimates given by the
local registries for a period of about 24 months. Should
the assignment rate differ from the estimated one, reserved
blocks can and will be used for other purposes.
During the reporting period the European registries have
assigned a total of 3511 class C networks to bring the total
to 13859 networks. Out of these 13859, 800-900 were actually
observed to be routed in the Internet.
The detailed status of the address space delegated to the
RIPE NCC can be found in Appendix B and C for class B and
class C network numbers respectively.
3.3. RIPE Network Management Database
Database Software
The feasibility and prototype experiments reported in the
last Quarterly report (ref. doc ID: ripe-87) have progressed
into a complete rewrite of the database software. The
system design is complete and various modules have been
implemented.
The new design incorporates the following new features:
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o fully configurable from a config file;
o separate files (and indices) to store different databases;
o dynamic updates and deletes as opposed to batch only;
o possibility for update protocol other than e-mail;
o guarded fields included in the design;
o dynamic update of secondary database
Features which have been requested but are not designed in:
o preserve the order of tags within object;
o preserve the position of remark or comment lines
within objects;
The new software has been implemented in the Perl language.
Those who would like to use the RIPE database software
should plan to install Perl. Perl will not be needed if you
just want to use a whois client and to send in updates by
mail. Implementing in Perl instead of shell, awk and C has
three benefits:
o coding in Perl is fast;
o subroutines can be used (missing from std awk);
o the result is portable;
The RIPE NCC has a copy of the alpha software; running on a
PC. Together with a notebook this gives a "portable" RIPE
database.
The first module completed is the whois server (net.c and
netdbm.c replacement). This server runs as its own daemon
process rather than under inetd. The measured performance
on a SUN ELC before optimising is 5 queries/s on average and
the server can sustain peaks of 50 queries arriving in
parallel. The new server is compatible with the current one
and has some added features:
o the source databases (RIPE, MERIT, NIC etc.) can be
selected individually rather than either RIPE or all;
o the same connection can be used for multiple queries
(nice for tools like prtraceroute);
o a grep type query;
o nice logging.
The RIPE NCC has an alpha version of the whois server and
the database indexing tool running. The next part to be
tackled is the update procedure including the guarded
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attributes. The last part will be the current mail
interface for the update procedure.
After another announcement the RIPE NCC will begin to use
the new server on whois.ripe.net. This should be
transparent. Once this is running the backlogged new tags
will be implemented such as the DMZ specifics in the network
and the operational contacts. Shortly afterwards the new
updates procedures will be used. This will mean that
updates mailed in will appear in the database more quickly.
This also means that the NCC will correspondingly be more
stringent in checking updates, because there will be less
human intervention from NCC staff. More bounced updates
should be expected, but they will be received much more
quickly. Diagnostics will be improved because the dynamic
update procedure will have access to the current database
making more checks of updates possible.
Database updates
The frequency of update runs remains at once per working day
with an occasional run skipped and some days with multiple
runs as demanded by the vol ume of updates received. This
ensures that users perceive the database update process as
predictable. During the reporting period the NCC has
processed 28110 object updates, an average of 468 per
working day. The number of updates received per month
varies widely with peaks usually occurring just before RIPE
meetings.
The updates consist of additions and changes as well as so
called "NOOPS". NOOPS are updates received which do not
differ from the information already recorded in the
database. The NCC accepts such requests because it makes
bulk updates from secondary NICs easier: secondary NICs can
just send in their whole database without having to select
just the records which changed since the last bulk update
was sent to the NCC.
Database Action Q4 1992 Q4 1992 Q1 1993
number perc number perc number perc
Updated 9235 64% 18586 66% 12840 46%
Added 3632 11% 3885 20% 4578 38%
NOOP 1558 25% 5467 14% 10692 16%
TOTAL 14425 27938 28110
Database Statistics
Again the number of networks in the database has increased
significantly due to the large number of newly assigned
class C network numbers.
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Month Nets Persons Domains Autonomous Systems
Nov 90 643 670 0
Jun 91 1270 1053 845
Jan 92 2728 1792 1254
Apr 92 3365 2242 1360
Jun 92 3797 2736 1422
Sep 92 4172 4594 1549
Dec 92 11080 6116 1680
Mar 93 15281 7846 1894
Jun 93 19523 9423 2134 85
Database Coverage
The following table shows that database coverage has
increased slightly but is still lower than we would like in
some areas. Any effort to attack this problem requires a
high level of resources which need to be applied constantly.
These resources are currently not available due to other
activities. In our view this is an important area where
additional resources are needed and could have significant
impact. The importance of this becomes even more pronounced
as the database slowly assumes its additional function as
European Routing Registry.
Country Nets in Nets in Perc Perc Perc Perc
DNS Q2 DB Q2 Q2 1993 Q1 1993 Q4 1992 Q3 1992
1993 1993
BG 1 1 100 100 0 0
CY 3 3 100 100 0 0
LV 1 1 100 100 0 0
RO 3 3 100 100 0 0
SK 12 12 100 0 0 0
UA 2 2 100 0 0 0
CZ 36 35 97 0 0 0
PL 35 34 97 92 100 90
HU 25 24 96 100 100 100
BE 19 18 95 82 100 100
AT 108 102 94 89 82 63
FR 575 539 94 91 94 95
CH 129 119 92 87 85 93
ES 36 33 92 87 95 88
DE 535 475 89 87 83 80
NL 152 133 88 86 86 80
IL 52 45 87 75 76 71
PT 87 73 84 86 86 80
UK 402 338 84 70 70 67
IT 180 150 83 81 81 82
IE 41 33 81 82 86 90
GR 20 16 80 73 75 66
HR 5 4 80 83 0 0
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NO 88 67 76 76 70 58
IS 28 21 75 84 83 50
SE 227 167 74 70 59 49
TR 7 5 71 0 0 0
LU 10 7 70 50 60 50
SI 16 10 63 75 100 0
EE 24 14 58 0 0 0
LI 2 1 50 0 0 0
TN 4 2 50 100 100 100
YU 2 1 50 50 50 100
FI 298 133 45 44 39 6
DK 33 11 33 35 39 40
SU 34 1 3 16 0 0
CS 43 0 0 27 100 100
3.4. Document Store
In total the document store contains approximately 5612
documents. By volume, it accounts for over 263 Mbytes. A
breakdown of the composition of the document store by mbytes
is shown below.
Area Files Kbytes
earn 10 730
ebone 36 532
iesg 51 502
ietf 819 5982
internet-drafts 621 41681
internet-society 1019 22590
nsf 157 18321
rare 1023 41710
rfc 862 48667
ripe 634 37826
tools 351 42766
Total 5612 263533
FTP Usage Statistics
The most popular archive sections of the RIPE document store
are tabulated below. This displays the top 15 most popular
sections which were accessed using ftp.The most popular
section is the ripe database, with approximately 3185 Mbytes
transferred. This represents more than a 100% increase in
Mbytes of the RIPE database transferred compared to the
previous quarter.
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Archive Section Files KBytes % of % of
Sent Sent Files Files
Sent Sent
ripe/dbase 3185 2551215 5.27 61.13
rfc 4073 254506 6.73 6.10
ripe/docs 3002 249762 4.96 5.98
ripe/hostcount 1817 237619 3.00 5.69
ripe/as 33473 168244 55.34 4.03
tools/www 634 138471 1.05 3.32
rare/archive 1980 98980 3.27 2.37
internet-drafts 1289 74485 2.13 1.78
nsf 459 53266 0.76 1.28
internet-society/charts 121 38056 0.20 0.91
tools/conf 91 33165 0.15 0.79
rare/doc 449 31109 0.74 0.75
tools/dns 348 25330 0.58 0.61
internet-society/newslett 1831 23392 3.03 0.56
tools/wais 241 20204 0.40 0.48
The number of Mbytes transferred using ftp per top level
domain is shown below:
Domain Name Files Bytes % of % of
Sent Sent Files Bytes
Sent Sent
IIS 0 0 0 0
IXI 0 0 0 0
LOCAL 0 0 0 0
NCC-X25 0 0 0 0
PSPDN 0 0 0 0
UNKNOWN 4900 293789933 8.10 7.04
at 314 46225428 0.52 1.11
au 21 848291 0.03 0.02
be 42 3801953 0.07 0.09
br 3 363544 0.00 0.01
ca 332 4878434 0.55 0.12
ch 1604 299885312 2.65 7.19
cl 1 33640 0.00 0.00
com 294 23659477 0.49 0.57
cs 297 20601599 0.49 0.49
cz 550 30953822 0.91 0.74
de 1063 282682667 1.76 6.77
dk 52 9247521 0.09 0.22
edu 656 148524949 1.08 3.56
ee 5 73349 0.01 0.00
es 3843 115448091 6.35 2.77
fi 4528 233806797 7.49 5.60
fr 1148 123118992 1.90 2.95
gov 63 4500058 0.10 0.11
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gr 806 39926605 1.33 0.96
hk 2 4692 0.00 0.00
hr 41 1240278 0.07 0.03
hu 177 23024798 0.29 0.55
ie 167 12488261 0.28 0.30
il 961 245757373 1.59 5.89
in 5 197225 0.01 0.00
int 0 0 0 0
is 4 318904 0.01 0.01
it 728 238029345 1.20 5.70
jp 17161 747944964 28.37 17.92
kr 973 71132396 1.61 1.70
lu 190 35951740 0.31 0.86
mil 30 1428640 0.05 0.03
mx 0 0 0 0
my 2 223493 0.00 0.01
net 16369 847365814 27.06 20.30
nl 1156 126225356 1.91 3.02
no 78 8343461 0.13 0.20
nz 0 0 0 0
org 189 5294024 0.31 0.13
pl 99 7103281 0.16 0.17
pt 599 50884478 0.99 1.22
ro 8 37672 0.01 0.00
se 139 14506064 0.23 0.35
sg 0 0 0 0
si 1 180797 0.00 0.00
sk 436 28273730 0.72 0.68
su 11 232259 0.02 0.01
tr 5 13613 0.01 0.00
tw 0 0 0 0
uk 422 24417414 0.70 0.59
us 7 156384 0.01 0.00
ve 0 0 0 0
yu 6 85336 0.01 0.00
za 1 88303 0.00 0.00
The UNKNOWN category refers to where there is no match found
between the IP address and the Domain Name.
These statistics show clearly that the RIPE document store
is a very focused resource being used by the right
community. It is also evident that it is regarded as an
important source for European information worldwide rather
than only locally.
Interactive Information Server
The NCC Interactive Information Server is a popular method
of access to the RIPE document store catering for users with
minimal hardware and/or software support to access
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information stored by the NCC. Full details on access
methods are given in the RIPE NCC information leaflet
"Interactive Information Server" and in the first edition of
the NCC Quarterly Report.
General Service Usage Statistics
Statistics for the use of the various NCC information
services were collected for the second quarter of 1993. The
table below shows the total number of connections made for
each service from July 1992 (Whois, IIS, Wais, Ftp and
Gopher) contacted either directly from a user client or from
the NCC Interactive Infor mation Service. The breakdown is
given as total number of connections per month:
Service Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Whois 7909 7845 8044 12373 9769 19255
IIS 669 591 628 1027 1018 1148
Wais 1040 682 816 2552 2460 2240
FTP 849 645 625 1173 1344 1757
Gopher 371 337 340 1115 1318 1156
Service Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Whois 24299 26027 28961 32660 35215 30721
IIS 1662 1924 2040 1785 2326 2313
Wais 2316 3359 4375 3764 3564 3994
FTP 1443 1816 2067 1735 2038 1891
Gopher 1310 1882 2394 2345 2439 2559
The number of connections to the various servers at the NCC
broken down by the source of the request is shown in the
table below. In total there were 6424 connections to the
Interactive Information Server, which is queried, on
average, 107 times per working day.
The provisional access from the EuropaNet (formerly IXI)
network has been used 3100 times during the reporting
period, which is approximately 51 times per working day on
average. This service will have to be discontinued once the
IXI connection at NIKHEF which it uses is disconnected
unless alternative access can be found.
Source Whois IIS Wais Ftp Total
IIS 10268 0 8727 0 18995
IXI 11 3100 0 0 3111
LOCAL 2158 38 34 281 2511
NCC-X25 17 50 0 0 67
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PSPDN 0 6 0 0 6
UNKNOWN 2584 561 72 454 3671
at 211 123 40 179 553
au 64 12 16 11 103
be 511 20 0 54 585
br 1 1 0 4 6
ca 145 28 32 71 276
ch 982 80 35 317 1414
cl 13 0 2 6 21
com 491 81 454 171 1197
cs 183 175 1 99 458
cz 176 53 0 18 247
de 3161 249 22 658 4090
dk 156 13 2 32 203
edu 8672 264 999 607 10542
ee 27 41 0 6 74
es 250 37 4 67 358
fi 298 45 203 109 655
fr 4983 104 40 316 5443
gb 1 0 0 0 1
gov 94 30 30 36 190
gr 520 24 34 118 696
hk 1 0 0 1 2
hr 7 50 0 27 84
hu 281 97 0 40 418
ie 948 55 4 152 1159
il 10 30 1 148 189
in 0 6 1 4 11
int 1 0 0 0 1
is 200 7 40 5 252
it 1461 109 3 259 1832
jp 25 9 17 128 179
kr 8 13 4 91 116
lu 98 10 0 7 115
mil 15 12 0 19 46
mx 0 1 0 0 1
my 0 0 0 2 2
net 2489 67 393 363 3312
nl 2896 301 33 295 3525
no 490 55 3 66 614
nz 6 1 2 0 9
org 8783 45 16 30 8874
pl 183 42 0 60 285
pt 193 11 0 59 263
ro 0 2 0 4 6
se 2642 57 4 54 2757
sg 6 2 1 0 9
si 50 16 0 1 67
sk 126 48 0 29 203
su 18 3 0 4 25
tr 28 34 0 6 68
tw 3 4 1 3 11
uk 1307 188 49 182 1726
us 40339 4 0 7 40350
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ve 1 1 0 0 2
yu 0 1 3 2 6
za 4 8 0 2 14
Totals 98596 6424 11322 5664 122006
3.5. RIPE NCC Information Leaflets
A new leaflet "Delegated IP Registry" has been published by
the RIPE NCC. The draft leaflet was first approved by the
Local Registries RIPE working group. The aim of the leaflet
is to publicise the procedures on how and where to obtain
valid IP network numbers. If you would like copies of the
new leaflet, please do not hesitate to contact the NCC,
stating how many copies you would like. The first print run
was for 2,000 copies of the leaflet (so it would be
appreciated if you didn't ask for 2,000 copies!).
3.6. Presentations
Presentations given this quarter include the following; at
the JENC conference in Trondheim from May 10-14th Daniel
Karrenberg gave two presentations on "One years experience
with Internet Coordination" and "Joint RARE/RIPE Projects"
respectively. At the NSFnet Regional Techs meeting held in
Herndon, Va, US on the 9th-10th June Tony Bates and Daniel
Karrenberg gave presentations on the Route Server Project.
3.7. RIPE Support Activities
RIPE meetings - Minutes
The 15th RIPE meeting, hosted by NIKHEF in Amsterdam was one
of the busiest RIPE meetings on record. There were 65
participants and 18 agenda items scheduled. Increasingly
the task of compiling the minutes is becoming more time
consuming. Thus a proposal was circulated to the RIPE
community the aim of which was to improve the quality of the
minutes and reduce the amount of time it takes to compile
and eventually publish them.
In summary, the speakers at future RIPE meetings will be
asked to submit a short summary of their presentation to the
RIPE NCC. Without substantial editing the text received
will be used in the minutes. Optionally, speakers are
invited to make their presentations publicly available by
emailing them to the RIPE NCC to be stored in the
/presentations directory.
In a similar way, the working-group chairs will be asked to
submit a summary of the proceedings of their working groups
which will not be substantially edited. In addition,
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support to the working group chairs will be improved as each
chairman will receive a "Meeting Pack".
It is hoped that everyone will benefit from the proposal.
3.8. Referrals and End-User Enquiries
The number of end-user queries have been insignificant
during the reporting period and again relate to either
queries concerning the registering of domain names or how to
obtain IP numbers. Both have been dealt with by providing
further contact names inside the relevant country. Requests
for connectivity have been referred to the ip-provs@ripe.net
mailing list as usual.
4. Other Activities
4.1. Funding Letters
As part of the continued initiative to redefine the current
funding model for the RIPE NCC as outlined in the previous
quarterly report (Doc ID: ripe-87), letters have been sent
to a number of potential contributors, together with
relevant supporting RIPE documents. It is hoped that this
will stimulate further discussions and encourage many
organisations to participate in funding the RIPE NCC for the
coming financial year.
4.2. Internal Audit - RIPE NCC
It was agreed at the 15th RIPE meeting in Amsterdam to
review the activities of the RIPE NCC after one year of
operation. The aim of the review is to update the "Activity
Plan" (Doc ID: Ripe-35) bringing the future activities of
the RIPE NCC into sharp focus with the needs of the RIPE
community. Whilst input from all members of the RIPE
community is sought and encouraged, specific individuals
have been tasked to carry out this activity. These persons
include the RIPE chairpersons; the RIPE Working Group
chairpersons and the RIPE NCC manager. The deliverable will
be a report which will have identified which activities have
been successfully implemented, which activities are behind
schedule and those which have been taken up but were not
foreseen in the original activity plan. The conclusions
will summarise and identify the future direction for the
RIPE NCC.
4.3. Global Database Alignment
The exchange of database information between InterNIC, MERIT
and the RIPE NCC is progressing steadily. The exchange
format has been defined and programs to convert to and from
the exchange format from each of the respective formats have
been written. MERIT and the RIPE NCC produce their complete
- 18 -
database in exchange format after each update of their
respective databases. The NCC copies the MERIT database in
exchange format regularly and it will start using that data
in the RIPE whois server in the near future.
The RIPE NCC has made the part of the database that is
clearly European address space (193.x.y) and the
corresponding contact information available in exchange
format on request from InterNIC. InterNIC has taken this
data, and entered the majority of it into the worldwide
network database. There are still some inconsistencies that
need development. Currently the update process is being
tested before moving to a more regular update mechanism. In
conjunction with this, the NCC is discussing with InterNIC
to add a flag to each object to define the primary
maintainer of that data. This would facilitate the update
mechanism in situations of multiple and/or conflicting
entries/updates. It will also allow distributed maintenance
to be introduced gradually.
4.4. Conference Support
Interop Involvement
The RIPE NCC was invited to be one of the team designing and
building the Interop Shownet for Interop Europe in Paris in
October this year. Marten Terpstra accepted the position of
"NOC Team" member. His primary responsibilities are
external connectivity and IP addressing. The complete team
consists of some 15 persons from various European and
American organisations active in internetworking, together
with people from Interop Europe and Interop US. The NOC
team has met twice in the past quarter to prepare and design
the network, and after a prebuild of the network in
September, the network will be installed at Interop the
weekend before the start of Interop, and will be dissolved
again immediately after Interop. The Interop Shownet will
be connected to the rest of the Internet.
This activity is certainly not an NCC core activity. It has
been undertaken because sponsorship from Interop Europe has
been provided and more importantly it is an opportunity for
valuable professional development of NCC staff.
Amsterdam IETF Involvement
The RIPE NCC was approached by SURFnet, the local organizers
at the July IETF in Amsterdam, to participate in the design
and build up of the terminal room and organization of MBONE
for the audio and video broadcasts from the IETF. The NCC
has supported SURFnet in the design and preparation of the
terminal room and the audio visual facilities as well as the
IP multicast backbone in Europe.
- 19 -
4.5. Global Address Space issues
Class B Retrieval
Due to the scarcity of class B network numbers, the NCC has
started an activity to retrieve blocks of class B network
numbers that have been allocated to organisations in the
past. For this purpose, InterNIC has made available all
class B network numbers ever assigned in exchange format.
The NCC examine this information closely, and will approach
organisations holding a significant amount of class B
network numbers still unused, to ask them to return them to
the NCC, for assignment in Europe.
4.6. ECHO Gateway
The ECHO gateway provided by the RIPE NCC on June 6th was
taken over by RESTENA later, after adverse effects on NCC
Services had become noticeable.
5. Joint Projects
The two 6-month Joint Projects "Route Server" and "GISS"
have less than one month before they reach the end of the
reporting period. They have both been successful in
achieving their stated goals. The synergy of NCC activities
with the projects has proven to be extremely valuable to
both projects but especially to the Route Server
development.
The projects have also been beneficial to the NCC, since
they enable more proactive development meeting future needs.
NCC staff have supported the projects enthusiastically. In
retrospect it has become obvious that the projects have
demanded significant management and support effort from the
NCC itself. Consequently separate resources need to be
allocated for project management and support of joint
projects at the NCC for future projects. This has already
been done for the proposed PRIDE project described below.
In principle staff working at the NCC will have the
possibility to divide their time between project work and
NCC core activities as much as practical constraints allow.
The division will of course be arranged most carefully such
that all activities will receive resources in accordance to
their funding.
5.1. GISS Project Status
The goal of the project is to produce a document describing
all aspects of a "useful Internet service". The intention is
to provide guidance to both service providers and customers.
All important aspects of Internet services will be covered.
- 20 -
At the 15th RIPE meeting in Amsterdam the results of the
Birds of a Feather meeting at the 26th IETF meeting in
Columbus, US were presented along further refinements of the
intended focus and structure of the GISS document. Within
the first working group meeting it became clear that GISS is
a topic of large interest and something that would need to
be continued after the project was over. There are many
overlaps with other groups within RIPE that should be
integrated into GISS over time. Of particular note was the
work being done within the Connectivity working group where
it was clear that there was scope for closer liaison between
the groups in the future.
A second draft of GISS has been produced. This essentially
has the finished focus and structure of the GISS work. Six
areas of interest have been identified and 36 initial
service aspects highlighted. The intention is to have
aspects contributed from members of the community rather
than the authors to make the document as open as possible.
Thus far, the response has been somewhat disappointing.
A second `Birds of a Feather' meeting is planned for the
forthcoming Amsterdam Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
meeting. A draft IETF working group charter has been
produced to make sure the GISS document can be published to
as wide an audience as possible and discussed in a larger
forum than just RIPE and RARE. It is expected that the GISS
working groups will continue within RIPE and the IETF at
least until the document reaches a stable state. The
current GISS draft is available from the RIPE document store
in:
docs/ripe-drafts
as either giss.ps (postscript) giss.txt (ascii text).
5.2. Route Server Project Status
The goal of this project is to produce a functioning Route
Server as specified in "Internet Routing in a Multi
Provider, Multi Path Open Environment" by Bates, Karrenberg,
Lothberg, Stockman and Terpstra. The function of the Route
Server will be to present unified routes to European
destinations to routers on the proto-GIX in Washington D.C.
This project requires close coordination with the RIPE NCC
for the database related aspects and with the operators of
transatlantic links, especially EBONE. The project
continues to progress extremely well. The Route Server now
peers with all peers on the proto-GIX at MAE-EAST. A large
amount of Routing Protocol testing has been done.
Specifically in two areas; verification of the BGP NEXT_HOP
information and the robustness of the routing software.
- 21 -
Bugs have been found to exist in at least two vendor
implementations of router software resulting in giving
incorrect BGP NEXT_HOP information. These are in the
process of being fixed. A local modification has been made
to make sure the Route Server can function correctly. The
software continues to be very stable and large scale testing
has been done using network based access lists in the order
3000 networks with multiple paths which seem to incur no
problems. Whilst the Route Server is not used for
production traffic, as of today the component parts of the
Route Server appear to be ready. The larger and more
difficult part of routing policy information is still far
from complete and this essentially holds up full deployment
of the European Route Server.
Close collaboration takes place with both the Merit Route
Server and the CIX Route Server and all three Route Server
projects were presented at the NSFnet Regional Techs meeting
held in Herndon, Va, US. 9th - 10th June. The main area of
collaboration is needed in the Routing Registry aspect of
the Route Server project. An agreed `exchange format' for
routing policy information needs to be ratified and this
will be addressed at a forthcoming IETF once more experience
is gained with running Routing Registries.
The method of routing policy representation within the RIPE
database, RIPE-81 was agreed at the 15th RIPE meeting. A
weekly report is produced showing anomalies between the RIPE
database and routing tables within Europe. This is sub-
directory "as".
By examining routing tables within Europe we see some 90
European AS'es in use. The breakdown is shown below. NB.
available only as figures for ascii report.
Breakdown of known European AS's Perc
In Database with no ripe-81 Policy - 6.7%
In Database with ripe-81 Policy - 46.7%
Not in Database but known - 45.6%
Unknown - 1.1%
Although the amount of information continues to grow we
still need more Routing policy information in the RIPE
database.
More development has been done on the RIPE-81 tool
"prtraceroute". Alpha release 1.8 is available from the RIPE
document store and we encourage network operators to try
this and make useful suggestions.
As the main emphasis of the Route Server project swings more
- 22 -
towards the Routing Registry it is clear more resources need
to be put into the gathering of the routing policy
information. The outcome of this is the PRIDE project.
6. Acknowledgements
The RIPE NCC wishes to thank the RARE Secretariat for their
excellent support throughout this quarter.
We wish also to thank the local registries for their
excellent work, especially with regard to the allocation of
IP numbers.
- 23 -
Appendix A
Meetings Attended
The following meetings were attended by staff during the
second quarter of the RIPE NCC operations.
Date Name & Location Attendee
7-9 Apr Interop NOC Team,Paris, France Marten Terpstra
10 -12 May JENC `93, Trondheim, Norway Daniel Karrenberg
9 -10 Jun NSFnet, Regional Techs Meeting,Virginia, USA Tony Bates
Daniel Karrenberg
22 Jun Interop NOC Team ,Paris, France Marten Terpstra
30 Jun Euro-CCIRN meeting,Amsterdam, NL Daniel Karrenberg
- 24 -
Appendix B
Class B Network Number Allocations to Date
The table below summarises all assignments of class B
network numbers made through the RIPE NCC to date. The "Via"
column indicates through which reg- istry the NCC received
the request and solicited the necessary justification.
Network Number Via
141.92 RIPE NCC
141.93 RIPE NCC
141.94 JANET
141.95 JANET
141.96 RIPE NCC
141.97 JANET
141.98 SWITCH
145.224 JANET
145.225 DE-NIC
145.226 RIPE NCC
145.227 JANET
145.228 DE-NIC
145.229 JANET
145.230 DE-NIC
145.231 INRIA
145.232 SWITCH
145.233 JANET
145.234 SE-NIC
145.235-254 FREE
160.44-160.52 DE-NIC
160.53 SWITCH
160.54-160.58 DE-NIC
160.59 SWITCH
160.60 DE-NIC
160.61-160.62 CH NIC
160.63 SWITCH
160.219 EUnet/CH
160.220 RIPE NCC
163.156-163.157 RIPE NCC
163.158 CH NIC
163.159-163.160 RIPE NCC
163.161 SWITCH
163.162 GARR
163.163-163.165 RIPE NCC
163.166 ICNET
163.167 JANET
163.168-163.175 RIPE NCC
164.1 RIPE NCC
164.2 RIPE NCC
164.3 EUnet/AT
164.4 SE NIC
164.5 RIPE NCC
- 25 -
164.6 PIPEX
164.7 RIPE NCC
164.8 ARNES
164.9 SE NIC
164.10 SE NIC
164.11 JANET
164.12 RIPE NCC
164.13 Telecom Finland
164.14 RIPE NCC
164.15 RIPE NCC
164.16-164.34 DE-NIC
164.35 RIPE NCC
164.36 RIPE NCC
164.37 SE-NIC
164.38 PIPEX
164.39 HP
164.40 RIPE NCC
164.61 free
164.128 RIPE NCC
164.129 RIPE NCC
164.130 RIPE NCC
164.131 RIPE NCC
164.132 GARR
164.133 DE-NIC
164.134-143 FREE
- 26 -
Appendix C
Class C Block Allocations to Date
The table below summarises the delegation status of the
class C network number blocks allocated through the NCC and
the number of networks allocated from these blocks. The
"p/n" column indicates whether the block in question is
delegated to the local registry of a service provider or is
used to allocate numbers to organisations without a service
provider.
It should be noted that blocks are reserved based on usage
estimates given by the local registries for a period of
about 24 months. Should the assignment rate differ from the
estimated one, reserved blocks can and will be used for
other purposes if necessary.
Block p networks Country Registry
/ assigned
192.162 26 NCC Miscellaneous TN,RO,PT
192.164 p 238 AT EUnet/AT
192.165 192 SE NORDUnet
192.166 176 DE DE-NIC
192.167 154 IT GARR
192.168 p 0 EU EUnet/NOC
193.0 22 none NCC
193.1 p 22 IE HEANET
193.2 p 16 YU ARNES
193.3 153 DK EUnet/DK
193.4 57 IS Iceland everything
193.5 p 136 CH SWITCH
193.6 p 184 HU Sztaki
193.7 p 0 DE chambers of commerce DE-NIC
193.8 n 101 CH non-provider CH-NIC
193.9 n 179 EU NCC non-provider European
193.10 p 19 SE SUNET
193.11 p resvd SE SUNET
193.12 p 120 SE SWIPNET
193.13-15 p resvd SE SWIPNET
193.16 n 151 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.17 n 92 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.18 n 254 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.19 n 0 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.20 n 256 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.21 n 256 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.22 n 177 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.23 n 196 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.24 n 132 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.25 n 140 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.26 n 172 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.27 n 122 DE non-provider DE-NIC
- 27 -
193.28 n 26 DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.29-31 n resvd DE non-provider DE-NIC
193.32 p 220 UK non-provider UK-NIC
193.33-34 n resvd UK Sainsbury's (multiple B request)
193.35 n 254 UK non-provider UK NIC
193.36 n 252 UK non-provider UK NIC
193.37 n 256 UK non-provider UK NIC
193.38 n 131 UK non-provider UK NIC
193.39 n resvd UK non-provider UK NIC
193.40 n 13 EE NCC non-provider EE
193.41 n resvd EE non provider EE
193.42 n 91 IT non provider IT NIC
193.43 n resvd IT non provider IT NIC
193.44 p 38 SE TIPNET
193.45-47 p resvd SE TIPNET
193.48 p 162 FR RENATER
193.49 p 107 FR RENATER
193.50 p 169 FR RENATER
193.51 p 94 FR RENATER
193.52 p 169 FR RENATER
193.53 n 69 BE NCC non-provider (dup)
193.54 p 106 FR RENATER
193.55 p 90 FR RENATER
193.56 n 58 FR non-provider FR NIC
193.57 n 6 FR non-provider FR NIC
193.58 n 33 BE NCC non-provider
193.59 p 52 PL academic
193.60 p 210 UK JANET
193.61 p 235 UK JANET
193.62 p 0 UK JANET
193.63 p 92 UK JANET
193.64 p 56 FI EUnet/FI
193.65 p 0 FI EUnet/FI
193.66-67 p resvd FI EUnet/FI
193.68 p 8 BG EUnet/BG
193.69 p resvd IS EUnet/IS
193.70 p resvd IT EUnet/IT
193.71 p 17 NO EUnet/NO
193.72 p 60 CH EUnet/CH
193.73 p resvd CH EUnet/CH
193.74 p 34 BE EUnet/BE
193.75 p resvd BE EUnet/BE
193.76 p 0 HR EUnet/HR
193.77 p 12 HR EUnet/HR
193.78 p 79 NL EUnet/NL
193.79 p 15 NL EUnet/NL
193.80 p 74 AT EUnet/AT
193.81-83 p resvd AT EUnet/AT
193.84 p 178 CS EUnet/CS
193.85 p 56 CZ EUnet/CZ
193.86 p resvd SK/CZ EUnet/SK/CZ
193.87 p 32 SK EUnet/SK for SANET
193.88 p 69 DK EUnet/DK
193.89-91 p resvd DK EUnet/DK
- 28 -
193.92 p 18 GR EUnet/GR
193.93 p 6 GR EUnet/GR
193.94 p 5 TN NCC EUnet/TN
193.95 p resvd TN EUnet/TN
193.96 p 144 DE EUnet/DE
193.97 p 127 DE EUnet/DE
193.98 p 127 DE EUnet/DE
193.99 p 0 DE EUnet/DE
193.100-103 p resvd DE EUnet/DE
193.104 p 65 FR EUnet/FR
193.105 p 104 FR EUnet/FR
193.106 p 25 FR EUnet/FR
193.107-111 p resvd FR EUnet/FR
193.112 p 152 UK EUnet/UK
193.113 p 67 UK EUnet/UK (special)
193.114 p 28 UK EUnet/UK
193.115 p 0 UK EUnet/UK
193.116-119 p resvd UK EUnet/UK
193.120 p 21 IE EUnet/IE
193.121-123 p resvd IE EUnet/IE
193.124 p 135 RU EUnet/RU + xSU
193.125 p resvd RU EUnet/RU + xSU
193.126 p 53 PT EUnet/PT
193.127 p 5 ES EUnet/ES
193.128 p 219 UK PIPEX
193.129 p 10 UK PIPEX
193.130 p resvd UK PIPEX
193.136 p 65 PT RCCN
193.137 p resvd PT RCCN
193.138 5 SI NCC general
193.139 p 254 FR Individual Block allocation
193.140 87 TR NCC general
193.141 p 26 DE XLINK + reserved
193.142 n 77 FI NCC non-provider
193.143 n 37 FI NCC non-provider
193.144 p 156 ES RedIRIS
193.145-147 p resvd ES RedIRIS
193.148 n 120 ES non-provider ES NIC
193.149-155 n resvd ES non-provider ES NIC
193.156 p 87 NO UNINETT
193.157 p 24 NO UNINETT
193.158-159 p resvd NO UNINETT
193.160 n 129 NO non-provider NO NIC
193.161 n r0 NO non-provider NO NIC
193.162 n 21 DK non-provider DK NIC
193.163 n resvd DK non-provider DK NIC
193.164 n 3 PL NCC non-provider
193.165 n resvd PL non-provider
193.166 p 32 FI FUNET
193.167 p resvd FI FUNET
193.168 n 45 LU NCC non provider
193.169 p 0 UK AT&T Istel
193.170 p 48 AT NCC ACONET
193.171 p resvd AT ACONET
- 29 -
193.172 p 52 EU NCC EMPB
193.173 p resvd EU EMPB resvd
193.174 p 99 DE DFN
193.175 p resvd DE DFN
193.176 n 229 NL non provider NL NIC
193.177 n 52 NL non provider NL NIC
193.178 n 33 IE NCC non provider IE
193.179 n resvd IE non provider IE
193.180 n 236 SE non provider SE NIC
193.181 n 243 SE non provider SE NIC
193.182 n 229 SE non-provider SE NIC
193.183 n 0 SE non-provider SE NIC
193.184 p 0 FI Helsinki Telephone Company
193.185 p resvd FI Helsinki Telephone Company
193.186 n 254 AT non provider AT NIC
193.187 n 144 AT non provider AT NIC
193.188 n 26 several NCC Middle East
193.189 n 64 NG NCC Nigeria
193.190 p 66 BE Belgian National Research Net
193.191 p resvd BE Belgian National Research Net
193.192 n 3 PT NCC non provider
193.193 n resvd PT NCC non provider reserved
193.194 3 MA MA general NCC managed
193.195 p 32 UK UK DEMON
193.196 p 196 DE DE BelWue
193.197 p 3 DE DE BelWue reserved
193.198 n 8 HR NCC non provider
193.199 n 64 FI National Board of Education
193.200 n 0 BG BG Non provider
193.201 n resvd BG BG Non provider reserved
193.202 n 161 Pan Eur NCC
193.203 n 1 YU-SPL NCC
193.204 n 47 IT GARR NIS
193.205-207 n resvd IT GARR NIS reserved
193.208 p 63 FI DATANET
193.209-211 p resvd FI DATANET reserved
193.212 p 1 NO Telepost Communication AS
192.213-215 p resvd NO Telepost Communication AS
193.216 p 1 NO DAXnet
193.217 p resvd NO DAXnet reserved
193.218 n 6 GR NCC non-provider
193.219 n 4 LT NCC non-provider
193.220 n resvd LT NCC non-provider reserved
193.221 p 79 none NCC
193.222 n 127 CH CH non-provider
193.223 n resvd CH CH non-provider reserved
193.224 p 0 HU HU General Sztaki
193.225 p resvd HU HU General reserved Sztaki
193.226 p 9 RO RO partly delegated
193.227 n 31 EG EG non-provider NCC managed
193.228 p 0 UK UK Chernikeef
193.229-231 p resvd UK UK Chernikeef
193.232-233 n 9 RU RU xSU non-provider
193.234-243 free none NCC
- 30 -
193.244-245 p 512 BE Kredietbank
193.246-247 p 512 BE Kredietbank
193.248-253 p 1530 FR France Telecom Internal Network
193.254-255 free none NCC
- 31 -
Appendix D
Domain Table
This appendix gives an overview of all top level domains,
and other categories mentioned in the tables and graphs.
Domain Specifying
IXI EuropaNet (formerly IXI)
IIS the Interactive Information Server
LOCAL the NCC itself using IP
NCC-X25 the NCC itself using X.25
PSPDN the Public Data Network
UNKNOWN no mapping between IP address and domain name could be found
com commercial organisations (mainly in the US)
edu educational organisations (mainly in the US)
gov US government organisations
mil US military organisations
net network providers and related organisa-tions
org organisations (mainly in the US)
al Albania
at Austria
au Australia
be Belgium
br Brazil
bg Bulgaria
by Byelorus
ca Canada
ch Switzerland
cl Chile
cs Czechoslovakia
de Germany
dk Denmark
dz Algeria
ee Estonia
es Spain
fi Finland
fr France
gb Great-Britain
gr Greece
hk Hong Kong
hr Croatia
hu Hungary
ie Ireland
in India
is Iceland
it Italy
il Israel
jp Japan
kr Korea
lt Lithuania
lu Luxembourg
- 32 -
lv Latvia
mx Mexico
nl Netherlands
no Norway
nz New Zealand
pl Poland
pt Portugal
ro Romania
se Sweden
sg Singapore
si Slovenia
su USSR
tn Tunesia
tw Taiwan
ua Ukraine
uk United Kingdom
us United States
va Vatican City State
yu Yugoslavia
za South Africa
Appendix E
We regret that the statistical Graphs cannot be represented.