On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Michael Dillon wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Patrick Greenwell wrote:
Why can't the ISPs get their act together and use a whois client that allows a simple request like "whois name" to find the appropriate database?
Possibly because that would be a backwards way to approach to the issue. What you propose would require that every person running a machine that has a version of whois install this new version of whois, rather than handling it intelligently at the registry level which would require no action on the part of the hundreds of thousands of machines out there.
I believe in distributed intelligence rather than making everyone rely on a single central point of failure.
First off, the whois database *is* a single point of failure for all intents and purposes. There is no "distributed intelligence" contained within. Rwhois fits the distributed intelligence model much more closely.
If the default registry compiled into your whois client fails then you can no longer reach any registry database at all whereas an intelligent client would still be able to reach most databases.
And again, this can be handled intelligently at the registry level. It's not like none of us have ever seen a proxy server. :-) Also, all these splits have come "after the fact." How many more will occur? Should we all run out and grab a new whois client every time a change occurs? And really, why should this be necessary?
There is also the problem that the default registry in most whois clients is the Internic run by NSI and the management of that company has shown themselves time and time again to be utterly clueless about these kinds of issues.
Well, there is one thing I won't argue about. I could however tell you about my experience with ARIN a little over a month ago and how it took being transferred 5 times before I got to someone that knew what I was talking about when I said "arin.net is not resolving" but I'll spare you.
I don't hold out much hope that pleading on hands and knees with the royal Internic will lead to them implementing a whois proxy service.
I don't think that it will be up to NSI in a few months. The point I believe the original poster was making, and one that I agree with is that it is quite possible to make all these internal issues and changes transparent to the end user by some simple coordination by the various number registries. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Patrick Greenwell (800) 299-1288 v Systems Administrator (925) 377-1414 f NameSecure \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/