[PDB Tech] allow empty IP field or not?

[Eric Loos]

I don’t really see a valid use case for wanting to ‘hide’ a presence at a PUBLIC internet exchange. If you don’t want to peer, that is what the peering policy field is for, to give people a hint that they shouldn’t be bothering you. The prime desire expressed by the users of PDB was to increase the data quality. In that sense, an entity in my view is only *at* an exchange, if it has an IP address there. Perhaps I am not seeing all the use case, so I really would like to hear from the people wanting to keep the field empty for other reasons than signalling prospective peers, I hope security is not a drive since that doesn’t really make sense. 
It could be that people want to signal their intent to prospective peers that they will be at an exchange, but this is a different use case and might be better served in another way.

Kind regards,

Eric


> On 25 Dec 2016, at 19:26, Joe Provo <jzp-peeringdb at rsuc.gweep.net> wrote:
> 
> [this time form the correct address...]
> 
> On Sun, Dec 25, 2016 at 03:15:39PM +0100, Sascha Pollok wrote:
>> Hi Job, et al,
>> 
>> Let's please keep it required. Many people rely on PDB information to 
>> automate peering configurations. It does not happen often that we need to 
>> configure peering sessions that require manual input and when it happens, 
>> it is actually annoying. Making IP addresses optional will make more ASes 
>> not document them either of lazyness or weird security reasons. If someone 
>> thinks not disclosing them gives extra security they do have a problem 
>> anyway. It's easy to find out peering LAN IPs if someone wants to do 
>> something ugly.
>> 
>> Please keep them required.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> If the [not uncommon] case of signaling intent-to-be-there is needed,
> that should be simply a separate flag not an overloading of the address
> field.
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> Joe 
> 
> -- 
> Posted from my personal account - see X-Disclaimer header.
> Joe Provo / Gweep / Earthling 
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