JPNIC Translated Document Source document: JPNIC REPORT 7 Date of the source: March 1994 Date of the last update of this translation: November 5, 1995 This is a translation of a JPNIC document. JPNIC provides this translation for convenience of those who can not read Japanese. But it may contain mis-translations, and is by no means official. One should consult the source document written in Japanese for detail. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Relation to international NIC activities JPNIC (Japan Network Information Center) is the domestic NIC (country NIC) of Japan, and it administrates the domestic Internet resources, and controls, provides information. In order to operate the Internet of Japan in a harmonious way, JPNIC is performing its activities by cooperating with the Internet of other countries. For example, JPNIC allocates IP addresses to all domestic organizations, this is because it is appointed by the InterNIC (formerly The NIC) through the internationally recognized IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). As well as with domain name, it is in accordance with ISO code meant for each country so that the top level of Japan ".JP" becomes an unique domain in the world. Besides, the database service provided by JPNIC is not only used by the domestic users, but also by users from all around the globe. Queries related to public documents and access to whois service from all around the world is 4% (mail server) and 24% respectively. As the Internet has evolved and grown over in recent years, the necessity for international cooperation related to NIC activities is also increasing. At present the activities of JPNIC are in progress for maintaining the harmony of the domestic NICs. To be specific, the beginning of the pilot project of APNIC (Asia Pacific NIC) is going to play an important role for the future activities of JPNIC. Here the activities for the pilot project of APNIC which is also one of the working activities of JPNIC will be explained. Pilot project of APNIC Beginning Until 1990 the Internet has been evolved by the strong support of the American government, and at that time the only NIC in the world was "The NIC" (SRI-NIC or nic.ddn.mil). The NIC was engaged in processing applications from all around the world for address allocation or registration to name server singlehandedly. However, due to the rapid growth of the Internet, there has been a change in the NIC structure which was centralized at one point. It has been given a hierarchical structure and because of that The NIC which was global one has been divided into several country NICs so that the administrative works get equally distributed. To be specific, the IP addresses that The NIC use to allocate directly to all organizations has been transformed into a global one and the responsibility for allocation has been given to the NIC's of different countries. This process was also an important step for introducing a new routing control technology called CIDR for uniting the regional IP addresses. On April,1992 the NCC (Network Coordination Center) of RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeenne) was established for uniting Europe. Moreover that from April,1993 the NIC had a new start as InterNIC. At present the InterNIC has taken over the responsibility from the global NIC and it is also operating as the NIC of North America and the surrounding regions, and providing service with the cooperation of RIPE NCC. Within this situation, during the conference of APCCIRN (Asia-Pacific Coordinating Committee for International Research Networking) held on January,1993 at Honolulu, there were proposals for performing necessary investigations and experiments for setting up APNIC as the NIC of Asia Pacific region. As there were a lot of opinions from the delegates of different countries for beginning a country NIC like this, it was decided to start the pilot project of APNIC. During the APCCIRN conference held on Augst,1993 at San Francisco, the period for the pilot project was setup from September, 1993 to June,1994, and it has been decided that the reports regarding the project has to be submitted to the same conference. Position of APNIC within the NIC hierarchy What would be the position of APNIC within the NIC structure of the world? The NIC hierarchical structure, taken from the APNIC document apnic-001.txt is given in figure 1. At present discussions are in progress to divide the Internet world into three parts, North America, Europe and Asia Pacific region and to set up regional NICs (Regional Registry) for representing each part. If APNIC is formally realized with this kind of concept then JPNIC which is the domestic NIC of Japan would operate under APNIC with mutual support and cooperation. Here, It was decided that JPNIC will contribute within 10% of its administration fund/resources for cooperating with the pilot project of APNIC. Objective The objective of APNIC pilot project is to present a tentative plan as a basis for cooperation to Asia Pacific region networks. For that the following points has been considered. 1. Investigation related to IP address registration procedure A guide line has to be set for preserving the consistency in the IP address allocation procedure meant for Asia Pacific region. Investigations has to be made for setting up a database related to IP address registration. And the procedure for allocating IP addresses based on CIDR to each countries of the Asia Pacific region block is a problem that is to be handled urgently. 2. Investigation related to the registration procedure for routing information A database has to be set for the administration of routing information. Investigation for setting up a database for CIDR and the administration of the same is a problem that is to be dealt in future. 3. Set up a system to cooperate with the NIC's of other regions For contact and information exchange among APNIC, InterNIC, RIPE NCC and NIC of other regions, several kinds of data formats has to be set up. Besides, a system for supporting the regions that do not have NIC has to be made. 4. Investigation related to the structure of APNIC In order to support the activities of APNIC a financial basis has to be set. Estimation for both of the manual and hardware support has to be examined. Besides, the other objective of the pilot project is to have a clear view of the problems that has to be solved along with the activities of APNIC. In table 1 the proposed 12 points are given and the investigation for solving these problems is in progress. Status of activity Centralized on APNIC WG which is one of the working group of JPNIC, persons interested in APNIC from the NICs of the countries like Korea, Australia are included in the working group of APNIC pilot project. There were discussions based on mailing list. The format for the application of IP address is set and a survey is performed to estimate the demand of IP address for each countries. The serial reports of the project will be publicly available and they can be found in ftp.apnic.net as APNIC document. As of Jan.15,1994 the seven documents given in table 2 can be obtained by anonymous FTP. Based on these documents, an interim report of the project was presented during the APCCIRN conference held on Dec.,1993 in Taiwan. The model for the financial basis of the project is to be proposed during the APCCIRN conference when the project is finished (June,1994). With the sincere service of the staffs the pilot project of APNIC has had a smooth start. After the project overs on June,1994, the stability of the administrative system of APNIC would become a future problem. For that, cooperation from Japan or JPNIC would be highly appreciated. Please send your comments and suggestions related to the pilot project to the following address. (Akiko Aizawa: National Center for Science Information Systems, Masaya Nakayama: University of Tokyo) Contact for APNIC pilot project Asia Pacific Network Information Center c/o University of Tokyo, Computer Center 2-11-16 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113 JAPAN E-mail:hostmaster@apnic.net Tel:+81-3-5684-7747 Fax:+81-3-5684-7256 Figure 1. Hierarchy of the NIC's around the globe Global Registry (InterNIC) / | \ / | \ / | \ Regional ... Regional Registry Registry (APNIC) (RIPE NCC) / | \ / | \ / | \ National Local National Registry Registry Registry / | \ / | \ / | \ Local ... Local Registry Registry Table 1. The points of APNIC pilot project 1.Functions of the APNIC 2.Definition of the Asia Pacific Region 3.Class B Network Allocations 4.Class C Network Allocations 5.WHOIS Database Software 6.Common NIC Domain Name Format 7.Common NIC Contact Point 8.Information Distribution 9.Languages 10.Routing Registry 11.Certification of National NICs 12.Statistics collection and repository (taken from apnic-004.txt) Table 2. APNIC documents (ftp.apnic.net:/pub/apnic/docs/english) File name Title apnic-001.txt APNIC IP Network Address Application Form Explanation apnic-002.txt APNIC Network Address Application Form apnic-003.txt APNIC Pilot Project Proposal apnic-004.txt Various Proposal for the APNIC apnic-005.txt APNIC Pilot Project Organizational Proposals and a Preliminary Budget apnic-006.txt APNIC Pilot Project Midterm Status Report apnic-007.txt Proposal for Distributed APNIC Operations