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. - 2 - 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. - 3 - 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. - 4 - 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 - 5 - 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). - 6 - 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 - 7 - 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: - 8 - 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 - 9 - 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. - 10 - 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 - 11 - 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. - 12 - 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 - 13 - 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 - 14 - 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 - 15 - 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 - 16 - 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, - 17 - 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.