IRRD v4#

IRRd is a routing registry server, which allows network operators to store information about their network, to support automated configuration for their own and other networks. Most network operators on the internet depend directly or indirectly on IRRd.

I started this as a complete rewrite of an unmaintained legacy project. I rewrote it in Python, with extendability, high reliability and backwards compatibility in mind. This included a thorough testing suite, and automated comparisons between the new IRRd version 4 and previous versions. NTT Communications depends on IRRd every day to configure parts of their network, and failures can cause client outages. Version 4 was successfully deployed in production in 2019. Since then, it has also been deployed by ARIN, LACNIC, RADB, LEVEL3, TC, and others

I continue to work on IRRd, extending it with new features in data consistency and validation, performance, reliability, and authentication. In this I work with IRR operators, network operators, and others in the ecosystem, including developing draft-ietf-grow-nrtm-v4.

internet.nl#

Internet.nl is a standards compliance testing tool run by a collaboration of the Dutch internet community and government. I have been the project’s lead developer since 2022.

Internet.nl is an incredibly broad product, covering many different standards like IPv6, DNS, RPKI, TLS, DANE, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and many more. Our scoring and reports carry significant weight. My responsibilities include not only day to day development, but also extend to long term sustainability of the project, developing our testing criteria, deployment process, and product development.

IRRexplorer#

IRRexplorer is a popular tool for network operators to analyse and debug their IRR configuration. It highlights misconfigurations that can lead to network reachability issues, and provides hints on how to resolve those.

An existing version of the tool had issues in user experience, maintainability and completeness. I developed a completely new version from scratch for Stichting NLNOG under a grant from the RIPE NCC Community Projects Fund. I also expanded it with more advanced features and increased the quality and depth of the analysis.

MANRS analysis tools#

MANRS is an initiative, initially supported by the Internet Society, to support and encourage safe deployment and configuration practices by network operators. I developed tooling that allowed them to measure compliance, by looking at route server and RPKI data.

Write the Docs#

In 2018, I joined the Write the Docs core operations team, after volunteering for several years. Write the Docs is a community for documentarians with over 5000 members in Slack and at least three conferences ever year, with nearly 1000 attendees in total. I work on conference organising, website automation and improvements, support and other responsibilities. Most recently, I have been the conference chair of Write the Docs Atlantic.

IETF datatracker & meetings#

The IETF datatracker tracks work on IETF standards, including reviews on documents, and is a Python/Django codebase. For the review tool, I designed and implemented several architectural improvements and refactoring, and solved many different issues. I also developed an automatic scheduler for IETF meetings, which involve over 100 sessions with many different requirements and constraints. The automatic scheduler saves staff significant time and effort, by proposing ideal schedules.

Django Web Framework#

Django is the most popular open source web framework for Python. I was a committer and team member until 2018. My first major contribution was IPv6 support in the ORM and several other parts. Most recently, I had designed and developed modular password validation support, with has reasonable defaults, but is easy to adjust, extend, or link to existing APIs. I am the former vice chair of the Code of Conduct committee, and was involved in organising four major Django conferences over the years.