RIPE NCC Quarterly Report Issue 3 December 1992 Document-ID: ripe-79 1. Introduction RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) is a collaborative organisation open to all European Internet service providers. The objec- tive of RIPE is to ensure the necessary administrative and technical coordination to allow the operation of a panEuro- pean IP network. RIPE does not operate a network of its own. RIPE has been functioning since 1989. Currently more than 60 organisations participate in the work. The result of the RIPE coordination effort is that the individual end-user is presented on their desktop with a uniform IP service irrespective of the particular network his or her worksta- tion is attached to. In December 1992 more than 284,000 hosts throughout Europe are reachable via networks coordi- nated by RIPE. The total number of systems reachable world- wide is estimated at more than one million. The RIPE Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) is a Euro- pean organisation chartered to support all those RIPE 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 charter of the NCC is formally described in the NCC Activity Plan (document ripe-35 in the RIPE docu- ment store). The RIPE NCC currently has 3 permanent staff members. The RARE association provides the formal framework for the NCC. Funding for the first year of operation of the NCC is provided by EARN, the national members of RARE, Israel and EUnet. This is the third quarterly report produced by the RIPE NCC. As before, 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. In the PostScript version of this document much information is presented both in graphical and in table form. This apparent duplication is neces- sary 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 RIPE NCC services have been running smoothly during the reporting period. We have made numerous small improvements in a number of areas. No major additional activities have been started. In general the three months have been used to further consolidate the services and activities as well as the procedures for interaction with external organisations, mainly the local Internet registries. Delegated Internet Registry Procedures for the European Internet registry have been further consolidated and continue to run smoothly. More than 6000 network numbers have been assigned during the reporting period. Interactions with the global Internet registry can still be improved. RIPE Database The next big functional improvement of the RIPE database will be the inclusion of routing information. To this end an update procedure for this information has been designed and implemented. During the next period the specifications for the representation of routing information will be refined and the database populated with this information. Information Services The NCC information services have been running smoothly and continue to be well used. We have installed a World Wide Web (WWW) server in order to provide an additional access method to the RIPE document store. New Projects Preparations have been made for the start of project work to be executed at the NCC in conjunction with the RARE techni- cal programme. One of these projects is expected to help with the adding of routing information to the database. Priorities There still have not been enough resources to actively pur- sue activities from the activity plan which so far have not been started. The NCC still seeks guidance from RIPE as to the relative priority of these activities - 4 - 3. Activities 3.1. DNS Coordination There has been a slight change in the collection process for the DNS data for the RIPE Hostcount. For the two largest countries, Germany and the United Kingdom, the collection of the data is done within the country, and afterward collected at the NCC, for inclusion in the statistics. This change was done to decrease the time needed for gathering all the data, as well as to decrease the impact of connectivity problems encountered when gathering all data centrally. Organisations willing to participate in the distributed counting mechanism should contact the RIPE NCC. Other than that, nothing much has changed in the procedure. The latest hostcount shows a total of over 284,000 hosts in Europe. In the hostcount, any machine that appears in the Domain Name System with a A record is counted as a host. Hosts with more than one A record are only 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 avail- able 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. - 5 - 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 Oct 254585 Nov 271795 Dec 284374 3.2. Internet Registry Delegated Registry In the last quarterly report (RIPE document ripe-73) the recent changes in the administrative arrangements for obtaining IP numbers were described. Briefly under the new arrangements from August 1st 1992 onwards all European requests for IP numbers have been forwarded by the global Internet registry (IR, otherwise known as hostmaster@nic.ddn.mil)to the RIPE NCC for processing. Thus the RIPE NCC has successfully fulfilled the role of regional Internet registry for a period of 5 months, handling both e-mail, fax and letter applications. This means that Europe is operating for quite some time already ahead of schedule at stage 3 of the `Schedule for IP Address Space Guidelines' (RFC1367). Recently some slight problems have manifested themselves in the interaction between the RIPE NCC and the global regis- try. We assume that this is mainly due to general cautious- ness of the IR caused by the ongoing solicitation procedure for the INTERNIC in the US. Since an award has been made on the very last day of the reporting period we will now work - 6 - to get these problems resolved quickly. Our reporting of the problems should not be construed as criticism of the IR or the people involved there. The working relationship with them has been excellent. Registration Procedures Current procedures as described in the last quarterly report and document ripe72 have been streamlined and improved upon significantly. Facilitating this, has been the increase in the number of local registries. Especially the number of local `non-provider' registries has increased. These are registries to whom the NCC is able to forward all requests from organisations without IP service providers. The work of the `non-provider' registries is much appreciated, espe- cially since they are not charging for this community ser- vice. Also additional IP service providers have made them- selves known to the NCC, enabling further delegation of blocks of class C numbers. To date, local non-provider registries exist for the follow- ing countries: Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and The Soviet Union (covering the states/countries which comprised the former Soviet Union). New registries established since the last quarter comprise Denmark, Poland and Italy. We are also beginning to notice a shift in the flow of requests. There are more direct requests coming into the NCC, bypassing the global registry. This is due to informa- tion about new procedures slowly spreading throughout the Internet. Thus when an application is received by the NCC for an IP network number there are two possible actions. Either the application is forwarded to a local registry and a letter is sent to both the applicant and the local registry informing them of the action. Included in the letter are contact details for the relevant local registry. Alternatively, if no appropriate local registry exists, the application is processed directly by the NCC. The local registries send information about the assignments they make to a special mailbox at the NCC for automatic inclusion in the RIPE database and forwarding to the global registry. During the reporting period the latter forwarding has been automated using a general exchange format for Internet registration databases agreed by the DDN NIC (glo- bal registry), MERIT and the RIPE NCC. The RIPE NCC has fully implemented automatic forwarding of all European assignments using this exchange format. However the automatic forwarding procedure has been stopped on request of the DDN NIC until the necessary software is operational - 7 - there. Class B Network Numbers The NCC still performs all actual class B assignments. The current procedure is to briefly evaluate the request, if needed consulting an appropriate local registry. In approx- imately 80% of the cases the request is found unjustified according to the criteria agreed with the global registry and IANA (see RFC1136). In these cases the NCC forwards the request to the appropriate local registry for assignment of class C network number(s). If a class B network number is justified, the NCC will allocate out of a small pool it keeps for this purpose and notifies any local registry involved. During the reporting period the pool has been depleted down to 3 network numbers. The NCC has requested another 20 numbers from the Internet registry. To date this request has not been fulfilled with reference to RFC1366. RFC 1366 reads: `The IANA and the IR will maintain sole responsibil- ity for the Class B number space. Where there are desig- nated regional registries, those registries will act in an auxiliary capacity in evaluating requests for Class B numbers.' When the RFC was discussed at the Paris RIPE meet- ing the expectation was that the definition of "sole respon- sibility" would not mean a change in actual procedures. Apparently now the procedures have changed and it is not clear what the actual procedures are, e.g. whether the RIPE NCC is being consulted by the global registry on all Euro- pean B requests. We feel that a four stage consultation process is not work- able since there are too many problems and misunderstandings in the flow of information between requester, global regis- try, RIPE NCC and local registry. We therefore propose to continue working with the present procedures. In our opin- ion RFC1366 need not be changed for that. The formal responsibility should still be with IANA, however IANA should delegate that responsibility to the NCC for Europe just as it delegates it to other registries for other parts of the world. In the meantime we have not changed our B allocation procedures working from the block of numbers currently reserved. As mentioned in the last quarterly report some European organisations still have (sometimes quite large) blocks of class B numbers. The total extent of this is presently unk- nown as we do not know which European organisations hold such blocks. At the last meeting RIPE asked the NCC to try to recover as many as possible of such unused class B net- work numbers. In order to start this repeated requests were made to the Internet Registry for details of all European allocations of class B's. To date no information has been - 8 - received. We will therefore publish a request to all Euro- pean organisations holding such blocks to return them to the RIPE NCC. Reverse Name Lookup for 193.x.y.0 Networks On behalf of the local registries the NCC has proposed to the IR to delegate the DNS zone 193.in-addr.arpa to the RIPE NCC. This would enable us to delegate subdomains corresponding to block allocations to the local registries. The advantage of this procedure would be that a local regis- try assigning a (block of) class C addresses could make reverse name lookup operational immediately without involve- ment of the IR. This decentralised procedure would be much quicker than the present one and prevent lots of user confu- sion, since the data will be maintained much closer to its source. The IR has reacted positively to this proposal but no concrete action has resulted during the reporting period. Common Template In the last quarterly report, the need for a common European registration template was identified. The aim of the common template is to simplify and streamline the handling of IP network number requests and allocations across Europe. By improving the quality of information received on each appli- cation, especially with regard to applications for class B network numbers, it is anticipated that the processing time for each application will decrease. During the reporting period the NCC with the help of local registries has drafted a template form and the accompanying documentation. This template will be discussed at the coming RIPE meeting. NCC Workload and Performance In order to quantify the workload generated at the NCC and to monitor the service quality, the NCC has kept a log of actions related to the delegated registry function. The statistics below relate to the period October December. Direct comparisons cannot be made with the previous statis- tics reported in the last quarter (numbers in brackets) since the reporting period for these statistics covered mid August until the end of September. The total number of applications received over the last quarter was 178 (172). Of these 97 (100) were received from the IR, 5 (13) were received from the local registries and 76 (59) were sent directly to the NCC. We have not logged most cases where we just passed on the address of the appropriate local registry without receiving an actual application. The most significant of these statistics con- cerns the number of applications now being sent directly to the NCC. This is a result of the information pointer refer- ring to the NCC as the European Registry in the IR archives - 9 - and other places. It also shows that a lot of information still circulating does not refer to the RIPE NCC. The most frequently used method of applying for IP numbers is still paper (including faxes) accounting for over 50% of the total number of applications. Faxes account for 65% of the information sent out by the NCC. This reflects the fact that many organisations do not have e-mail connections. Applications from those organisations that do have e-mail connectivity comprise approximately 30%. Telephone applica- tions account for 11% of the total again without counting simple referrals to local registries by telephone. FAX software which enables NCC staff to send and file outgo- ing FAX messages from within their e-mail environment has now been installed. This has quite significantly reduced the overhead associated with replying to incoming faxes. This is evident in the statistics which show that 86% (63.4%) of all requests were answered (not only acknowledged) on the day they were received. 97.4% of all requests were pro- cessed within 7 days. Given that this figure includes deal- ing with class B requests, which often require further information to be sought from the applicant which is a time consuming process, the response times are very good. Achieving such excellent response times could not be achieved without the help of the local registries. Our thanks are extended to them for their work. Address Space Usage During the reporting period the NCC assigned 11 class B net- work numbers, delegated 39.5 blocks of class C network numbers and reserved 16.5 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 if necessary. During the reporting period the European registries have assigned a total of 6015 class C networks to bring the total of networks assigned from blocks delegated by the NCC to 7113. The detailed status of the address space delegated to the RIPE NCC can be found in "Appendix B" on page 26 and "Appen- dix C" on page 27 for class B and class C network numbers respectively. - 10 - 3.3. RIPE Network Management Database Database Software The database software has been released for use by local registries. Unfortunately some minor extensions agreed at the last meeting have not been incorporated during the reporting period. They will be included during the next quarter. Fortunately no complaints have been received about this. During the previous quarter the database support (update) software had been revised to add functionality and be more readily configurable. During the reporting period similar improvements for the database software itself have been stu- died. After some study, prototype software had been written in the PERL language showing the feasibility of functional- ity improvements. 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 volume of updates received. This ensures that users perceive the database update process as predictable. During the reporting period the NCC has pro- cessed 14425 object updates, an average of 240 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 data- base. 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 June 1992 Q3 1992 Q4 1992 abs perc abs perc abs perc Updated 286 16% 1372 8% 9235 64% Added 483 27% 2505 14% 3632 11% NOOP 1005 57% 13578 78% 1558 25% Database Statistics The number of networks in the database has increased signi- ficantly due to the large number of newly assigned class C network numbers. - 11 - Month Nets Persons Domains 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 The database coverage has increased slightly but is still lower than it should be. Country Nets Nets % Q2 % Q3 % Q4 in DNS in DB % % % SI 1 1 100.0 BE 9 9 100.0 100.0 100.0 CS 26 26 100.0 100.0 100.0 HU 8 8 100.0 100.0 100.0 TN 1 1 100.0 100.0 100.0 YU 4 2 100.0 100.0 50.0 FR 383 362 94.1 95.5 94.5 ES 24 23 91.7 88.9 95.8 CH 103 88 87.6 93.1 85.4 IE 22 19 87.5 90.9 86.4 PL 22 22 86.7 90.0 100.0 PT 51 44 85.0 80.0 86.3 IT 122 99 84.5 82.4 81.1 NL 110 95 82.9 80.9 86.4 DE 394 327 82.5 80.5 83.0 GR 12 9 78.6 66.7 75.0 IS 6 5 75.0 50.0 83.3 IL 25 19 73.9 71.4 76.0 UK 280 198 67.3 67.8 70.7 AT 76 63 67.2 63.8 82.9 SE 174 104 57.8 49.3 59.8 NO 54 38 56.9 58.5 70.4 DK 28 11 45.0 40.0 39.3 LU 5 3 33.3 50.0 60.0 FI 196 77 8.8 6.9 39.3 Worldwide Database Coordination The NCC has developed software to generate and accept the recently agreed registry database exchange format. During the reporting period there was little progress while we are waiting for the other registries to be ready for test exchanges. - 12 - Routing Information A separate update procedure for routing information has been designed and implemented. This procedure will be used by routing `guardians' to control network membership to routing related groups of networks. The RIPE NCC has also helped to start refining the represen- tation of routing information in the database in order to make it better understandable and better meet the current environment. In this context a project has been defined which will make use of the routing information stored in the database to provide routing service for European networks to the Global Internet Exchange (GIX). - 13 - 3.4. Document Store The document store is maintained as a reference point for information that will be useful to network service provid- ers, NICs, NOCs alike. The documents stored relate to a wide variety of networking topics. For example, information can be obtained about the activities EBONE, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), RARE, and not least, documents relat- ing to RIPE itself. In addition the document store contains information relating to Internet drafts and RFC's. In addi- tion the EARN newsletter is now available in subdirectory EARN. All four editions of the newsletter (from 1992) are available. In total the document store contains approximately 2100 documents. By volume, it accounts for over 175 Mbytes.A breakdown of the composition of the document store is shown below Area Files KBytes rfc 618 41772 tools 183 39006 internet-drafts 565 33418 nsfnet 119 15788 ripe 326 23505 rare 209 11419 ietf 756 7475 iesg 46 467 ebone 29 491 internet-society 19 665 earn 5 167 Revision of the RIPE archives As reported in the last quarterly report, the RIPE archives in the document store have been substantially revised in both structure and format. All RIPE documents are now located in a ripe/docs/ directory, which is further divided into the following subdirectories: ripe-agenda/ ripe-current/ ripe-docs/ ripe-drafts/ ripe-minutes/ - 14 - Accessing the Document Store The NCC document store can be accessed through a variety of methods. Besides methods of access as previously reported, (via anonymous ftp to ftp.ripe.net and by using GOPHER and WAIS clients to gopher.ripe.net or wais.ripe.net respec- tively and through the NCC Interactive Information Server) the document store can now be accessed via pilot World Wide Web (WWW). WWW is a method of presenting information based on the user making choices of key words (indicated with a number in brackets at the side of the word) which on selec- tion "expand" to give a deeper level of information relating to that word. WWW is currently at the pilot stage. 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 sec- tion is the ripe database, with approximately 870 Mbytes transferred: Archive Files Bytes % files % bytes Section sent sent sent sent ripe/dbase 991 869400847 11.05 54.45 ripe/docs 2133 230213789 23.79 14.42 rfc 1787 145185345 19.93 9.09 ripe/hostcount 714 77633923 7.96 4.86 tools/www 297 76948856 3.31 4.82 nsf 400 41090123 4.46 2.57 tools/conf 91 36996454 1.01 2.32 tools/wais 140 23403957 1.56 1.47 ripe/maps 185 13464608 2.06 0.84 internet-drafts 122 8453373 1.36 0.53 nsf/recompete 55 8185394 0.61 0.51 tools/gopher 99 7288116 1.10 0.46 internet-society 80 6687213 0.89 0.42 rare/archive 240 6191833 2.68 0.39 rare/RTR 24 5170989 0.27 0.32 - 15 - The number of Mbytes transferred using ftp per top level domain is shown below: Domain Name Files Sent Bytes Sent % files % bytes UNKNOWN 503 51204567 5.61 3.21 at 99 9180269 1.10 0.57 au 12 900048 0.13 0.06 be 83 14129626 0.93 0.88 br 5 934156 0.06 0.06 ca 38 2385199 0.42 0.15 ch 503 144382113 5.61 9.04 cl 1 1970 0.01 0.00 com 489 124706428 5.45 7.81 cs 107 4604605 1.19 0.29 de 906 87395617 10.10 5.47 dk 61 9234800 0.68 0.58 edu 543 121280238 6.06 7.60 ee 0 0 0 0 es 169 8976533 1.88 0.56 fi 958 292153550 1 10.68 fr 174 39248067 1.94 2.46 gov 52 11432336 0.58 0.72 gr 573 78543493 6.39 4.92 hk 0 0 0 0 hu 85 4844867 0.95 0.30 ie 65 6104140 0.72 0.38 il 16 3507391 0.18 0.22 in 15 706370 0.17 0.04 is 6 802145 0.07 0.05 it 507 67243159 5.65 4.21 jp 0 0 0 0 kr 0 0 0 0 lu 7 1943250 0.08 0.12 mil 52 4559751 0.58 0.29 mx 0 0 0 0 net 928 280696668 10.35 17.58 nl 408 77324692 4.55 4.84 no 39 14880150 0.43 0.93 nz 0 0 0 0 org 28 4594701 0.31 0.29 pl 283 16785025 3.16 1.05 pt 954 92687125 10.64 5.80 se 185 9761543 2.06 0.61 sg 1 47975 0.01 0.00 su 0 0 0 0 tw 5 191270 0.06 0.01 uk 87 8169431 0.97 0.51 us 1 134 0.01 0.00 yu 14 1137922 0.16 0.07 za 4 92910 0.04 0.01 - 16 - The UNKNOWN category refers to where there is no match found between the IP address and the Domain Name. Interactive Information Server Once again the NCC would like to stress the idea behind the Interactive Information Server (IIS) and to encourage its usage. Therefore we make no apologies for repeating the information (although abbreviated) in this paragraph. The goal of the IIS is to enable users with minimal hardware and/or software support to access information stored by the NCC. The IIS is also the most convenient method to access the RIPE document store from networks which are not IP based. At the same time it caters for those occasional users who do not choose to run or learn the local WAIS, GOPHER etc. clients. It is possible to access the informa- tion in the document store using both telnet and pad connec- tions. In addition the server provides an interface to a number of clients enabling a wide range of information to be accessed in a number of different ways. Currently these comprise WAIS, Gopher and WHOIS. For details on how to use the IIS, please refer to our information leaflet "Interac- tive Information Server" or see the first edition of the NCC Quarterly Reports. General Service Usage Statistics Statistics for the use of the various NCC information ser- vices were collected for the fourth quarter of 1992 The table below shows the total number of connections made for each service (Whois, IIS, Wais, Ftp and Gopher) contacted either directly from a user client or from the NCC Interac- tive Information 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 For technical reasons, GOPHER logging does not appear in this overview, since the logging is done in very different manner than all other services. 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. - 17 - Source Whois IIS Wais Ftp Total IIS 3709 0 3296 0 7005 IXI 9 569 0 0 578 LOCAL 727 78 53 177 1035 NCC-X25 11 41 0 0 52 PSPDN 1 1 0 0 2 UNKNOWN 521 337 94 228 1180 at 263 65 62 38 428 au 15 6 24 6 51 be 207 18 0 43 268 br 1 2 0 7 10 ca 50 36 9 45 140 ch 674 45 15 216 950 cl 6 0 1 0 7 com 56 32 444 380 912 cs 81 54 0 20 155 de 761 65 7 257 1090 dk 89 4 10 21 124 edu 5529 162 501 432 6624 ee 0 3 0 0 3 es 32 4 1 12 49 fi 142 11 14 111 278 fr 853 104 15 86 1058 gov 31 6 16 14 67 gr 66 3 0 55 124 hk 0 0 0 1 1 hu 127 33 0 13 173 ie 193 33 0 26 252 il 8 13 0 10 31 in 0 2 0 1 3 is 40 0 6 3 49 it 347 38 1 107 493 jp 8 1 10 1 20 kr 1 4 0 0 5 lu 14 27 0 5 46 mil 20 41 6 23 90 mx 0 0 0 1 1 net 1299 25 32 172 1528 nl 1463 138 28 254 1883 no 1943 4 0 8 1955 nz 1 0 0 0 1 org 2182 8 5 16 2211 pl 55 17 0 36 108 pt 207 10 11 25 253 se 760 29 3 22 814 sg 9 0 2 0 11 su 0 3 0 0 3 tw 4 4 0 5 13 uk 444 83 124 43 694 us 8659 1 2 1 8663 yu 10 15 0 8 33 za 0 0 0 1 1 Total 31628 2175 4792 2930 41525 - 18 - In total there were 2175 connections to the Interactive Information Server, which is queried, on average, 35 times per working day. The provisional access from the IXI network has been used 569 times during the reporting period, slightly less than 10 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. 3.5. RIPE NCC Information Leaflets Information leaflets describing the RIPE Network Management Database and the Interactive Information Server were printed last quarter. Copies of these leaflets are still available. Postscript versions of the leaflets can be obtained from the RIPE document store (documents ripe-77 and ripe-78). Alter- natively we are more than happy to supply hard copies of the leaflets. 3.6. Presentations Once again the NCC would like to stress that it is considers it a priority to clarify both the existence and the role of the NCC in relation to the multitude of networking organisa- tions. Clearly the larger the audience, the easier this task is. To this end the NCC will give presentations about its activities wherever appropriate and possible. Therefore we encourage all those organisations wishing to convey the work of the RIPE NCC to others to contact the NCC with a request for a presentation. Presentations about RIPE and the RIPE NCC have been given at a meeting of the German Internet Formum DIGI in Munich, Ger- many in November. ACONET is has contacted the NCC with a request for a presen- tation, which is to be given at The 4th Network Seminar and Intensive Course for Scientists and Network Managers from Central Europe by Marten Terpstra on February 22nd/23rd. 3.7. RIPE Support Activities RIPE meetings Currently RIPE meetings take place three times a year. From its initiation on April 1st 1992, the RIPE NCC was chartered to provide support to all RIPE meetings. The meetings are open to all Internet service providers, and enable both formal and informal information gathering, the - 19 - exchange of ideas and debate. In addition it is at RIPE meetings where the members of the 9 RIPE working groups can meet face to face to discuss and progress their work. The NCC welcomes suggestions for support from participants for future RIPE meetings RIPE meetings support A detailed checklist describing the preparation necessary to host a RIPE meeting has been drawn up. In this way it is hoped that it will give potential hosting organisations as well as the RIPE NCC a clear idea of what is involved in hosting a RIPE meeting away from home. It should be men- tioned here that the number of participants to successive RIPE meetings continues to increase significantly at each meeting, enhancing the size of the venue and level of sup- port required. In addition to the checklist, RIPE meeting site visits have been initiated for all future RIPE meetings scheduled out- side Amsterdam. This gives the NCC an opportunity to meet the local organisers, see the proposed venue and generally walk through the checklist. A site visit was carried out in December to the meet the organisers of the Prague RIPE meet- ing at the Czech Technical University. New Working Group At the 12th RIPE meeting held in Paris, a new working group, local-ir (local internet registries) was established. The aim of this new group is to promote discussion to achieve greater coordination and cohesion between local registries on issues relating to the allocation of IP numbers. The current chairman of the group is Daniel Karrenberg 3.8. Referrals and End-User Enquiries Again the number of referral requests and end-user enquiries has not been significant during the reporting period. Most queries have been related to either requests for IP numbers or dealt with by the mailing list for IP Providers. See the previous quarterly report for details of this list. 3.9. General Set Up The general server and each of the personal workstations used by the NCC staff have benefited from addition of 16MB of memory. The NCC library has expanded thanks to the kind donation by NLnet (Dutch part of EUnet) of recently published books by - 20 - O`Reilly Associates, Inc. We also would like to thank NetCS of Berlin for their kind donation of FAX software for the NCC Sun workstations. 4. 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 excel- lent work, especially with regard to the allocation of IP numbers - 21 - Appendix A Meetings Attended The following meetings were attended by staff during the second quarter of the RIPE NCC operations. Date Name & Location Attendee Nov 10-12 DIGI Munich Marten Terpstra Daniel Karrenberg Nov 16-20 IETF Washington, USA Marten Terpstra Daniel Karrenberg Dec 17 Czech Technical Univ Anne Lord Prague, CSFR - 22 - Appendix B Class B Network Number Allocations to Date The table below summarises all assignments of class B net- work numbers made through the RIPE NCC to date. The "Via" column indicates through which registry the NCC received the request and solicited the necessary justification. Network Number Via 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 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 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 164.37-164.40 free - 23 - 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 n 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 free none NCC 193.1 p 7 IE HEANET 193.2 p 13 YU ARNES 193.3 84 DK EUnet/DK 193.4 17 IS Iceland everything 193.5 p 42 CH SWITCH 193.6 p 149 HU Sztaki 193.7 p 0 DE chambers of commerce DE-NIC 193.8 n 20 CH non-provider CH-NIC 193.9 n 160 EU NCC non-provider European 193.10 p 17 SE SUNET 193.11 p resvd SE SUNET 193.12 p 81 SE SWIPNET 193.13-15 p resvd SE SWIPNET 193.16 n 150 DE non-provider DE-NIC 193.17 n 90 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 0 DE non-provider DE-NIC 193.22 n 165 DE non-provider DE-NIC 193.23 n 120 DE non-provider DE-NIC 193.24-31 n resvd DE non-provider DE-NIC - 24 - 193.32 p 214 UK non-provider UK-NIC 193.33-34 n resvd UK Sainsbury's 193.35-39 n 210 UK non-provider UK NIC 193.40 n 3 EE NCC non-provider EE 193.41 n resvd EE non provider EE 193.42 n 86 IT non provider IT NIC 193.43 n resvd IT non provider IT NIC 193.44 p 21 SE TIPNET 193.45-47 p resvd SE TIPNET 193.48 p 143 FR RENATER 193.49 p 79 FR RENATER 193.50 p 120 FR RENATER 193.51-52 p resvd FR RENATER 193.53 n 55 BE NCC non-provider block allocated by clerical error 193.54-55 free none NCC 193.56 n 1 FR non-provider FR NIC 193.57 n resvd FR non-provider FR NIC 193.58 n 5 BE NCC non-provider 193.59 p 17 PL academic 193.60 p 137 UK JANET 193.61 p 13 UK JANET 193.62 p 0 UK JANET 193.63 p 18 UK JANET 193.64 p 23 FI EUnet/FI 193.65-67 p resvd FI EUnet/FI 193.68 p 0 BG EUnet/BG 193.69 p resvd IS EUnet/IS 193.70 p resvd IT EUnet/IT 193.71 p 0 NO EUnet/NO 193.72 p 18 CH EUnet/CH 193.73 p resvd CH EUnet/CH 193.74 p 5 BE EUnet/BE 193.75 p resvd BE EUnet/BE 193.76-77 p resvd HR EUnet/HR 193.78 p 30 NL EUnet/NL 193.79 p resvd NL EUnet/NL 193.80 p 21 AT EUnet/AT 193.81-83 p resvd AT EUnet/AT 193.84 p 86 CS EUnet/CS 193.85-86 p resvd CS EUnet/CS 193.87 p 24 CS EUnet/CS for SANET 193.88 p 28 DK EUnet/DK 193.89-91 p resvd DK EUnet/DK 193.92 p 11 GR EUnet/GR 193.93 p resvd GR EUnet/GR 193.94 p 5 TN NCC EUnet/TN 193.95 p resvd TN EUnet/TN 193.96 p 124 DE EUnet/DE 193.97 p 127 DE EUnet/DE 193.98 p 0 DE EUnet/DE 193.99-103 p resvd DE EUnet/DE 193.104 p 11 FR EUnet/FR - 25 - 193.105-111 p resvd FR EUnet/FR 193.112 p 28 UK EUnet/UK 193.113 p 67 UK EUnet/UK (special) 193.114-119 p resvd UK EUnet/UK 193.120 p 17 IE EUnet/IE 193.121-123 p resvd IE EUnet/IE 193.124 p 42 RU EUnet/RU + xSU 193.125 p resvd RU EUnet/RU + xSU 193.126 p 32 PT EUnet/PT 193.127 p 0 ES EUnet/ES 193.128 p 69 UK PIPEX 193.129-135 p resvd UK PIPEX 193.136 p 35 PT RCCN 193.137 p resvd PT RCCN 193.138 5 SI NCC general 193.139 p 254 FR Individual Block allocation 193.140 14 TR NCC general 193.141 p 0 DE XLINK + reserved 193.142 n 64 FI NCC non-provider 193.143 n 0 FI NCC non-provider 193.144 p 10 ES RedIRIS 193.145-147 p resvd ES RedIRIS 193.148 n 11 ES non-provider ES NIC 193.149-155 n resvd ES non-provider ES NIC 193.156 p 43 NO UNINETT 193.157-159 p resvd NO UNINETT 193.160 n 68 NO non-provider NO NIC 193.161 n resvd 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 NCC non-provider 193.166 p 6 FI FUNET 193.167 p resvd FI FUNET 193.168 n 41 LU NCC non provider 193.169 p 0 UK AT&T Istel 193.170 p 26 AT NCC ACONET 193.171 p resvd AT NCC ACONET 193.172 p 4 EU NCC EMPB 193.173 p resvd EU NCC EMPB 193.174 p 0 DE DFN 193.175 p resvd DE DFN 193.176 n 17 NL non provider NL NIC 193.177 n resvd NL non provider NL NIC 193.178 n 30 IE NCC non provider IE 193.179 n resvd IE NCC non provider IE 193.180 n 113 SE non provider SE NIC 193.181-183 n resvd SE non provider SE NIC 193.184 p 0 FI Helsinki Telephone Company 193.185 p resvd FI Helsinki Telephone Company 193.186 n 30 AT non provider AT NIC 193.187 n resvd AT non provider AT NIC 193.188 n 3 some NCC Middle East - 26 - 193.189 n 64 NG NCC Nigeria 193.190 p 0 BE Belgian National Research Net 193.191 p resvd BE Belgian National Research Net 193.192-243 free none NCC 193.244 p 255 BE Kredietbank 193.245 p 255 BE Kredietbank 193.246-247 p resvd BE Kredietbank 193.248-254 p 1530 FR France Telecom Internal 193.255 free none NCC - 27 - 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 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 organisations 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 - 28 - 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 - 29 - Appendix F Working Group Mailing Lists Coordinating and support for the activities of the Working Groups is a key focus for the RIPE NCC. During the first quarter, the NCC has created mailing lists for those working groups that have requested this facility. Relationship between Academic & Research Networks & Commer- cial Networks. Chair: Glenn Kowack. E-mail: glenn@eu.net. Working Group E-mail: raec-wg@ripe.net. Network Information Discovery and User Support. Chair: Nandor Horvath. E-mail: horvath@sztaki.hu Working Group E-mail: nidus-wg@ripe.net DNS Issues Chair: Francis Dupont. E-mail: francis.dupont@inria.fr Working Group E-mail: dns-wg@ripe.net Routing Issues Chair: Jean-Michel Jouanigot. E-mail: jimi@dxcoms.cern.ch Working Group E-mail: routing-wg@ripe.net Network Monitoring and Statistics Gathering Chair: Bernhard Stockman. E-mail: boss@sunet.se Network Maps Chair: Daniele Bovio. E-mail: hi@frors12.bitnet Working Group E-mail: maps-wg@ripe.net - 30 - European Connectivity Chair: Milan Sterba. E-mail: milan.sterba@inria.fr RIPE Database Chair: Wilfried Woeber. E-mail: woeber@access.can.ac.at Working Group E-mail: db-wg@ripe.net Local Internet Registries Chair: Daniel Karrenberg. E-mail: dfk@ripe.net Working Group E-mail: local-ir@ripe.net To subscribe to any working group send a message to: [listname]-request@ripe.net where [listname] is replaced by the name of one of the work- ing groups specified above.