TLD whois servers

Thu Sep 17 22:07:48 UTC 1998

[ On Thu, September 17, 1998 at 14:03:01 (-0700), Rodney Joffe wrote: ]
> Subject: TLD whois servers
>
> Does anyone have a partial list that we can incorporate, or pointers to
> resources?

The most recent version of the list of servers I have collected to use
in my awhois.sh script is always available here:

	ftp://ftp.weird.com/pub/local/ahwois.sh

Richard Sexton (@vrx.net) has also collected a similar list to use in a
similar tool that's actually an enhancement of the whois.c source
itself.  He and I are currently thinking of some way to co-ordinate
these lists.  I'll probably end up including the canonical list, in the
format he uses (or some enhanced format we both agree to) inside my
script as a variable assignment or hereis document, or something....

Richard's enhanced whois.c and the datafile it uses are here:

	http://dns.vrx.net/tech/rootzone/

BTW, I've been planning to enhance my script to deal with those zones
that only provide gopher/ftp/http access to domain registration records.
My initial impetus to do this was for the .CA domain, but since then
whois.cdnnet.ca appeared (also thanks to Richard Sexton) and I've not
been in need of enough information from other similar zones since.

Personally though I too would rather try to encourage top level zone
administrators to support rwhois servers.

In that light I suppose my awhois script could also be enhanced to parse
rwhois referrals where they appear as a way to ease transition to global
rwhois coverage from the user's point of view, or alternately that some
existing rwhois client could be enhanced to take a list of whois servers
and to use those where rwhois is not yet possible.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods at acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods at weird.com>