AFRINIC WHOIS DB Objects definitions
- Maintainer: used to protect objects and associated with authentication either password, x509 or PGP key.
- Aut-num: information about the Autonomous System Number (ASN).
- Route: describes routing information about specific IPv4 range intended to be advertised to Internet.
- Route6: describes routing information about specific IPv6 range intended to be advertised to Internet.
- AS-Set: describes set of Aut-num which usually identifies the origin of all the prefixes that will be advertised by the organisation.
○ Used for grouping AS’es (Defines a set of aut-num objects)
○ Used to list downstream/customer AS numbers
○ Can reference other as-set’s in it’s member attribute field
○ Maybe referenced in aut-num import/export policy expressions when defining policies
- ROUTE-SET: Defines a set of routes that can be represented by route objects or by address prefixes
○ Can reference other route-sets
○ route-set objects can also reference AS’s or as-set’s
○ Used when defining peering policies
- filter-set: A filter-set object defines a set of routes that are matched by its filter attribute
- rtr-set: The rtr-set object defines a set of Internet routers. The rtr-set attribute defines the name of the set
- peering-set: it identifies all the peerings between a (set of) local routers and a (set of) peer routers
AFRINIC IRR Architecture
Route(6) object creation workflow
Route/Route6- The workflow does not make a difference between route and route6 objects creation. The workflow used for the different types of Route(6) object creation is as follows
The above flowchart defines the below 4 possible scenarios of route(6) objects creation namely:
- Both the ASN and Prefix are domiciled on the AFRINIC WHOIS
- The Prefix is not domiciled on the AFRINIC WHOIS
- The Prefix is domiciled on the AFRINIC WHOIS but not the ASN(ASN from another RIR)
- Both the ASN and Prefix are not domiciled on the AFRINIC WHOIS
Further details for above scenarios are defined below:
Scenario 1
Both the ASN and Prefix are domiciled on the AFRINIC WHOIS
Scenario 2
The Prefix is not domiciled on the AFRINIC WHOIS
Scenario 3
The Prefix is domiciled on the AFRINIC WHOIS but the ASN is not(ASN from another RIR)
Scenario 4
Both the ASN and Prefix are not domiciled on the AFRINIC WHOIS
Authentication required for the Route(6) object creation
The flowchart above details how the authentication happens in the backend.It is worth noting that there are different steps of authentication before the route/route6 object can be created on the AFRINIC IRR