whois.internic.net / whois.crsnic.net IPv6 timeouts

Wed Jul 10 19:41:11 UTC 2013

On 7/10/13 11:45 AM, Stephen Frost wrote:

>   Don't know if it'll help or if this is simply old news to most, but
>   the whois systems (whois.internic.net/whois.crsnic.net) have AAAA
>   records and happily answer TCP/43 requests w/ the usual blurb, but all
>   the servers I've hit then fail to actually provide data and instead
>   the whois client (Ubuntu 13.04) simply time-outs.
> 
> sfrost at tamriel:/home/sfrost> whois -h 2001:503:5ae2:1060::74 networksolutions.com

These work for me on multiple IPv6 carriers, using both the Mac OS X and
Debian squeeze whois clients:

----

$ whois -h 2001:503:5ae2:1060::74 networksolutions.com

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with
many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for
detailed information.

NETWORKSOLUTIONS.COM.RESPECTED.BY.WWW.DNDIALOG.COM
NETWORKSOLUTIONS.COM

To single out one record, look it up with "xxx", where xxx is one of the
of the records displayed above. If the records are the same, look them
up with "=xxx" to receive a full display for each record.

----

$ whois -h 2001:503:5ae2:1060::74 =networksolutions.com

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

   Server Name: NETWORKSOLUTIONS.COM.RESPECTED.BY.WWW.DNDIALOG.COM
   IP Address: 81.177.3.240
   Registrar: MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES LLC
   Whois Server: whois.moniker.com
   Referral URL: http://www.moniker.com

   Domain Name: NETWORKSOLUTIONS.COM
   Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
   Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
   Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/
   Name Server: NS1.NETSOL.COM
   Name Server: NS2.NETSOL.COM
   Name Server: NS3.NETSOL.COM
   [etc.]

----

Perhaps your WHOIS client is choking on the first type of response
without the "="? WHOIS should work fine via telnet to eliminate possible
WHOIS client issues; you can just:

$ telnet 2001:503:5ae2:1060::74 43

... and type "=networksolutions.com" to get the raw response.

>   Anyone from NetSol care?

Network Solutions hasn't been involved with the running of
whois.internic.net and whois.crsnic.net for many years. They're
currently run by VeriSign Global Registry Services.

> there's a Debian bug #683187 which mentions similar issues from
> nearly a year ago..).

Right, but other people couldn't duplicate it. I suspect VeriSign uses
rate-limiting; is it possible that your source IP address is just being
rate-limited?

-- 
Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies, http://www.tigertech.net/