NSI Bulletin 098-010 | Update on Whois

Wed Sep 9 23:41:46 UTC 1998

-----Original Message-----
From: Leo Bicknell <bicknell at dimension.net>
Newsgroups: maillist.nanog
To: nanog at merit.edu <nanog at merit.edu>
Date: Wednesday, September 09, 1998 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: NSI Bulletin 098-010 | Update on Whois

>In article <Pine.BSD/.3.91.980909153738.7931A at crispy.iconn.net> you write:
>>According to David Holtzman of NSI (i asked him), the restrictions on
whois
>>are merely for technical reasons.  I believe that he believes this, and
>>from his point of view they have every right to filter/limit obnoxious or
>>badly configured hosts/sites.
>
> I have a call to arms.  If we could get orginizations to
>mirror the whois data, and provide full, public access to it
>(via the current whois database) we could remove some of the
>dependency on NSI.  After all, they don't run the only root, lots
>of other people run them as well...why should they run the only
>whois server?
>

As far as I know, the rwhois interface
is more oriented toward the approach
that you propose. You can walk the rwhois
protocol thru a query or two via a simple
telnet interface. The network of rwhois
servers transfer complete zones. I think
the original idea was to make it more like
the DNS, only with contact information. Here
is a random query about dimension.net. Note
the minus sign to indicate commands. The
"-holdconnect on" command keeps the link
open for multiple queries. It does not take a
rocket scientist to figure out from the rwhois
protocol how to transfer a large number of
entries. Note, there are 5,532,210 "objects".

$ telnet rwhois.internic.net 4321
Trying 198.41.1.6...
Connected to root.rwhois.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
%rwhois V-1.5:003eff:00 root.rwhois.net (by Network Solutions, Inc.
V-1.5.2rri-d
l)
-status
%status limit:20
%status holdconnect:OFF
%status forward:OFF
%status objects:5532210
%status display:DUMP
%status contact:rwhois-bugs at rwhois.net
%ok
-holdconnect on
%ok
dimension.net
domain:Class-Name:domain
domain:Auth-Area:net
domain:ID:DIMENSION2-DOM.net
domain:Handle:DIMENSION2-DOM
domain:Domain-Name:DIMENSION.NET
domain:Org-Name:Dimension Enterprises
domain:Street-Address:1039 Sterling Rd, Suite 201
domain:City:Herndon
domain:State:VA
domain:Postal-Code:22170
domain:Country-Code:US
domain:Server;I:GIZMO2-HST.NET
domain:Server;I:USSEN-HST.ORG
domain:Server;I:PUMA12-HST.COM
domain:Admin-Contact;I:FM136.NET
domain:Tech-Contact;I:JTB2.NET
domain:Billing-Contact;I:FM136.NET
domain:Created:19950817050000000
domain:Updated:19970502190154000

%ok
%ok
FM136.NET
contact:Class-Name:contact
contact:Auth-Area:net
contact:ID:FM136.net
contact:Handle:FM136
contact:First-Name:Fitzgerald
contact:Last-Name:Michael
contact:Name:Michael, Fitzgerald
contact:Type:I
contact:Email:mfitzgerald at DIMENSION.NET
contact:Phone:703-709-7699
contact:Org-Name:Dimension Enterprises
contact:Street-Address:1039 Sterling Rd, Suite 201
contact:City:Herndon
contact:State:VA
contact:Postal-Code:22170
contact:Country-Code:US
contact:Created:19950817123945000
contact:Updated:19960221135609000

%ok

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation - http://www.unir.com
End-2-End: VPC(Java)---C+ at ---<IPv8>---C+ at ---(Java)VPC
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/unir.txt
http://www.ddj.com/index/author/idx10133.htm