MCP RIPEstat

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for the RIPEstat Data API, providing network information for IP addresses and prefixes.

Caution

This MCP server is currently under active development. It may not be stable and is subject to change. Please use with caution.

About RIPEstat

RIPEstat is a large-scale information service and the RIPE NCC's open data platform. It provides essential data on IP address space and Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs), along with related statistics for specific hostnames and countries. This service is a valuable tool for network operators, security researchers, and anyone interested in the structure and performance of the Internet, offering insights into routing, registration data, DNS, and geographical information.

For more information, visit the RIPEstat website and consult the Data API documentation.

Use Cases

Using MCP Client allows you to leverage a Large Language Model (LLM) to query RIPEStat using natural language. This means you can ask complex questions about network information, IP addresses, ASNs, and other RIPEStat data without needing to know the underlying API or query syntax. The client translates your natural language queries into appropriate API calls, making it easier and more intuitive to access and analyze RIPEStat data for research, troubleshooting, or network management tasks.

Investigation Workflows

For examples, investigation workflows, and usage patterns, see PROMPTS.

Features

This MCP server offers a subset of RIPEstat Data API. See ENDPOINT_PARITY for a detailed list of all endpoints and their implementation status.

Architectural Rationale

HTTP Transport Choice: This server implements MCP over Streamable HTTP rather than stdio transport, enabling deployment as a standalone network service that multiple MCP clients can access concurrently without process spawning overhead.

Legacy Protocol Fallback: The server maintains backwards compatibility with the deprecated transports.

Concurrent Request Management: Semaphore-based rate limiting operates per-server instance rather than per-client-connection, managing RIPE API quotas across multiple concurrent sessions.

Warning

At current stage this MCP server does not provide authentication. The initial version of MCP released on 2024-11-05 did not support authorization. However, in the 2025-03-26 update, the MCP protocol introduced an OAuth 2.1-based authorization mechanism. It is still not widely adopted and might be subject to change in the future - therefore, we recommend using a firewall or other native MCP solution, such as MCPProxy, to restrict access to the server.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Go 1.24.4 or higher
• Make

[!INFO] No External Dependencies: This project uses only Go standard library.

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/taihen/mcp-ripestat.git
cd mcp-ripestat

# Install dependencies
make deps

# Build the application
make build

Usage

# Run the server
./bin/mcp-ripestat

# Run with custom port
./bin/mcp-ripestat --port 8081

# Enable debug logging
./bin/mcp-ripestat --debug

# Show help
./bin/mcp-ripestat --help

Health Check Endpoints

The server provides essential monitoring endpoints:

• /status - Server status with uptime, version, and health information
• /warmup - Warmup endpoint to prevent cold starts in containerized deployments

These endpoints are essential for load balancers, monitoring systems, and deployment orchestration.

MCP Protocol Support

Streamable HTTP Transport

• Endpoint: /mcp (streaming occurs over the same request/response channel) • Protocol: Stream-framed HTTP (per MCP spec 2025-06-18) • Status: Default transport for all MCP clients implementing the 2025-06-18 spec • Features: Bidirectional streaming, incremental responses, zero-copy frames

JSON-RPC 2.0 Endpoint

• Endpoint: /mcp • Protocol: JSON-RPC 2.0 • Status: Recommended production endpoint (replaces REST) • Features: Full MCP handshake, capability negotiation, tool invocation, compatible with Cursor IDE and other MCP-compliant clients

Legacy REST API

• Endpoint: All previous /* REST paths • Protocol: Traditional REST over HTTP • Status: Removed as of v2.0.0 — breaking change • Features: Deprecated. All functionality has been migrated to the /mcp JSON-RPC 2.0 endpoint.

[!FAIL] BREAKING CHANGE: All legacy REST API endpoints have been removed in v2.0.0. Use the MCP JSON-RPC endpoint instead.

MCP Client Configuration

To use this MCP server locally, simply copy and paste the MCP client configuration into your MCP client

• Cursor: macOS/Linux: ~/.cursor/mcp.json
• Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http ripestat https://localhost:8080/mcp

Demo Server

A demo MCP server is running at https://mcp-ripestat.taihen.org/mcp. Feel free to try it out, but there are no uptime promises.

Testing

# Run tests
make test

# Run tests with coverage report
make test-coverage

# Run end-to-end tests
make e2e-test

# Run linters
make lint

# Format code
make fmt

# Clean build artifacts
make clean

# Install dependencies
make deps

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read contributing guidelines to see how you can participate.

Development

The development process is organized into sprints, with each sprint focused on a specific feature. A detailed ledger of all the past and feature changes, divided by sprints, is available in the sprints documentation.

Note

If a particular feature is not included, please feel free to open issue to discuss it.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the license file for details.