Subject: Re: [44net] portal purge From: Don Fanning don@00100100.net Date: 06/20/2015 01:40 AM
To: AMPRNet working group 44net@hamradio.ucsd.edu
There is so much cruft in the DNS tables that I imported the information into a database and ran the FCC database against it. There were roughly 1800 entries out of 3700-ish that matched expired/cancelled/revoked callsigns. And that's just for the US alone - not including active licensees who just lost interest in 44net. As BrianK would point out, there is no way that the DNS table should be this big.
I do regular checks of the registered addresses in the 44.137.0.0/16 subnet against the list of callsigns published by our local authority. I also delete registrations when "silent key" announcements appear in the club magazine.
And a few weeks ago I deleted all dangling MX and CNAME records, most of them for US hams. (see discussion on the list) It appears to have been standard practice to create MX records for new registered addresses, and to not delete them when addresses are deleted.
Do you have valid "callsign change" tables in the US? A problem for me is that there is no official information on that from our authority, apparently for privacy reasons. So sometimes I delete an address because the callsign is no longer valid, to find later that the operator has changed to a higher license class or vanity callsign. And not everyone changing their callsign notifies me.
Rob
On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 12:53 PM, Rob Janssen pe1chl@amsat.org wrote:
Do you have valid "callsign change" tables in the US?
Yes. The FCC publishes a few set of tables in each type of license (common carriers, broadcasters, amateurs, business, etc..).
One is a list of callsigns and dates attributing to start and end effective dates along with last change Another is a list of actions attributed to a callsign. ie: callsign changes, revocations, expirations, class upgrade, etc.. And another is the mailing/physical address table.
It gets a little convoluted because for example, I have a vanity call. But my original callsign is still active because my vanity call is tied to it. Therefore, I have two callsigns but technically should only operate with the one. Tho, come to think of it, I should be able to operate with either - (anyone got a Part 97 rule regarding this?). I'd imagine it's the same way in other countries where some operators have two licenses for whatever reasons. Then there are trustee stations like W1AW who technically is attributed to one particular trustee with a valid license - those are easy enough to find.
And not everyone changing their callsign notifies me.
And there in lies the problem. Scale it up globally and you can see why we would need to force people to check in from time to time.
The Canadian system is even more vague, as callsigns do not expire (unless you do, and even then the government doesn't keep good track of them - someone has to tell them), and yes, some people have multiple call signs. I live/work in the US now, but still operate under a Canadian callsign (need to go sit those Extra exams - so many things to do - so little time!).
I don't think there's a problem in getting people to check in yearly, but I agree with the idea of only starting to warn people 90 days before expiration.
Getting quarterly messages will only cause them to be ignored, in my experience, they become neither 'important' nor 'urgent'. I've worked on many user registration and accounting systems over the years, and I've found that the systems that start warnings when it's close enough to the expiration date that it has become 'important' to the user and long enough away that it hasn't yet become 'urgent' work best.
I've also found that it's good to have a 'soft' and 'hard' cutoff.
Even the HR system that I deal with sometimes has issues (like late renewal of individuals' contracts), so if the account isn't for something serious, I give some hang time.
Given that this is truly non-serious, a soft hang time of 4 weeks (after which entries get disabled) and then a hard cutoff of six months would make things easier for both sides the data could continued to be stored off line, it doesn't really impact anyone except a little bit of hard disk space). Users have a soft landing, and can (after their system stops working) just sign in again and get 'the power turned back on', and its less overhead for the maintainers - no need to re-enter data when the user finally realises that the lights are out (at least in most cases). Hams can wander off for several years, and then go - oh, time to get started again! - and then reconnect with the community. Anything that can be done to make this painless is a good thing. I *would* say that entries and subnets would be subject to reallocation after the six month hard cutoff, so anyone who leaves things too long may need to reconfigure their network.
I'll be happy to help with the programming, I've done this kind of work many times. I also program in SQL, Perl, PHP, Python, C, *nix shell(s), and *way* too many other languages since 1972 - including at least a dozen assemblers, but let's not go there! - full resumé upon request. (No, I'm not looking for another day job, I have one! :-)
- Richard
On 6/20/15 5:55 PM, Don Fanning wrote:
(Please trim inclusions from previous messages) _______________________________________________ On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 12:53 PM, Rob Janssen pe1chl@amsat.org wrote:
Do you have valid "callsign change" tables in the US?
Yes. The FCC publishes a few set of tables in each type of license (common carriers, broadcasters, amateurs, business, etc..).
One is a list of callsigns and dates attributing to start and end effective dates along with last change Another is a list of actions attributed to a callsign. ie: callsign changes, revocations, expirations, class upgrade, etc.. And another is the mailing/physical address table.
It gets a little convoluted because for example, I have a vanity call. But my original callsign is still active because my vanity call is tied to it. Therefore, I have two callsigns but technically should only operate with the one. Tho, come to think of it, I should be able to operate with either - (anyone got a Part 97 rule regarding this?). I'd imagine it's the same way in other countries where some operators have two licenses for whatever reasons. Then there are trustee stations like W1AW who technically is attributed to one particular trustee with a valid license - those are easy enough to find.
And not everyone changing their callsign notifies me.
And there in lies the problem. Scale it up globally and you can see why we would need to force people to check in from time to time. _________________________________________ 44Net mailing list 44Net@hamradio.ucsd.edu http://hamradio.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/44net
On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 6:54 PM, Richard Chycoski ve7cvs@chycoski.com wrote:
(Please trim inclusions from previous messages) _______________________________________________ The Canadian system is even more vague, as callsigns do not expire (unless you do, and even then the government doesn't keep good track of them - someone has to tell them), and yes, some people have multiple call signs. I live/work in the US now, but still operate under a Canadian callsign (need to go sit those Extra exams - so many things to do - so little time!).
Yeah, I was afraid of that... I got a feeling it will be like that for most countries as well.
I don't think there's a problem in getting people to check in yearly, but I agree with the idea of only starting to warn people 90 days before expiration.
I as well would agree with the 90 day soft notices. Could also use it as a opportunity to opt in to the listserv which gives a mail every month as a soft ping. May give people incentive to stay active and explore hamwan/mesh/ax.25 architecture here. Change is in the air and I suspect with that a growth in hobby related wireless data communications - especially as the maker movement advances. All we should be concerned with is interoperability and address routing.
I found it interesting that the AMPR gateway only allowed traffic for IP's registered in DNS. Is there a reason for this? Especially as we're starting to subnet to larger blocks and move away from geographically connected networks.
Users have a soft landing, and can (after their system stops working) just sign in again and get 'the power turned back on', and its less overhead for the maintainers - no need to re-enter data when the user finally realises that the lights are out (at least in most cases).
This seem reasonable. In a way, this would be the fuse after the time based dead man's switch is triggered.
I *would* say that entries and subnets would be subject to reallocation after the six month hard cutoff, so anyone who leaves things too long may need to reconfigure their network.
I know I would after 6 months. I try not to collect machine anymore but I do generate plenty of e-waste.
Hams can wander off for several years, and then go - oh, time to get started again! - and then reconnect with the community.
I know I have and it happens to everybody.
Anything that can be done to make this painless is a good thing.
So, BrianK mentioned that about 5 years ago, a time stamp was added to the DNS table and recorded when a record was updated.
What if we were to import everything in, set a incremental TTL on records so that the newest records had one or two years but the oldest records had maybe 3-9 months. 3 months for anything over 5 years and progressively more over the next 4. So that in essence, in around a year or two, the problem cleans itself up.
When the TTL on records is reached, it goes into the soft landing for 6 months then after 6 months it is wiped completely for reallocation. I don't even think RBL/spamlists tend to keep records for a year or two. Even if it did, age weighs into it's bayes filtering.
It wouldn't be a 'rip the bandaid off' transition - but there will be some pain for people as the hairs are pulled.
It would also get those older network operators to ping in rather than treat it as inheritable space. One can't own a frequency, but they certainly can park a call sign for generations.
For it to work however some of the old networks are going to have to check into the portal and ping their network space. If those regional coordinators are on top of their allocations, maybe they can register their /16 or whatever then notify their network. Then we can put in a feature to transfer allocations to other hams like you can with domain names and registrar transfers.. I know in Europe, they got their network maps dialed in. Much more than we have here in North America.
We'd just need to reach a reasonable consensus, announce it here and on the website, do the work then let it bake.
I'll be happy to help with the programming, I've done this kind of work many times. I also program in SQL, Perl, PHP, Python, C, *nix shell(s), and *way* too many other languages since 1972 - including at least a dozen assemblers, but let's not go there! - full resumé upon request. (No, I'm not looking for another day job, I have one! :-)
I'm just a Sr. SE with a CCNP. But most of the day, I'm known as 'Jack'. My manager sells me as a DevOp. And my company's mission is to bring joy to the world through innovation. Really, I want the world we were promised by Pop. Sci. decades ago.
I'm sure I can introduce you to Chris who maintains the portal and the svn. Maybe we can both sell him on Github. ;)
Not true, they do expire at your 101 Birthday!
They are very optimistic here that we all get older :-)
Bob VE3TOK
On 15-06-20 09:54 PM, Richard Chycoski wrote:
(Please trim inclusions from previous messages) _______________________________________________ The Canadian system is even more vague, as callsigns do not expire (unless you do, and even then the government doesn't keep good track of them - someone has to tell them), and yes, some people have multiple call signs. I live/work in the US now, but still operate under a Canadian callsign (need to go sit those Extra exams - so many things to do - so little time!).
In Internet years, that's forever! :-)
(I didn't know that they actually expired them at all!)
- Richard, VE7CVS
On 6/21/15 3:52 AM, Boudewijn (Bob) Tenty wrote:
(Please trim inclusions from previous messages) _______________________________________________ Not true, they do expire at your 101 Birthday!
They are very optimistic here that we all get older :-)
Bob VE3TOK
On 15-06-20 09:54 PM, Richard Chycoski wrote:
(Please trim inclusions from previous messages) _______________________________________________ The Canadian system is even more vague, as callsigns do not expire (unless you do, and even then the government doesn't keep good track of them - someone has to tell them), and yes, some people have multiple call signs. I live/work in the US now, but still operate under a Canadian callsign (need to go sit those Extra exams - so many things to do - so little time!).
44Net mailing list 44Net@hamradio.ucsd.edu http://hamradio.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/44net
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Boudewijn (Bob) Tenty -
Don Fanning -
Richard Chycoski -
Rob Janssen