Short white paper on how to create route objects from scratch using RIPE

1. ROUTE OBJECT CREATION WHITEPAPER (USING RIPE IRR AS CASE STUDY)
Author: Peter Ehiwe
Last updated: June 2012
ABSTRACT
What you need to know on how to create the route objects needed to make you and your
upstream ISP happy.
I NTRODUCTI ON
A route object is what ties the prefix you have obtained from your RIR(Regional Internet
Registry) to the Autonomous system number obtained from the RIR.
Route objects are usually created in an Internet routing registry (IRR)
An IRR is a database of Internet route objects for determining, and sharing route and related
information used for configuring routers, with a view to avoiding problematic issues between
Internet service providers. [1]
Right now there are about 34 IRR maintained around the world [2] all of which can be used to
create the route objects , but the most common one’s are RIPE (Free service) and RadB from
Merit networks(Paid service)
BACKGROUND I NFORMATION
Many Corporate organization (e.g. Financial institutions) and small ISPs require the use of AS
numbers and Provider Independent addresses for their growing operations.
Many of these institutions run into a road block when implementing IP transit service because
the Upstream ISP asks for a route object registration for their PI prefixes. Many upstream ISPS
do this because their prefix and as-path filters are set to auto mode , in auto mode they poll the
IRR database periodically and they adjust their filters based on the route objects
From my experience in the fast growing African internet ecosystem, these institutions wrongly
interpret prefix and AS number registration in the Afrinic database as route object registration ,
the route object should rather be seen as the “glue” that says this prefix comes from this AS
number

2. This whitepaper is meant to equip the reader with the steps required to create route object
using RIPE IRR service.
To create a route object, four steps must be completed, these steps are captured below , a
MAINTAINER OBJECT must be created first , after which a PERSON OBJECT and AUT-NUM
object will be created , these three objects are prerequisites for ROUTE OBJECT creation.
The easiest way to create object in RIPE DB is to use web updates
tool(https://apps.db.ripe.net/webupdates/select-type.html) , where the object is created by
entering individual fields. See below for snapshots :

3. ROUTE OBJECT CREATI ON – STEP 1
Register a Maintainer Object
I like to see the maintainer object as a container that controls who can create and modify the
created objects, it is during the process of creating the maintainer object that you enter the
password and select the password hashing algorithm.
The following two snapshots should be followed one after the other in order to cre ate the
maintainer object quickly without having to do much debugging.

4. Key points to note
When filling the auth field , Click the key button on the right to enter the password that will be
hashed by the chosen algorithm.(In this case MD5 is used)
For the “changed attribute” the format is email address [space] DATE (yyyymmdd)
Always click the question mark symbol to get more explanation on the format for entering
values of different attributes.
After the second step is complete , click submit to create the maintainer object , if the steps
are followed as advised above then you will save yourself minutes of debugging the errors .

5. ROUTE OBJECT CREATI ON – STEP 2
Register a person object
Same two-step process, snapshots are captured below.

6. Person objects are usually easy to create and require less debugging as long as you follow th e
steps above.
ROUTE OBJECT CREATI ON – STEP 3
Register an AUT-NUM object

7. The final step is to create the Route Object, the steps above only need to be carried out if you
don’t already have them created, hence for subsequent route object creation you don’t need to
create AUT-NUM, PERSON, MAINTENER objects.

8. ROUTE OBJECT CREATI ON – STEP 4
Register a Router Object

9. CONCLUSION
Creating route objects is not that hard when you have a guide like this . If you want to practice
with object creation at a broader level, you can make use of the RIPE Test Database.
If you have any comments, suggestions for improvements of this white paper, feel free to drop
an email at peterehiwe@gmail.com .
REFERENCES
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Routing_Registry
[2] http://www.irr.net/docs/list.html