-----Original Message----- From: Leo Bicknell <bicknell@dimension.net> Newsgroups: maillist.nanog To: nanog@merit.edu <nanog@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@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@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@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+@---<IPv8>---C+@---(Java)VPC http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/unir.txt http://www.ddj.com/index/author/idx10133.htm