Subject: [GROW] Discourage asdot+/asdot?

From: Job Snijders <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 13:22:26 +0200

Dear WG,

RFC 5396 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5396 described the "asdot+" and
"asdot" representation formats for AS numbers.

I'd personally prefer a single canonical way to represent ASNs
(asplain), and while RFC 5396 proposes the adoption of a decimal value
notation 'asplain', I don't think there is a document actively
discouraging the use of asdot and asdot+

We've come across asdot+ notation in strange places such as RPSL, and
I'm not yet sure how to proceed

https://github.com/irrdnet/irrd4/issues/48

Kind regards,

Job

---

From: Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 15:20:55 +0300

Job Snijders wrote on 06/08/2018 14:22> RFC 5396 
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5396 described the "asdot+" and
> https://github.com/irrdnet/irrd4/issues/48

Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send.  I.e. 
check for asdot on inbound nrtm feeds and convert to asplain, with no 
option to convert to asdot output.  It's inexplicable why anyone would 
output or use asdot these days.

IIRC, Afrinic is the only RIR which outputs asdot from their whois 
server.  Everyone else changed to asplain around 2009.

Nick

---

From: Jeffrey Haas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 13:26:41 -0400

> On Aug 6, 2018, at 8:20 AM, Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Job Snijders wrote on 06/08/2018 14:22> RFC 5396 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5396 described the "asdot+" and
> Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send.  I.e. check for asdot on inbound nrtm feeds and convert to asplain, with no option to convert to asdot output.  It's inexplicable why anyone would output or use asdot these days.
> 
> IIRC, Afrinic is the only RIR which outputs asdot from their whois server.  Everyone else changed to asplain around 2009.

And these days, if you want as-dot in your stuff, you should expect to throw a knob to have that happen.

-- Jeff

---

From: Job Snijders <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 19:35:54 +0200

On Mon, Aug 06, 2018 at 01:26:41PM -0400, Jeffrey Haas wrote:
> > Job Snijders wrote on 06/08/2018 14:22>
> >> RFC 5396 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5396 described the "asdot+"
> >> and "asdot" representation formats for AS numbers.  I'd personally
> >> prefer a single canonical way to represent ASNs (asplain), and
> >> while RFC 5396 proposes the adoption of a decimal value notation
> >> 'asplain', I don't think there is a document actively discouraging
> >> the use of asdot and asdot+ We've come across asdot+ notation in
> >> strange places such as RPSL, and I'm not yet sure how to proceed
> > Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send.

I'm not the biggest fan of that philosophy. Especially because in the
milions of objecst that exist in the combined IRR databases, it appears
only four of them have something with ASDOT in the wrong place.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-uijterwaal-rpsl-4byteas-ext-03 didn't
make it to RFC status.

http://meetings.ripe.net/ripe-55/presentations/jakma-critical-considerations.pdf
is interesting too.

> > I.e. check for asdot on inbound nrtm feeds and convert to asplain,
> > with no option to convert to asdot output.  It's inexplicable why
> > anyone would output or use asdot these days.
> > 

Indeed.

Kind regards,

Job

---

From: Christopher Morrow <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 11:53:35 -0700

> only four of them have something with ASDOT in the wrong place.
"hi $USEROFASDOTWRONGLY please do everyone a flavor and switch your
$ASDOTMESS to $ASPLAINSANITY, kthxbi!"

you could do that, right? and educate to the plan you like ? :)

(yes, this doesn't solve your larger problem of the next bad-user, which
your proposed writeup might help)
-chris

---

From: Job Snijders <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 20:55:47 +0200

> your proposed writeup might help)

Yes, getting the four objects fixed isn’t too hard.

If people agree that a doc discouraging the use of asdot should exist,
please let me know.

Kind regards,

Job

---

From: Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 22:47:27 +0300

> only four of them have something with ASDOT in the wrong place.

right, you didn't mention that the 4 affected objects were the only 
objects affected across all the main irrdbs.  If this is the case, then 
there is no reason to support asdot.  Throw an error and continue 
processing at the next object.  It's not worth complicating the code for 
just 4 objects, which will almost certainly disappear the next time they 
are updated.

Nick

---

From: Gert Doering <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 22:08:34 +0200

Hi,

> If people agree that a doc discouraging the use of asdot should exist,

Nick might remember where the push came from that made "RIPE" (the
community, the NCC, the RIPE DB) change from ASDOT to ASPLAIN.

It totally wrecked my nice AS3.3 into an ugly large number, but there
was strong enough pushing that I was overruled.  So, documents, minutes,
proposals should exist.

Gert Doering
        -- NetMaster
-- 
have you enabled IPv6 on something today...?

SpaceNet AG                      Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard, Michael Emmer
Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14        Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann
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Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444         USt-IdNr.: DE813185279

---

From: Job Snijders <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 22:10:17 +0200

> was strong enough pushing that I was overruled.  So, documents, minutes,

Vanity should never be a priority :-)

Job

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2018 19:06:37 -0700

this was a major war some time back.  it might be fun to do it sgain.
</snark>

randy

---

From: Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2018 10:48:30 +0300

Gert Doering wrote on 06/08/2018 23:08:
> was strong enough pushing that I was overruled.

asdot was something that seemed like a good idea until the day that 
someone tried to use it in production :-|

Nick

---

From: Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2018 12:33:14 +0100

Daniel Shaw wrote on 10/08/2018 08:29:
> I think that on closer examination you may find the AFRINIC whois also
> changed around the same timeframe, perhaps a year later. It seems that
> there may be one (or possibly some other very small number of) test
> objects that did not get converted/clean-up.

my mistake - afrinic changed to asplain some time in 2012.  The AS-TEST 
object predates this change (and isn't operationally relevant anyway).

Nick

---

From: Warren Kumari <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2018 14:29:37 -0400

> object predates this change (and isn't operationally relevant anyway).

This may be (ok, is) off-topic, but this has always really annoyed me:
wkumari@Dulles-rtr:~$ show arp
Address                      HWtype  HWaddress           Flags Mask
        Iface
192.168.0.122                    (incomplete)                              eth1
192.168.0.187            ether   00:e0:86:02:da:0b   C                     eth1
192.168.0.188            ether   20:3c:ae:5a:dd:4d   C                     eth1

vs:
Dulles-Switch#show arp
Protocol  Address          Age (min)  Hardware Addr   Type   Interface
Internet  192.168.0.32            0   a866.7f04.4f92  ARPA   Vlan1
Internet  192.168.0.35            -   0015.621c.6540  ARPA   Vlan1

vs:
TestSwitch#show arp
Protocol  Address          Age (min)  Hardware Addr   Type   Interface
Internet  192.168.0.32            0   A866.7F04.4F92  ARPA   Vlan1
Internet  192.168.0.35            -   0015.621F.6540  ARPA   Vlan1

vs:
About System

        Model Number      : AP7900
        Serial Number     : ZA0644029848
        NMC Serial Number : ZA0644028843
        Manufacture Date  : 10/29/2006
        Hardware Revision : B2
        MAC Address       : 00 C0 B7 2C 17 C9
        Flash Type        : AMD A29DL322DB

vs:
Network Statistics
General
Hardware Address:001321C2DE82
HP JetDirect:J7949E
Firmware Version:V.33.19

vs:
LAN1
MAC address    00-11-32-16-F7-6F

Seriously, 6 different ways to notate a MAC address...
Nope, this isn't actionable, but thank you for letting me vent!

W

>
> Nick
>
> _______________________________________________
> GROW mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/grow

-- 
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
   ---maf