[ncc-services-wg] Re: [db-wg] "referral-by:" attribute

Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet wrote:
> Shane Kerr wrote:
>
>   
>> Denis,
>>
>> On Tue, 2010-06-08 at 12:37 +0200, Denis Walker wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> If we make it optional now, although it is still in the RPSL definition,
>>> it can be completely ignored. Does anyone have any strong views on this
>>> either way?
>>>       
>> I'd actually suggest going further, and getting rid of it completely.
>>     
>
> If it doesn't dere a purpose any longer, yes, I agree.
>   

It never served any purpose as no code was ever written to check this
audit trail.

>   
>> I think the change could be done so that "referral-by:" attributes would
>> be automatically removed when an addition or update was made, so that
>> people don't have to change their software when creating maintainer
>> objects. In theory this warning could be converted to an error at some
>> point in the future, but I don't think it would actually ever be
>> necessary.
>>     
>
> But I don't beliee in messing around with the users' input and (more or
> less silently) throwing away part of their submitted data.
>
>   
>> --
>> Shane
>>     
>
> IIRC, the "usual" approach was to deal with such a change in phases, like
> issue a warning for a while, then refuse an update if it violates the
> acceptable schema, and eventually cleaning up old objects that haven't been
> touched for a looong time.
>
> I'm sure the DB guys can refresh our memory regarding the specifics.
>   

I would suggest a first phase to make it optional. Then users can stop
including this attribute and, in their own time, adjust any scripts they
have for generating MNTNER objects and slowly remove them from their
existing maintainers. We could also include a Warning message whenever
this attribute is included to say it will be deprecated soon.

Then after some time, deprecate the attribute, change the syntax rules
and do a bulk cleanup to remove these attributes from any old maintainers.

Regards
Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Group

> Wilfried.
>
>