It's been awhile since I messed with this, but I seem to remember something that worked like this. After you submit the template, you should get back a receipt with the NIC tracking number in the subject line. To get status, you finger #######@rs.internic.net , or maybe it was ops.internic.net. The result should be easy to parse cuz it's always in the same format. The down side is that you often don't get the receipt in time and that you're using the Internic's database key instead of your own. Have fun, --Ben Kirkpatrick On Wed, 27 May 1998, Edward S. Marshall wrote: )- Why isn't there a simple connection-oriented protocol in place for ) communicating this stuff instead of using email and templates? I asked ) this question around last August of Network Solutions, and they said ) "Real Soon Now". Hasn't happened yet. I've given up hope on it. ) )- Why can't they tag their email in a machine-readable manner? Tacking on ) a single -reliable- header (X-InterNIC-Data: or some such) which ) contains machine-parsable information about the message would be a ) godsend for people trying to build tracking schemes like this.