Summary

  • Jaco Kroon told AFRINIC’s policy list on 22 October that child reverse-domain and route objects can block deletion of a parent address record.
  • AFRINIC’s current manual requires a registered assignment or sub-allocation for reverse delegation; the reported repair sequence may require temporary removal of the delegation record.

The database has an answer for the operator who wants to put his paperwork in order: first take apart the paperwork that depends on it. In a 22 October message to AFRINIC’s policy list, Jaco Kroon described attempts to delete an inetnum parent while four child domain objects and a route object remained. The errors he reproduced said the children blocked deletion. His address block, 10.0.0.0/22, was an illustrative private-space example, not a documented public-network incident.

The distinction between these objects matters. The inetnum records address use. A domain object tells AFRINIC which name servers receive a reverse-DNS delegation. AFRINIC’s reverse-DNS guide says the member creates that object through MyAFRINIC, the WHOIS portal or email; AFRINIC then publishes the referral after checks. The member runs the zone itself. A route object belongs to the routing registry. None is a spare label that can be peeled off a spreadsheet without an operational question.

The current policy manual supplies the other half of the knot. Section 10.5.2 bars reverse delegation unless an assignment or sub-allocation from the allocation is registered. For a /24, one such registration is enough; the whole block need not be assigned. AFRINIC’s WHOIS guide also tells holders to correct stale records and explains that objects referenced by others cannot simply be deleted. Kroon argues that, when an assignment needs repair, this combination can demand temporary removal of the reverse-domain objects. The ledger asks for accuracy while the edit path puts another live registry record in the way.

Kroon wants to remove all of section 10.5 so staff can relax database rules. That is a larger cut than the deletion problem alone: 10.5.1 covers who may request or modify delegations when membership is current. A discussion email is not a numbered proposal. AFRINIC has published no reproduction of this exact deletion sequence, incident count or service interruption in the records examined here. A staff transaction trace would show whether operators have a safer ordering available today.