The fifth RIPEstat demo of 2012 gives an overview of the news since the previous episode at the RIPE 64 Meeting in Ljubljana, and announces changes that will happen between now and the next RIPE Meeting, RIPE 65, in Amsterdam.
This demo is available both as a video recording and a slide set .
Introduction to RIPEstat
RIPEstat is a modular and extendable toolbox designed as a single point of access to Internet-related data from RIPE NCC and other sources. Stat stands for statistics and status . It is a work in progress, and is being developed iteratively. Feedback from users helps determine the direction of development. Regular demos provide information about new functionality.
Widget Improvements
Widget Conversion Finished
As part of an effort that was first announced at RIPE 63 , all the functionality in the RIPEstat plugins has been progressively converted to widgets. This conversion is finished and all the views now follow the widget and data API model, meaning they can be embedded in any website and also have their own dedicated data API call.
For a demonstration on how to include a RIPEstat widget in your page, check out the s2e01 RIPEstat demo or the widget API documentation .
In-Widget Resource Query
It is now possible to have the widgets display a resource query bar, which lets you navigate to other resources within the widget, and without affecting the containing page. This option can be enabled by means of the " show_controls " flag using the widget embedding code.
Figure 1: Widget with a resource bar
Data Information Section
Each widget now contains an information section that describes the boundaries of the data being displayed, such as the time range it corresponds to, the resource used, or any other parameters that the data conforms to.
Improved Documentation
The info section of each widget, which includes detailed information and documentation regarding the inner works of the widget, has been revised and reformatted to allow a more intuitive understanding. All the widgets should have updated content on this section, so make sure to check them out.
Figure 2: Updated widget documentation
Improvements to Existing Widgets
Address Space Hierarchy
The Address Space Hierarchy widget has profited from several improvements:
- CIDR Navigation - allows free navigation within the address space CIDR tree.
- Block aggregation - improved representation of very small objects in very dense address space views.
- Highlighting - objects of a certain status can be easily spotted by means of highlighting using the status labels in the legend.
- Extra source: APNIC - as an initial step to include other RIR whois databases, APNIC is now available as a source from which to browse the registered address space.
The use of all these features is demonstrated in the demo video .
Figure 3: Demonstrating the Address Space Hierarchy functionality
Whois Object Browser
The Object Browser widget now runs live queries to the RIPE Whois database for retrieving the data, so all the objects are shown in their actual state with realtime information.
New Widget - DNS Information for a Website
As part of the World IPv6 Launch initiative, a RIPEstat widget was created that shows the forward DNS information of a domain. It lists A and AAAA records, as seen from the point of view of the RIPE NCC's nameservers.
Figure 4: DNS Information Widget
RIPEstat Mobile: New Version Released
Version 1.5.0 of the RIPEstat mobile app can now be found on the App Store. It includes important updates such as complete migration towards the RIPEstat data API as a data source, and the addition of the Whois Object Browser plugin, among other features.
Upgrading to the new version is free and highly encouraged in order to ensure proper continuing functioning of the app.
A brief demo of the new features is included in the demo video .
Figure 5: New version of RIPEstat mobile
We are interested in feedback regarding which new plugins you would like to see included in the mobile application in future versions. So, please get in touch (contact details below) and let us know your needs.
Decommission of Old-Style Data Calls
Because of the conversion of all the RIPEstat plugins to widgets, as well as the migration of the mobile application to strictly use the new data API, a decommission of the old data calls is planned for Monday, 13 August 2012 .
The old-style data requests can be identified by this URL pattern:
https://stat.ripe.net/data/ <name-of-the-data-call> / <resource>
e.g. https://stat.ripe.net/data/visibility/193.0.20.0/23
whereas the new one looks like this:
https://stat.ripe.net/data/ <name-of-the-data-call> / data. <format> ?resource= <resource>
e.g. https://stat.ripe.net/data/visibility/data.json?resource=193.0.20.0/23
The new URL pattern offers easy access to additional features e.g. retrieving meta information by simply replacing "/data.<format>" with "/meta". Additionally stating the parameter name in the URL makes parameterising data calls more explicit.
The one thing that we kept the same is "https://stat.ripe.net/data/..." being the access to RIPEstat's world of data.
So please keep in mind that after mid-August the old-style data calls will not be available anymore - we strongly encourage our users to switch to the new-style data calls as soon as possible.
NB: the information given in the demo about the URL pattern of the new-style RIPEstat data API is not up-to-date. Please refer to the information stated above instead.
Feedback
You can offer feedback on RIPEstat at any time through one of our standard channels:
- The comment box on the RIPEstat website allows you to post comments publicly.
- In-widget feedback form [ coming soon! ]
- The Measurement Analysis and Tools (MAT) working group mailing list allows for more in-depth discussions.
- Private feedback can be sent to stat@ripe.net .
- The #ripestat tag on Twitter is used by RIPE NCC to discuss and announce RIPEstat.
Next Demo
The next RIPEstat demo will take place during the RIPE 65 Meeting in Amsterdam, taking place from 24-28 September 2012. During this demo session you will also have the chance to meet the developers and ask all your questions face-to-face.
Archive
Videos of previous RIPEstat demos and other RIPEstat movies are available on the RIPE NCC YouTube channel (look for the RIPEstat playlist).
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