[routing-wg] Changes to Syntax of End User Resources in the RIPE Database

Dear colleagues,

The RIPE NCC will soon be deploying to our Resource Candidate (RC) Test Environment some changes to all End User resources. These changes are being implemented to satisfy two recently approved policies - ripe-603, "Publication of Sponsoring LIR for Independent Resources" and ripe-605, "RIPE NCC Services to Legacy Internet Resource Holders".

The changes include:
-The addition of a "sponsoring-org:" attribute to all End User resources (INETNUM, INET6NUM, AUT-NUM)
-The addition of a mandatory "status:" attribute to all AUT-NUM objects
-A change of "status:" for all legacy INETNUM objects (including all more specifics) to 'LEGACY'

The RC Test Environment will include a copy of the RIPE Database with dummified personal data. All of the status additions and changes will be fully implemented in this test database. The "sponsoring-org:" attributes will all be set to reference a dummy ORGANISATION object in this test database.

We do not expect any immediate changes to be necessary for any scripts that you use to generate these objects. Our software is tolerant to these attributes being missing and will generate them where necessary. Provided your scripts are tolerant to unknown attributes, as is recommended in the RPSL RFCs, you should not experience any issues even if your scripts query any of these objects.

A comprehensive list of anticipated frequently-asked questions (FAQs) will be published alongside this release. We expect this FAQ will answer most questions. A "remarks:" attribute added to the changed objects will reference this FAQ page.

Regards,

Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Team