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Stanford
NetDB Help
Primary Mission

The main purpose of NetDB is to track IP and hardware addresses for Stanford's DNS and DHCP services.

  • The DNS Service is updated from NetDB every half hour, at 5 and 35 minutes after the hour. Changes are usually live within 10 minutes. More here.
  • The DHCP Service is updated every 10 minutes starting on the hour, with changes appearing in the service within 5 to 7 minutes after the update starts.

Additional Uses

  • NetDB gives central networking staff and departmental network administrators a way to keep track of networked computers, providing for the storage of a wide range of information.
  • NetDB includes search and reporting capabilities for extracting this information.
  • NetDB is an integral part of Stanford's network management and firewall configuration infrastructure.

Interfaces

In addition to the web interface, all NetDB users have access to a command line program known as the NetDB CLI, and a Java interface known as the NetDB RMI.

  • The NetDB CLI is a command line program used to create, modify, and delete nodes. It's very useful for making bulk changes.
  • The NetDB RMI is a straightforward, object-oriented, Java programming interface, usable by any JVM-based language, including scripting languages like Jython and JRuby.
  • NetDB information is also available at the Stanford What website and via the whois protocol.
    • Stanford What accepts a single search string and returns data about a NetDB node or nodes.
    • The Stanford whois service provides the same service from the command line, e.g. 
    
  % whois -h whois.stanford.edu example.stanford.edu

                    Stanford University Whois Service

                  Try "whois help" for more information.
    For directory service on the web: http://stanfordwho.stanford.edu

           name: example
           type: Node (Host)
          state: Exempt
          group: Unix
     department: IT Services
       location: Sweet Hall (03-420)
            cpu: UNKNOWN any
         op-sys: UNKNOWN
  administrator: Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org)
        comment: Reserved for use in examples.
        updated: Mar-03-2011 06:25 PM by Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org)