[db-wg] The New "organisation object" Proposal

Dear Colleagues,

[apologies for duplicate messages]

Following discussions at the RIPE NCC about a new Whois Database object,
the organisation object, we have modified the previous proposal that you
can find at:

http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail-archives/db-wg/2003/msg00013.html

The main changes from the previous proposal are:                 

 - a "country:" attribute is added.
 - "org-type:" and "org-name:" attributes are added, and "organisation:"
    attribute is now a NIC handle, which will be automatically assigned 
    during the creation of the object. The motivation for this is explained 
    in Section 3 of the proposal.
 - Hierarchical names can be removed, mainly for simplicity.
 - Differing query results on the whois server introduced in section 5.
    According to this, the relevant organisation objects are appended to the
    query results (because the organisation that holds the resource is at 
    least as important as the person/role objects mentioned in the resource object).

Please let us know your comments and concerns about the new proposal
attached to this mail.

Thanks for your time and best regards,

--
Engin Gunduz
RIPE NCC Database Group



An organisation object in the RIPE Database
--------------------------------------------


1. Motivation
-------------------

Currently the RIPE Database stores two main types of contact
information: person and role objects.

The person and role objects provide a way to contact people responsible 
for operations or usage of the resources represented in the RIPE Database
(IP blocks, autonomous systems, and domain names).

However, none of these provide an easy way of mapping resources to a
particular organisation. A user must first find an object containing 
contact information for that organisation. Then, assuming all of the 
organisation's objects refer to this contact information, the user must 
perform an inverse query to obtain a list of objects referencing the 
specified person or role.

This indirect process can be somewhat obscure and therefore a request for a 
more direct way of attaching an object to an organisation is seen as a 
useful addition to the RIPE Database.

This document is a proposal for an organisation object in the RIPE Database 
and the necessary database functionality.

2. The organisation object
-----------------------

The organisation object provides information identifying an organisation
such as a company, charity or university, that is a holder of a network 
resource whose data is stored in the RIPE Database.

The organisation object is identified by a unique ID specified in the
"organisation:" attribute which is the primary key.

An organisation object can be referenced from other types of objects using
an "org:" attribute. 

All objects associated with a particular organisation can be retrieved by
performing an "inverse query" for the organisation's ID (handle) used in
the "org:" attribute of database objects.

Following is a template for the proposed organisation object and an
example.  All attributes except the "ref-nfy:", "organisation:", "org-name:"
and "org-type:" have their usual meanings.

organisation:  [mandatory]  [single]     [primary/look-up key]
org-name:      [mandatory]  [single]     [look-up key]
org-type:      [mandatory]  [single]     [ ]
descr:         [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
remarks:       [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
address:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
country:       [mandatory]  [single]     [ ]
phone:         [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
fax-no:        [optional]   [multiple]   [ ]
e-mail:        [mandatory]  [multiple]   [look-up key]
admin-c:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]
tech-c:        [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]
ref-nfy:       [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
notify:        [optional]   [multiple]   [inverse key]
mnt-by:        [mandatory]  [multiple]   [inverse key]
changed:       [mandatory]  [multiple]   [ ]
source:        [mandatory]  [single]     [ ]

3. New attributes
----------------------

"organisation:"

Specifies the ID of an organisation object.  An organisation ID is
made up of 'ORG-' prefix, followed by 2 to 4 letters, digits, a dash and is
followed by the database source (in the RIPE Whois Database this is
'RIPE').  For example:

 ORG-RT34-RIPE

Note that all parts are mandatory, thus ORG-RT-RIPE would be an invalid ID
as it is missing the numeric part.

Organisation object IDs are auto-generated similar to the way person/role
"nic-hdl:" attributes are auto-generated.  The user has to specify the ID of
an organisation object as ORG-AUTO-<digit> during creation of the object,
then it will be assigned an appropriate ID.  The organisation ID is assigned
using the "org-name:" attribute of the object.  The user can specify the
letter combination he/she prefers.  For example if the user wants TTR as the
letter combination, in the organisation ID, then ORG-AUTO-1TTR should be 
put into "organisation:" attribute during the creation of the object.

The organisation ID cannot be reused.  If an organisation ID was used in the
past by an organisation object and then deleted, this ID cannot be used in
new organisation objects.

The auto-generation of organisation IDs and preventing reuse of them
simplifies the external references.  Note that when an organisation changes
name, the "org-name:" can be modified accordingly.  There is no need to
change the organisation ID.

"org-name:"

Specifies the name of the organisation that this organisation object
represents in the whois database.  This is an ASCII-only text attribute.  The
restriction is because this attribute is a look-up key and the whois
protocol does not allow specifying character sets in queries.  The user can
put the name of the organisation in non-ASCII character sets in the
"descr:" attribute if required.

"org-type:"

Specifies the type of the organisation.  The possible values are 'IANA' for
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, 'RIR' for Regional Internet
Registries, 'NIR' for National Internet Registries, 'LIR' for Local
Internet Registries, and 'NON-REGISTRY' for all other organisations.

"ref-nfy:"

Specifies the e-mail address to be notified when a reference to the
organisation object is added or removed.  An e-mail address as defined
in RFC 2822. [This functionality is used in the "irt-nfy:". The name of
this attribute is more neutral allowing reuse in other object types.]

"country:"
Specifies the two-letter ISO3166 country code of the country where this 
organisation resides.

"address:"
Specifies the address of the organisation.  This is a free-text attribute.

"org:"

May be included in any other object type.  It points to an existing
organisation object representing the entity that holds the resource.  The
value of this attribute is the ID of the organisation object.  It is
mandatory in the aut-num objects, and inetnum and inet6num objects with
"ALLOCATED-BY-IANA", "ALLOCATED-BY-RIR", "ALLOCATED-BY-RIR 
NON-PORTABLE", "ALLOCATED-BY-RIR PORTABLE" and "ALLOCATED-BY-RIR
UNSPECIFIED" values.  It is optional in all other objects, and it is single 
valued in all objects.


4. Authorisation checks
----------------------------------

When modifying an organisation object the update must pass authorisation
checks specified by one of the mntners listed in the "mnt-by:"
attributes of the organisation object.

When adding an "org:" attribute to an object, the update of the object
should pass the following authorisation checks:

 - from one of the maintainers of the organisation object
 - from one of the maintainers of the object being updated


5. Query changes
----------------

If a whois query returns an object with an "org:" attribute, the
organisation object mentioned in this attribute is also appended to the
query results.  This behaviour can be disabled by using the '-r' flag in the
query.


6. Examples
------------

A basic organisation object:

organisation: ORG-RSIS54-RIPE
org-name:     Random Street Internet Services
org-type:     LIR
descr:        An example organisation
address:      Random St.
city:         Amsterdam
country:      NL
phone:        +31 123 4567
fax-no:       +31 123 4568
e-mail:       contact at example-org.net
admin-c:      EXAM1-RIPE
tech-c:       EXAM2-RIPE
notify:       ripe-mailbox at example-org.net
ref-nfy:      ripe-mailbox at example-org.net
mnt-by:       EXAMPLE-MNT
changed:      someguy at example-org.net 20030121
source:       RIPE

A network that references an organisation object:

inetnum:      192.168.86.0 - 192.168.86.255
netname:      EXAMPLE-NET-86
descr:        Sample network
org:          ORG-RSIS54-RIPE
country:      NL
admin-c:      JE1-RIPE
tech-c:       JE2-RIPE
status:       ALLOCATED-BY-RIR PORTABLE
mnt-by:       EXAMPLE-MNT
mnt-lower:    EXAMPLE-MNT
changed:      someguy at example-org.net 20030122
source:       RIPE

A query for this inetnum object:

% whois 192.168.86.251

inetnum:      192.168.86.0 - 192.168.86.255
netname:      EXAMPLE-NET-86
descr:        Sample network
org:          ORG-RSIS54-RIPE
country:      NL
admin-c:      JE1-RIPE
tech-c:       JE2-RIPE
[...]
source:       RIPE

organisation: ORG-RSIS54-RIPE
org-name:     Random Street Internet Services
org-type:     LIR
descr:        An example organisation
address:      Random St.
address:      The Netherlands
phone:        +31 123 4567
fax-no:       +31 123 4568
e-mail:       contact at example-org.net
admin-c:      EXAM1-RIPE
tech-c:       EXAM2-RIPE
[...]
source:       RIPE

person:       John Example
nic-hdl:      JE1-RIPE
[...]
source:       RIPE

person:       John Example Jr
nic-hdl:      JE2-RIPE
[...]
source:       RIPE