In message <77e5d90b-6733-4cf8-8e15-3d984e4fb...@ripe.net>, Edward Shryane <eshry...@ripe.net> wrote:
>The RIPE-NONAUTH database contains all out of region route(6) objects >(referencing prefixes not allocated to RIPE). > >This database was created by NWI-5: >https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/db-wg/2016-May/005245.html > >The proposed cleanup is to only remove route(6) objects from >RIPE-NONAUTH which are not registered in *any* region: >https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/db-wg/2021-March/006876.html > >The cleanup will not delete the 62.61.192.0/18AS49902 route, as the >prefix is registered to AFRINIC. Thank you for the clear answer. It is difficult me to tell, based only upon looking at the current relevant AFRINIC allocation WHOIS records, when, exactly, the 62.61.192.0/18 was transferred from RIPE to AFRINIC, so let's just set that point aside for a moment. I'd like to ask a more general question anyway, which is just this: When the authority for some IP number resource is transferred from, say, RIPE, to some other RIR, is there any good reason why any associated route objects should not likewise travel to the new RIR along with the IP block allocation itself? And if there is no such good reason, then could we please have a rule that says that a transfer of an IP address block out of the RIPE region will be followed also by a deletion, in short order, from the RIPE data base of any directly relevant route object(s)? More broadly, it is parhaps a result of my overly-fastidious nature, but I personally would be in favor of simply deleting all of the remaining RIPE-NONAUTH route objects from the RIPE data base. Is there any clear need for any of these? If the relevant IP blocks have been entirely deallocated, then maintaining the route objects would seem to be a Bad Idea on the face of it. On the other hand, if a given IP block has been transferred to some other region, why doesn't it not make perfect sense for any relevant route objects to also and likewise be created in the WHOIS data bases of those other regions? It seems that we are now in the era of RPKI and that everyone is being generally encouraged to take routing security rather more seriously these days, which is a profoundly Good Thing. Yet it appears that when it comes to these RIPE-NONAUTH route records, RIPE is still, in effect catering not just to the last generation of route registration protocols, but also and even to the generation before that. At what point in time does will all of this stuff be seen to be what it is, i.e. antiquated and counterproductive? Regards, rfg P.S. In response to Frank Habicht's question about the IANA WHOIS referral server, let me just say that due to the work I have done to try to build a single tool capable of getting the correct WHOIS record for any arbitrary IP address from whichever RIR it needs to come from. I can say definitively and without hesitation that if one were to try to rely exclusively on whois.iana.org for proper referrals then one would actually get the Wrong Answer (i.e. one would get pointed to the Wrong RIR) a really substantial percentage of the time. I have asked IANA to "fix this" and they have responded clearly that they have absolutely no intention of doing so. Thus, for my own tool, I have been forced to resort to building my own quite lengthy table of exceptions so that my tool will just ignore what whois.iana.org says in all of the numerous cases where I have learned that what it says is just plain wrong.
