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Re: IP Management tool for service providers

  • From: jlewis
  • Date: Tue Feb 25 13:58:35 2003

On Thu, 20 Feb 2003, John Todd wrote:

> Here's one.  I haven't used it in production, but the demo that I was 
> given was pretty slick.  Works on pretty much any POSIX platform... 
> Alas, it is commercial software.
> 
> Voyager IP   http://www.vger.com/products.shtml#v_ip

Where did you see a demo?  Any idea what it costs?  I just sent them an 
email.  Not much info on their web site, and their contact submission form 
is broken.

> This was referenced on the list back in Jan of 2002:
> http://www.freeipdb.org/ http://www.globalcrossing.com

A coworker took a look at this recently.  He had some difficulty getting 
it installed properly and it lacks some features we'd require relating to 
the tracking of IP allocations in the ways ARIN demands.

> This was referenced on the list in November of 2001:
> http://www.brownkid.net/NorthStar/

I just installed this.  Installation went easily, but it doesn't seem to
actually work :)  After adding a big block of space and creating one
allocation in it, the links to create additional subnets bring up the
wrong page.  It seems very browser dependent.  i.e. with various versions
of Netscape and Mozilla on Linux, some of the pages don't work (but don't
produce any error messages).  The same pages did work in IE on Windows, at
least until the whole thing quit working.  It also lacks necessary
features and doesn't seem to be flexible enough to incorporate the
features I want without digging into the code.

The basics of what I think an IP allocation tracking system needs (at 
least for any ARIN member) are:

1) Ability to track allocations from multiple IP blocks

2) Ability to track type of assignment (i.e. assigned vs reserved)

3) Ability to track service category as required on ARIN additional 
request form.  i.e.  Dial-up|Cable|Web Hosting|Leased Line|
xDSL|Co-location|Wireless|Other-<other subcategory>

4) Storage of customer name and contact info for each allocation

5) Storage of justification info for each assignment

6) Ability to present unallocated space in such a way that allocations can
be done efficiently.  i.e. if a /28 needs to be allocated, make it easy to
find unallocated existing /28's, rather than do unnecessary subnetting to
create a new /28.

7) Auditing.  When it's additional request time, you need to be able to 
audit your assignments and add up how much space is reserved, how 
much is assigned, how much is being used for each of the various ARIN 
defined categories, look up justifications, etc.

8) Automated swip/unswip or hooks to automate rwhois maintenance would be 
nice, but not absolutely required.

The systems I've seen so far lack multiple features from the above list.  
Is everyone just using flat files, spreadsheets, or home grown solutions?

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 Jon Lewis *[email protected]*|  I route
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