lionel@mamane.lu (Lionel Elie Mamane) wrote:
A nonprofit firm in Frankfurt, Denic eG, which manages Germany's eight million registered .de domain names, has also indicated that it is planning to bid.
For what it is worth, some consider the .de whois server broken; see below. Let's note that the new RFC (3912) doesn't mention the "help methodology" anymore.
And some call this not broken but necessary. I can explain off-list, if you like.
The .DE whois server is broken. I should be able to telnet to the WHOIS server on the whois port, send it a domain, and get results.
You are getting results.
$ telnet whois.denic.de whois Trying 81.91.162.7... Connected to whois.denic.de. Escape character is '^]'. denic.de domain: denic.de status: connect
Connection closed by foreign host.
Further, these options are not documented anywhere, because the usual "help" methodology, as documented by the RFC, doesn't work:
http://www.denic.de/en/domains/technik/denic_whois-server/index.html (Easily found by searching for "whois", first hit - yes, I know, it's ugly, but you're still not telling the truth which is my point here)
$ telnet whois.denic.de whois Trying 81.91.162.7... Connected to whois.denic.de. Escape character is '^]'. ? domain: ? status: invalid
Which is defined in what RfC? If it is, I will gladly tell the folks to implement it. Anyway, I see your point in that server being somewhat problematic if you need more than "free/used"; yet the information is there, and someone who really needs more info has no hard time finding the docs. Yours, Elmar. -- "Begehe nur nicht den Fehler, Meinung durch Sachverstand zu substituieren." (PLemken, <bu6o7e$e6v0p$2@ID-31.news.uni-berlin.de>) --------------------------------------------------------------[ ELMI-RIPE ]---