[ppml] Policy Proposal 2003-5: RWhois Server Use Requirements

ARIN welcomes feedback and discussion about the following policy 
proposal in the weeks leading to the ARIN Public Policy Meeting 
in Memphis, Tennessee, scheduled for April 7-8, 2003. All feedback 
received on the mailing list about this policy proposal will be 
included in the discussions that will take place at the upcoming 
Public Policy Meeting. 

This policy proposal discussion will take place on the ARIN Public 
Policy Mailing List (ppml at arin.net). Subscription information is 
available at http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/index.html 

Richard Jimmerson 
Director of Operations 
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) 

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Policy Proposal 2003-5: RWhois Server Use Requirements

Background:

RWhois was created in part to allow ISP's locally operate and control 
their own reassignment information.  The purpose of placing this data 
in a RWhois server was two-fold:

  1) Allow RIR staff to examine reassignment utilization
  2) Allow access to the general public on reassignment information.

Many ISPs have opted to use RWhois servers for their reassignment 
information over sending SWIPs to ARIN.  But some of the ISP's who 
have selected to use RWhois servers for their reassignment information 
have not kept the servers operational 24x7, contents of the database up 
to-date, or are restricting access only to ARIN staff. This lack of a 
uniform set of operations of RWhois servers has resulted in confusion 
for end-users and ARIN staff.

Policy Proposal:

Therefore, it is proposed a set of minimal requirements of operating 
a RWhois server for those ISPs who decide to use RWhois to 
manage their IP reassignment information be established and enforced.

  The proposed minimal RWhois requirements are:

  The RWhois server must be operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week 
  to both the general public and ARIN staff.

  The RWhois server must allow public access to reassignment information. 
  The ISP may restrict the number of queries allowed per time interval 
  from a host or subnet to defend against DDOS attacks, remote mirroring 
  attempts, and other nefarious acts.

  The RWhois server must return reassignment information for the IP 
  address queried.  The RWhois server may follow the privacy protections 
  for customers as described in the multi-homed policy. The RWhois server 
  must give customer information as described in the multi-homed policy 
  to ARIN staff.

  The RWhois server may return results for non-IP queries.

  The RWhois server must respond to a query with the minimal set of 
  attributes per object as defined by ARIN staff.

  The RWhois server may include optional attributes per object that are
  defined by the operator.

  The RWhois server must return results that are up-to-date on 
  reassignment information.