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Facility available for APE
by Richard Naylor 08 Jun '99

08 Jun '99

CityLink would like to announce the availability of a peering facility on Level 48 of the Sky Tower in Auckland. This will be a neutral peering facility using an ethernet switch supported with a local unix box and UPS. The unix box will run mrtg for traffic statistics and NOCMON for port monitoring. Statistics will be available to peering users on their ports only on application. Users will be able to establish bilateral peering arrangements or in conjunction with users, we will establish a unilateral peering facility. The unix box will also offer a route server and reflector along with an AS number for users who may not currently have an AS of their own. CityLink will also operate an independent (pre-CIDR) address space for users to use for unilateral peering. The facility will be managed from Wellington using CityLink's established 24x7 support facility. Local hands on support will be sub-contracted to a local supplier. Access to the facility is available for a connection fee of $750.00 + GST and a monthly support fee of $62.50. Customer ports will be restricted to a limited number of MAC addresses to ensure some degree of security between customers. CityLink is a Network Operator based in Wellington with a large IP network based on a 40km fiber cable network. It operates the neutral Wellington Internet Exchange with approximately 12 connected Internet Service Providers. Its network has approximately 20 switches installed in a distributed switching fabric. Q1 - Why are you doing this ? CityLink has experience in neutral switching and IX operations in high bandwidth applications. CityLink operates a MAC based metropolitan area network with multiple ISPs Q2. Will there be a link between the Wellington IX and APE ? The ISP community provides this connectivity at the present time. It is not expected that CityLink will provide this facility. Q3. Does this mean that CityLink will be operating a network in Auckland ? No. We see that we can add value and experience in operating a neutral exchange in Auckland. Q4 - Aren't you scared of heights ? 48 Floors ? YES. Power poles ? No. Q5 - What will be there ? A 6 foot rack with nice gear in it. At this stage the rack has a UPS and Unix box and a small switch. The switch will grow as traffic and port requirements demand. Q6 - Where will spares be held ? Spare and hardware service will be provided locally in Auckland. Q7 - I want to join - How do I get signed up or find out more ? Send email to info(a)citylink.co.nz or phone 04-917-0200 Q8 - When will the service be live ? We expect to be installed and operating by 20 June 1999. Q9 - What sort of switch will be in APE ? At this stage we have a Cisco ethernet switch in the cabinet. We are talking with other suppliers about what options are available. Our experience is that we often grow a switch capacity as demand rises. We have a number of switches in Wellington and swap them out as the port count requires. (we have yet to see a bandwidth limitation) Q10 - Why are you charging ? We are charging on a simple cost recovery basis. We feel that if the peering point is free then it is abused. If a charge is levied then users will appreciate that management is applied to the exchange. CityLink is not a huge organisation and needs to recover some of its costs. The costs mentioned above should not be a barrier to likely user organisations. [ends] richard.naylor(a)citylink.co.nz This mail message contains information that is confidential and which may be subject to legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and erase this mail. --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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DNS issues. BIND 8.2
by dylan＠ihug.co.nz 03 Jun '99

03 Jun '99

After much to-ing and fro-ing we are coming to the end of our collective teathers. Since Sunday morning (last Sunday) morning at around 8am we have been having an odd problem with our primary nameserver, ns1.ihug.net.nz (203.29.160.4). It goes something like this, nameserver is doing it's thing happily, when for no apparent reason it just stops responding to named requests for a short time and then a while later starts going again. For obvious reasons this is a major problem. And we can find nothing that is causing this. The symptoms: o Server stops responding to named queries. o At one stage it appeared that when constantly pinging it the TTL would change from 64 to 255 for the exact same duration that the nameserver was affected. I am unable to confirm that this is still the case. o The outages appear to be for exactly 2 or 3 minutes to the seccond. (Maybe other durations?) o At the same time this is happening we are getting "Possible syn flood" messages from various IP addresses (they don't seem to be related). It is my understanding that at about the same time (Sunday) that CLEAR, Waikato and possible Telecom/Xtra had a similar problems (I am not sure where this information comes from or how accurate it is), but are no longer. What we have done: o We swapped our nameservers around, this seems to solve the problem however, it affects our practical ability to control zones etc... o New software installations. The box affected had recently been rebuilt before the incident, and we did not suspect it was a software issue, but rebuilt anyhow. It has affected both Slackware and Debian installations with BIND 8.1.2 and BIND 8.2. Conclusions: o It only occurs when then machine is on 203.29.160.4 and is acting as a master. It does not affect slaves on that IP and does not affect masters on another IP. o Hardware is not a fault - We have used more than one physical machine. The effects did not change. o It appears the the nameserver itself stops during that time. Incoming traffic still reaches the box, but none goes out. Also for the duration there seems to be no nameserver logging. Short completely changing our nameserver infrastrucure we are at a loss as to what we can do. Probable solutions: o None - Goddammit! Any ideas? Dylan Reeve DDI: +64 9 359-2746 Assistant DNS Admin Fax: +64 9 358-5134 ihug business Freecall: 0800 847-638 http://www.ihug.co.nz/ Email: dylan(a)ihug.co.nz --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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DEW alert
by bmanning＠ISI.EDU 31 May '99

31 May '99

Hi, I appologize for duplicates. Its almost time for the next quarterly walk of the inverse tree of the DNS. For the last few quarters, I've been walking the in-addr tree looking for numbers of delegations, accurate delegations, and types and styles of error conditions. So... this is a heads up that you will be seeing zone transfers being generated by a couple of the collecter machines here. For those of you who utilize BINDs access controls, I'd appreciate your inclusion of the collector machines in allowed transfers. The expectation is that they will be the following IP addresses: 128.9.160.57 and 198.32.4.13 Past data is at: www.isi.edu/div7/people/bmanning.home/in-addr-audit.html The run is scheduled to start 01 July 1999. If there are any questions or concerns, I'd be happy to talk about them. Past data has been presented at IEPG, Apricot and RIPE meetings. The expectation is that future data will be presented in the same and similar forums. -- bill --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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Auckland Peering Exchange
by Joe Abley 31 May '99

31 May '99

Hi, The state of play would seem to be as follows: o CLEAR's provisioning people tell me that our racks will be complete (and our transmission network between Symonds Street and the Tower will be tested and ready for service) by the end of next week. o CLEAR will have 24 ports of 10baseT available as soon as everything else is ready, and we're happy to donate ports to other providers in the interests of getting things up and running. These ports will be physically in one of the CLEAR cabinets on L48, but we can run copper to other cabinets on request. o I'm hoping to have a stratum-1 (well, GPS-fed) NTP source installed in the tower some time relatively soon, which exchange participants will be most welcome to chime off. o Sky have at least one community cabinet available now on L48. o I have had two offers of donated ethernet switches. o I have had one offer of exchange management. My nosey enquiries seem to suggest that there are at least six or so providers who are in the closing stages of organising a presence in the Tower (or who already have one). There are issues to discuss, including: o Numbering; o Suitability of any particular vendors' offered free switches; o Are we happy to have multiple switches, owned/operated by different organisations, all bridged together to form the exchange media? o Suitability of any particular organisation's offered exchange management; o Exchange acceptable-use guidelines. To avoid cluttering the NZNOG list with matters specific to the APE (and in accordance with the current vogue in list proliferation), I have created a couple of APE-specific mailing lists: ape-discuss ape-announce To subscribe, send a message containing the line subscribe listname to listmanager(a)patho.gen.nz, cleverly substituting the list name for "listname". Archives are available by e-mail and on the web at http://www.patho.gen.nz/list/ If these lists aren't of any use (and/or people prefer to use the NZNOG list for this) that's fine, I'll remove them. Joe --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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The New Zealand Network Operators' Group
by Donald Neal 31 May '99

31 May '99

The New Zealand Network Operators' Group The New Zealand Network Operators' Group (NZNOG) has neither a king, a president nor a formal membership. At present it consists of the subscribers to this mailing list, which anyone is free to join. (At last count the list had over eighty subscribers, with the count growing slightly each month.) The NZNOG mailing list is provided through a server at The University of Waikato, and is administered by an employee of Telecom NZ Ltd. Neither of these organisations (nor the administrator) is responsible for its content. NZNOG Mailing List Acceptable Use Policy The NZNOG mailing list exists to provide a forum for the exchange of technical information and the discussion of implementation issues that require cooperation among New Zealand network service providers. In order to continue to provide a useful forum for discussion of relevant technical issues, users of the list are asked to respect the following guidelines. 1. Discussion will focus on Internet operational and technical issues. 2. Discussion related to meetings of network service providers is appropriate. 3. Discussion unrelated to these topics is not appropriate. 4. Postings to multiple mailing lists are discouraged. 5. Postings that include foul language, character assassination, and lack of respect for other participants are unacceptable. 6. Blatant product or service marketing is unacceptable. 7. Postings of a political, philosophical or legal nature are discouraged. 8. Postings to the list should be in ASCII or MIME encoded as text/plain. Attachments should not be sent to the list. To present a document,. a suitable URL may be referred to. For documents of general interest, the use of proprietary file formats is discouraged. 9. Breaches of list etiquette should be dealt with privately with the offending list user, and should not result in complaints being sent to the list. Mailing List Archives A full archive is available at http://list.waikato.ac.nz/archives/nznog/ To search the archive, see http://list.waikato.ac.nz/archives/search.html (and remember to select nznog). Subscribing to the List To subscribe to the NZNOG list, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz, where the body of the message reads subscribe nznog There are at present no restrictions on who may subscribe to the list, or even on who may post to the list. Digest Mailing List If you don't wish to receive postings as they are sent, you can instead subscribe to the nznog-digest mailiing list, on which all postings are sent out in a single "digest" every couple of days. Other Activities NZNOG does not at present have other regular activities than this mailing list, though some Auckland subscribers have been known to meet over beer. Donald Neal NZNOG Mailing List Owner/Administrator/Muggins --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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Re: Annoying email addresses
by Michael Newbery 30 May '99

30 May '99

-- Michael Newbery Technology Manager Saturn Communications Tel: +64-4-939 5102 Mobile:021-642 957 Fax:+64-4-939 5100 >>> "2Day Chief Enthusiast" <peter(a)2day.com> - 31/5/99 10:57 AM >>> >Does anybody know of the use of an ampersand character in an e-mail address >is accepted as ok? > >him&her(a)isp.com > >I would have thought it quite bad form, but these larger free email services >seem to allow almost anything ascii in an email address these days. The >only reason I have a problem is I have a script somewhere in my world of >technology that does not like them, and being Monday morning, I cant find it No sympathy I'm afraid. From RFC822: address = mailbox ; one addressee / group ; named list mailbox = addr-spec ; simple address / phrase route-addr ; name & addr-spec addr-spec = local-part "@" domain ; global address local-part = word *("." word) ; uninterpreted ; case-preserved word = atom / quoted-string atom = 1*<any CHAR except specials, SPACE and CTLs> CHAR = <any ASCII character> ; ( 0-177, 0.-127.) specials = "(" / ")" / "<" / ">" / "@" ; Must be in quoted- / "," / ";" / ":" / "\" / <"> ; string, to use / "." / "[" / "]" ; within a word. Ampersand is not a 'special', so it's quite legal. When you find your script I hope you'll make sure it also copes with something . (note the white space and the comment (comments can nest) between the atoms) like-this* . "Is quite legal #@!!" @ liberals.are.us :-) The good news is that when you get down to it, it's very easy to write a parser for rfc822, if you base it on the production rules. BTW, pp 30-31 of RFC821 do not narrow the definition of address. In fact, rfc821/rfc822 are TOO restrictive, predating as they do UNICODE. There is no way to include non-Roman, or indeed accented characters, in an address, and no extension mechanism akin to HTML's %nn. --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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Annoying email addresses -Reply
by Donald Neal 30 May '99

30 May '99

>>> "2Day Chief Enthusiast" <peter(a)2day.com> 31/May/1999 10:57am >>> >Does anybody know of the use of an ampersand character in an e-mail >address >is accepted as ok? >him&her(a)isp.com Well, RFC821 says that "the mail data includes the memo header items such as Date, Subject, To, Cc, From" and that "The mail data may contain any of the 128 ASCII characters." - Donald Neal --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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Re: [registry-discuss] Zone transfers from .nz name servers
by david＠farrar.com 30 May '99

30 May '99

On Thu, 27 May 1999 11:36:22 +1200, Peter Mott wrote: >> I'd say that ISOCNZ did consult industry and are in the process of doing >> so. Some weeks ago the ISOCNZ technical committee, John Vorstermans, >> Mark Davies and Roger De Salis talked to Joe Abley and myself. If they >> didn't talk with Peter that doesn't mean they didn't talk with industry. > >We have a different view on what consultation is. FWIW in hindsight I believe there would have been merit in posting something on say nznog asking for feedback. Perhaps one of the things we can look at is"recognising" nznog as something which should form part of a consultation process on relevant issues. Of course nznog may not want this and might prefer say isocnz-l or isocnz-announce is used for all consultations on these sort of issues. I'll forward this post to nznog (not cross-post) for their interest. But having recognised consultation could be better, let me say nothing is cast in stone. ISOCNZ Council agreed to stop the situation where anyone at all could do zone transfers, but also recognised that certain people or groups would have legitimate grounds for access. Now that leaves enough flexibility to have a very liberal or very tight "access" policy. You have most of the ISOCNZ Technical Cmte on this list and I'm sure that if there is a widespread consensus on what is desirable, agreement can be reached. A point I'll make is ISOCNZ does have some obligations in terms of legal responsibilities as "custodian" which have to be considered. > > I have since been seconded onto ISOCNZ council to fill the vacancy left >> by Peter Mott's resignation and am now on that committee. The tech >> committee have the task of looking at closing of the zone transfer >> holes. This is not cast in stone and could be changed if valid reasons >> can be produced. > > David Farrer said a decision had already been made to disallow XFRS. Can >we get the story straight please? The decision was to stop anyone at all doing transfers. I don't think there is much disagreement that an open slather let anyone grab it and possibly spam with it scenario is desirable to continue. It was recognised some people would still have a need to do transfers. As for how stringent or liberal the policy is, could I pose a number of policy scenarios which may help people focus on what they consider desirable. Now I am not great on all the technical side so I hope I have captured this correctly. a) Status Quo - where anyone at all can do a transfer with no restriction b) No automatic transfers are possible but any *.nz name holder can ask for a zone transfer as long as they promise not to spam. Of course they may give it to others who do with no way to check this. c) Any NZ ISP (and how do we define that) may get a copy of the zone data. Perhaps with an agreement not to spam, on sell etc d) No automatic right of access but any person or group can ask for access, specifying the intended purpose of the data. DOMAINZ to decide which requests are accepted based on criteria set by ISOCNZ (which could come from this group). Note any info about why it is wanted which is given to DOMAINZ would be confidential and not to be publicised e) No access at all except to secondaries (ie those who *need* rather than *want* it Now I'm sure there are many more combinations but hopefully that gets much of it. Feedback on which option is desirable is welcome. Someone raised why ISOCNZ is involved at all. Well simply ISOCNZ has the *duty* on behalf of the Internet Community to be the custodian (for lack of a better word) of the *.nz DNS and associated data. As part of that role it does need to consider implications of what it does with the data. We do have a Privacy Act which few other countries have and we do need to be careful that if ever challenged on what our policies are to do with data we have collected, we can demonstrate that issues have been thought through in a considered manner. I realise the zone data itself may not be relevant to the privacy act, but that it *unlocks* other data may be an issue. Who knows at some stage we may have to spend some money on a legal opinion on our obligations. Speaking for me personally I have no firm view on how liberal or stringent access to the zone files should be (except I strongly support removing open slather access) and am inclined to be supportive of any consensus position reached by a group representative of the industry. DPF --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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Anyone running mail on Solaris 2.6 with tcp timestamps tunerd on?
by Chris Wedgwood 27 May '99

27 May '99

Is there anyone out there running using Solaris 2.6 with tcp timestamps turned on for mail? If so, would they mind letting me hit them with some test messages, maybe a hundred or so short messages? I'm trying to track down some funnies and want to be sure of things before I start blaming Solaris again :) -Chris --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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Re: [registry-discuss] Zone transfers from .nz name servers
by Andy Linton 27 May '99

27 May '99

2Day Chief Enthusiast wrote: > > >I haven't yet got the draft minutes but my recollection of the ISOCNZ > >Council meeting on Friday is that the consensus was to do exactly that > >- for reasons of both privacy act considerations and anti-spamming. > > Yet another example of ISOCNZ making decisions without consulting industry. > Extremely bad form. I'd say that ISOCNZ did consult industry and are in the process of doing so. Some weeks ago the ISOCNZ technical committee, John Vorstermans, Mark Davies and Roger De Salis talked to Joe Abley and myself. If they didn't talk with Peter that doesn't mean they didn't talk with industry. I have since been seconded onto ISOCNZ council to fill the vacancy left by Peter Mott's resignation and am now on that committee. The tech committee have the task of looking at closing of the zone transfer holes. This is not cast in stone and could be changed if valid reasons can be produced. I'd also note some data points: 1) The root nameservers have had open transfers turned off. 2) The Domainz RFI for the management of the DNS indicates that in the near future the primary and secondary servers will be operated by Domainz. The organisations that host the secondary servers will not have administrative control over them so Joe's recent example where Clear and Xtra currently have access to the zone file data will not hold in the future. 3) Mark Davies' web pages which list the NZ domain names will disappear in their current form. I'd like people to put their cards on the table and say why they want access to the complete zone files. That would help us understand if there are valid reasons for leaving the transfers open. I also believe this discussion belongs on the NZNOG list. --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

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