The Web interface to the IP Register database

The Web interface to the IP address database is intended to be the one that is mostly used, not withstanding that lower level access is possible. It is under development, and can be expected to improve. What you see now is a first cut at the problem, which will have to suffice for the time being given other pressures and the urgency to proceed.

The web interface is a customisation for IP address management of a much more general mechanism for web access to the CS Jackdaw database, which sets some interesting "session" properties. For full detail see The WebDBI Interface to Jackdaw, but suffice it to say here that there is a concept of session, that the session can be accessed from more than one browser, that the session is specific to the user, and that the user has only one session at any one time, however many browsers may be connected with it. I recommend not being overly adventurous in attempting to exploit all this, however. If you treat it as simple minded you will be unlikely to notice any strange effects and should not need to enquire further.

The web pages available divide sharply between those designed to make common requirements painless and those designed to cope with the full complexity that the database can in fact accommodate. The overwhelmingly common case is a computer with a single network connection and no aliases of any sort, in short an ordinary personal workstation or even an ordinary group server, and such cases can normally be managed through the simpler pages and without any deeper understanding. More complicated requirements can be met only through the less friendly pages and with some understanding of the underlying data model. Note also that alias and mail domain creation are in any case restricted to CS registrars as a matter of CUDN policy by the underlying database. The interface pages include

  • single_ops - a case-by-case GUI interface for registering and rescinding and modifying simple registrations.

  • list_ops - a batch mode interface for registering and rescinding and modifying simple registrations.

  • table_ops - a GUI interface allowing individual updates to the underlying database tables.

  • range_ops - a GUI interface for setting characteristics such as LAN association for an address range.

  • box_ops - a GUI interface for handling hosts with multiple addresses.

  • vbox_ops - an interim interface for managing virtual hosts.

  • multihome_ops - replaced by box_ops

  • cname_ops - an interim interface for managing CNAME aliases.

  • aname_ops - an interim interface for managing A-type aliases.

  • xlist_ops - a batch mode interface for registering and rescinding and modifying aliases, and multihomed boxes and vboxes.

  • maildom_ops - an interim interface for managing mail domains (as represented in the database and hence in the DNS).

  • service_ops - an interim interface for managing SRV records