[ppml] Last Call for Comment: Policy Proposal 2003-5

[jlewis at lewis.org]

On Tue, 22 Apr 2003 Michael.Dillon at radianz.com wrote:

> >I was given an augument against making it generic since ARIN only
> >allows for ip reassignment information to be of the form of a SWIP or
> >RWhois server. If ARIN allows for another form of distributed lookup
> >service such as using a LDAP based service (like referral LDAP) or XML 
> based 
> >service (like IRIS), then it should be made more general at that point.
> 
> I strenuously disagree.
> 
> ARIN policies should not contain irrelevant details. In this case, SWIP 
> and Rwhois are irrelevant details.
> 
> The root purpose of this policy is to specify that organizations who have 
> received IP address space must keep track of where they are used (maintain 
> an IP address directory) and must publish the directory of IP address 
> usage. They can choose to either publish the directory by submitting 
> regular updates to ARIN for inclusion in a central directory or they can 
> publish the directory themselves by maintaining a publicly accessible 
> server connected to the Internet 24/7.

whois is the accepted format...whether you swip your data and have ARIN 
add it to their whois server or you run your own, it's the only protocol 
currently approved.  whois clients are fairly ubiquitous.  I don't have to 
know anything about the protocol other than "it's whois" to use a whois 
client.  

If you publish your reassignment data in an LDAP server, how do I access 
it?  How do I find out how to access it?

If someone else chooses to "publish" their reassignment data in some
obscure CGI deep in their web site and forces anyone who wants to look up
an IP to jump through many hoops to get at the data, what then?

If you want to leave the method of reassignment data publication open, 
then you're going to have to define a minimum set of guidelines that the 
method of publication must meet to qualify.
 
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