[dbwg] Referral URL - can this be extended to APNIC, RIPE blocks?

William,

Sorry for the delayed response. We have been discussing this internally 
since your post. 

On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 william at elan.net wrote:

> 
> I have a suggestion that "Referral URL" be also added for APNIC and RIPE ip 
> blocks referrals from ARIN database (especially blocks being transfered
> as part of early registration transfer project). I know ARIN has all
> referral urls start with "rwhois://..." but in this case I believe it 
> should also make an exception and put "whois://whois.apnic.net:43" for 
> apnic for example.
> 

Effective in last night's run of WHOIS, ARIN has populated the 
ReferralServer field for all RIR placeholder records with the appropriate 
WHOIS server. It should be noted that the registration software will not 
permit the submission of a WHOIS server as a valid Referral Server.

> If the above is not done, could you at the very least add typical "search 
> at whois.apnic.net" in the comments and not just leave the ip block with 
> no comments and with just "NetType: Early Registrations, Transferred to APNIC"
> 

ARIN has normally included comments provided by the acquiring RIR on all 
ERX networks, but omitted this step for the most recently transferred 
networks. This has since been rectified.

> And on the last - ARIN should have reported on this mailing list that it 
> would be adding new "NetType" - some automated software actually have
> been programmed for "Direct Allocation", "Direct Assignment", "Reassigned",
> "Reallocated" as only possible nettypes (there is also "IANA Special Use" 
> and "IANA  Reserved"), but ARIN seems to be using it as just additional 
> varchar comment field. Besides that, there is already exists special 
> nettype for APNIC ip blocks ("Allocated to APNIC" ) and this was not used 
> either and instead new ip block type was created. In fact - it would be 
> good idea that arin listed all possible "NetType" values somewhere...
> 

Currently there are 16 network types that can be found in WHOIS. These net 
types are subject to change without notice. They are:

Allocated to APNIC
Allocated to ARIN
Allocated to LACNIC
Allocated to RIPE NCC
Direct Allocation
Direct Assignment
Early Registrations, Maintained by APNIC
Early Registrations, Maintained by ARIN
Early Registrations, Maintained by RIPE NCC
Early Registrations, Transferred to APNIC
Early Registrations, Transferred to LACNIC
Early Registrations, Transferred to RIPE NCC
IANA Reserved
IANA Special Use
Reallocated
Reassigned