[DBWG] Update on work items

[Simon Seruyinda]

Dear DBWG,

We have added a page to track WHOIS releases on the Afrinic website.
https://afrinic.net/changelog#whois 

We have also added the current work items to the dbwg page to track issues under discussion.
https://afrinic.net/committees/database-wg#work-items

Regards;
Simon

> On 31 Mar 2021, at 16:06, Simon Seruyinda <simon at afrinic.net> wrote:

> 

> Dear DBWG,

> 

> Please see below update on work items by staff.

> 

> 

> 1.0 Assess if there will be issues for members creating their own mntner as opposed to auto-generating it 

> 

> The auto-generation of maintainers forms an integral part of the  new members onboarding and has been integrated into myafrinic. Changing it now will generate an operational issue leading to extended onboarding process

> 

> We propose that the issue of cyclic dependency be handled as follows:-

> 

> 	1. We make mnt-by mandatory for person /role objects  to avoid current scenario where users can remove the auto-generated maitainer and leave the object unprotected

> 	2. We introduce a place holder such as AUTO-1, to indicate to the whois that the mnt-by will be auto-generated.

> 

> The above allows us to fix the cyclic dependency without making the adminc an optional attribute. Its important to keep the adminc mandatory because its the only way to identify the owner of the mntner object.

> 

> 

> 

> 2.0 Impact assessment on impact of creating multiple domain objects in one go in the DB

> 

> We did carry out some tests on a test WHOIS server to assess resilience. We tested with  2 /32 IPv6 prefixes.

> We broke each down into 65536 /48 reverse DNS objects. Below are the findings.

> we submitted the payload in two parts each with 65536 objects using auto-dbm

> 

> Test Server specs:

> 

> 8GB RAM

> 4 CPUs

> 

> Findings:

> 

> We found that using an email client, it is hard to send an email containing over 21MB of content.

> However, where a user may succeed in sending these kind of huge emails, we found that the WHOIS processed the objects for several hours. When we lauched a second request while the first one was still being processed, the service slowed down significantly, though queries were still going through. RDNS goes through many business rule checks including no reverse unless assigned and checks for lameness of the name servers. All these generate alot of work for the CPU and memory.

> 

> With the first request, we observed average CPU utilization by WHOIS service/process of around 25% and memory fluctuating between 1.2GB and 500MB  as garbage collection kicks in.

> On introducing the second request,  we observed a CPU spike up to an average of 65%. Similar behaviour was observed with memory as it began flactuating between 1.9GB and 1GB as garbage collection kicks in.

> After a several minutes of processing, we observed that the memory consumed keeps increasing steadily despite the garbage collector doing its job.

> 

> Conclusion:

> 

> If many users send this type of huge requests, the WHOIS will run out of memory.

> 

> 

> 3.0 Discuss internally about providing DB schema in location where its accessible to the DBWG

> 

> Internal discussions not concluded.  We expect to conclude by the end of April.

> 

> 

> 4.0 Web page for release cycles and forthcoming features and another one for issues under discussion.

> 

> Our webmaster is working on the pages and will have them up by the end of this week. We shall update the DBWG.

> 

> 5.0 Resource holders without email addresses

> 

> 

> Our MS department is busy handling this. ETA is still end of Q2 as communicated before

> 

> 6.0 Share the stats again of those mntner objects that exist without the -MNT on the DBWG 

> 

> These were shared on the WG.

> https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/dbwg/2021-February/000331.html

> 

> 7.0 Maintainer names should end with -MNT

> 

> Under testing, this will be part of the upcoming release expected at end of April 2021

> 

> 

> 8.0 Org-type definitions in organisation object template query

> 

> Under testing, this will be part of the upcoming release expected at end of April 2021

> 

> Regards;

> Simon

> 

> 

>