September 1998 - Test - lists.nanog.org

rwhois
by Leo Bicknell 17 Sep '98

17 Sep '98

I know quite a few of you were interested in my rwhois script, and I have exchanged a lot of e-mail with some of you individually. I think it's time I gave a bit of a summary. First off, it's definately the right idea. Properly executed this could provide a seamless, distributed method for looking up whois data from all the registries. If we could get past the problems below it would be a dream for network operators. Of course, there are problems. I'll enumerate these in the order of importance in my mind, others may disagree. 1) Data is missing/inaccurate. root.rwhois.net only reliably provides Internic data, and that data is older than whois data. ARIN does not yet participate in rwhois, and as I understand it RIPE and APNIC have not yet tied in. There is no .US data in rwhois either. Without the right data in here it's useless, regarless of all other problems. 2) The server is not completely developed. There are features in the server that are not fully implemented. Nuff said. 3) There is no distributed scheme set up. The Internic runs one "root" rwhois server. This is no better than whois. There should be 5-10 distributed across the network to provide redundancy. 4) The rwhois protocol needs a caching server. It should be possible for any ISP to set up a caching/mirroring rwhois server with a relatively few steps so they can have their own local server to query. This allows scripts to pound on the data without affecting people outside of that ISP. So, the net result is I don't see how an ISP could use rwhois today. With one server at the same location as the whois server it's no more "reliable", and the data is definately behind. Plus they actually have tigher limits (eg number of results returned) on the rwhois server than the whois server. I really think some people should get behind rwhois and push it forward, as it is a reasonable solution, and is probably 90% of the way developed. If only it could be deployed and supported. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell(a)dimension.net Network Engineer (CCIE #3440) - Dimension Enterprises 1-703-709-7500, fax, 1-703-709-7699

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Re: hearing word of a fiber cut in virgina
by David Lesher 16 Sep '98

16 Sep '98

> More broadly, I had this idea for a NANOG T-shirt. Under the slogan, > "Don't Get Mad, Get Even" -- the image of a backhoe lined up in the crosshairs > of a weapon... Reliable Sources reported the Info-warfare group of DOD wanted to use a unit badge featuring two crossed backhoes. But senior officers had NO sense of humor about same.... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

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Re: GTEI/Exodus
by Justin W. Newton 16 Sep '98

16 Sep '98

At 04:24 PM 9/15/98 -0700, Tim Wolfe wrote: >On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, Joe McDonald wrote: > >> >> Looks like they settled their peering argument?: >> >> GTE Internetworking has joined with Exodus Communications, Inc. to speed up >> their customers' access to the Internet. >> [....] >> http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9809152gte > >Hmm.. not to start another massive thread here, but I wonder if this means >that Exodus is now paying for transit and/or peering? Its actually a cute little press release. It basically says... "We did something." without saying what that something is. Apparently Vapor is an acceptable product these days. Justin W. Newton Got Clue? ISPF 98 http://www.ispf.org

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Re: GTEI/Exodus
by mark＠exodus.net 16 Sep '98

16 Sep '98

Exodus has been carrying the traffic on our backbone since the beginning. -----Original Message----- From: Jon Zeeff <jzeeff(a)verio.net> To: Tim Wolfe <tim(a)clipper.net> Cc: list(a)inet-access.net <list(a)inet-access.net>; nanog(a)merit.edu <nanog(a)merit.edu> Date: Tuesday, September 15, 1998 5:05 PM Subject: Re: GTEI/Exodus | |Or perhaps Exodus is evening out the byte miles between source and destination |ISPs by hauling traffic closer to the destination before it leaves |their network. | |> > GTE Internetworking has joined with Exodus Communications, Inc. to speed up |> > their customers' access to the Internet. |> Hmm.. not to start another massive thread here, but I wonder if this means |> that Exodus is now paying for transit and/or peering? *************************************************************************** Mark Tripod - Senior Network Architect - Exodus Communications http://www.exodus.net - (888) 2-EXODUS - support(a)exodus.net ASN 3967 - NASDAQ (EXDS) - Direct: (408) 346-2389

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Worldcom Fibrecut again in VA
by mwinter＠exodus.net 16 Sep '98

16 Sep '98

Just in case you too see the same old lines from last friday go down again. Worldcom has another nice fibrecut in VA between Fredricksburg and Bowling Green. Same lines as last friday's train derailment for us.... - Martin Winter Exodus Communications

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Re: Hi, I'm from Cable and Wireless and I'm here to help...
by Sean Donelan 16 Sep '98

16 Sep '98

>In the interest of the free flow of useful and correct information >with regard to the divestiture of internetMCI, please do not believe >anything you hear, rather feel free to ask. There are a number of >ex-MCI'ers listening and we'll be happy to debunk rumors from whatever >source. Basic rule, if it came from anything but a 'cw.net' address >please ask before you jump in. Hi. I'm updating my customer service and NOC phone number lists. Will the InternetMCI still be using MCI exchanges and call centers, or will the phone numbers be changing to C&W exchanges? Thanks, sean. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation

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Re: Marc Slemko: Re: Hi, I'm from Cable and Wireless and I'm here to help...
by Jeffrey S. Young 16 Sep '98

16 Sep '98

and for my next trick.... imagine if tomorrow, someone came to you and told you to change your domain name on every piece of equipment in your network, tease apart years of interconnection with your parent company, etc... in other words, ignore the semantics, it's the thought that counts. Jeff Young wrote: > ------- Forwarded Message > > Return-Path: marcs(a)go2net.com > Received: from ALPHA1.RESTON.MCI.NET (alpha1 [204.70.128.80]) > by postoffice.Reston.mci.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA15398 > for <young(a)pdp11-bak.reston.mci.net>; Wed, 16 Sep 1998 14:31:23 -0400 (EDT) > Received: from redfish.go2net.com ([207.178.55.5]) > by ALPHA1.RESTON.MCI.NET (PMDF V5.2-29 #27226) > with SMTP id <01J1VLRE3BF00012QB(a)ALPHA1.RESTON.MCI.NET> for > young(a)pdp11-bak.reston.mci.net (ORCPT rfc822;young(a)mci.net) Wed, > 16 Sep 1998 14:31:22 EDT > Received: from marcs by redfish.go2net.com with smtp (Exim 1.82 #2) > id 0zJMLU-0000xc-00; Wed, 16 Sep 1998 11:30:28 -0700 > Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 11:30:28 -0700 (PDT) > From: Marc Slemko <marcs(a)znep.com> > Subject: Re: Hi, I'm from Cable and Wireless and I'm here to help... > In-reply-to: <199809161751.NAA25868(a)foghorn.Reston.mci.net> > Sender: Marc Slemko <marcs(a)go2net.com> > X-Sender: marcs@redfish > To: Jeff Young <young(a)mci.net> > Message-id: <Pine.GSO.4.02A.9809161129590.26825-100000@redfish> > MIME-version: 1.0 > Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > Content-Length: 634 > > On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Jeff Young wrote: > > > Folks, > > > > In the interest of the free flow of useful and correct information > > with regard to the divestiture of internetMCI, please do not believe > > anything you hear, rather feel free to ask. There are a number of > > ex-MCI'ers listening and we'll be happy to debunk rumors from whatever > > source. Basic rule, if it came from anything but a 'cw.net' address > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > Says he posting from a mci.net address. <g> > > Sorry, couldn't help but find that ironical. > > > please ask before you jump in. > > > > Jeff Young > > young(a)cw.net > > > > ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Hi, I'm from Cable and Wireless and I'm here to help...
by Jeff Young 16 Sep '98

16 Sep '98

Folks, In the interest of the free flow of useful and correct information with regard to the divestiture of internetMCI, please do not believe anything you hear, rather feel free to ask. There are a number of ex-MCI'ers listening and we'll be happy to debunk rumors from whatever source. Basic rule, if it came from anything but a 'cw.net' address please ask before you jump in. Jeff Young young(a)cw.net

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RFC 974 - Mail Routing and the Domain System
by Michael J. Maravillo 16 Sep '98

16 Sep '98

Hello, 'Just want to clarify something... is there a difference between: domain.com. MX 10 mx1.domain.com. domain.com. MX 10 mx2.domain.com. domain.com. MX 10 mx3.domain.com. ;... mx1.domain.com. IN A 10.0.0.1 mx2.domain.com. IN A 10.0.0.2 mx3.domain.com. IN A 10.0.0.3 and: domain.com. MX 10 mx.domain.com. ;... mx.domain.com. IN A 10.0.0.1 mx.domain.com. IN A 10.0.0.2 mx.domain.com. IN A 10.0.0.3 >From RFC 974: "...Note that multiple MXs may have the same preference value. In this case, all MXs at with a given value must be tried before any of a higher value are tried..." Is the behaviour the same with the round-robined configuration? Thanks in advance, Mike _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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DNS Zone Serial Numbers
by James R. Cutler 16 Sep '98

16 Sep '98

As long as one is interested in DNS zone SOA record serial numbers, it is convenient to use the following script to simplify the user interface and view. Of course, this assumes an operating system with a shell. I would love a translation to perl so I could run it on my MacOS machine. :) JimC <cut to here> #!/bin/sh if test "$1" = "" then echo usage: $0 domain exit 1 fi DOMAIN=$1 # # Use nslookup to discover the nameservers for this domain ($1). # Use awk to grab the name server names from the nameserver lines. # (The names are always in the last field). Use sort -u to weed out # duplicates; we don't actually care about collation. # SERVERS=`nslookup -type=ns $DOMAIN |\ awk '/nameserver/ {print $NF}' | sort -u` if test "$SERVERS" = "" then # # Didn't find any servers. Just quit silently; nslookup will # have detected this error and printed a message. That will # suffice. # exit 1 fi # # Check each server's SOA serial number. The output from # nslookup is saved in two tmp files: nso.$$ (standard output) # and nse.$$ (standard error). These files are rewritten on # every iteration. Turn off defname and search since we # should be dealing with fully qualified names. # # NOTE: this loop is rather long; don't be fooled. # for i in $SERVERS do nslookup >/tmp/nso.$$ 2>/tmp/nse.$$ <<-EOF server $i set nosearch set nodefname set norecurse set q=soa $DOMAIN EOF # # Does this response indicate that the current server ($i) is # authoritative? The server is NOT authoritative if (a) the # response says so, or (b) the response tells you to find # authoritative info elsewhere. # if egrep "Non-authoritative|Authoritative answers can be" \ /tmp/nso.$$ >/dev/null then echo $i is not authoritative for $DOMAIN continue fi # # We know the server is authoritative; extract the serial number. # SERIAL=`cat /tmp/nso.$$ | grep serial | sed -e "s/.*= //"` if test "$SERIAL" = "" then # # We get here if SERIAL is null. In this case, there should # be an error message from nslookup; so cat the "standard # error" file. # cat /tmp/nse.$$ else # # Report the server's name and its serial number. # echo $i has serial number $SERIAL fi done # end of the "for" loop # # Delete the temporary files. # rm -f /tmp/nso.$$ /tmp/nse.$$ - James R. Cutler EDS , 800 Tower Drive, Troy, MI 48098 Phone: +1 248 265 7514 FAX: +1 248 265 7514 EDS Internal Web: <http://www.iscg.eds.com/cutler/> World Wide Web: <http://www.ltu.edu/midecus/dechtm/cutler/cutler.htm>

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