RE: Contact handles disappearing mysteriously from the whois database!
Seeing as how my main technical contact was completly missing from Internic I called them. I was told by their helpdesk that Whois is being updated and will be unreliable and/or useless until sometime next week after May 1. I was told that their database is fine and that all the information is there and I should just trust them that all would be okay. They did not have an answer as to why they did not announce this before hand or gave warning as to the length of the outage. Also I must note that I had to go to bigyellow.com to find their phone number as they seemed to have removed it completely from their new website and the "about" portion of their site is forwarded to a black hole. just my .02 and frustration. Derrick Bennett
At 02:03 PM 4/26/99 -0700, you wrote:
Seeing as how my main technical contact was completly missing from Internic I called them. I was told by their helpdesk that Whois is being updated and will be unreliable and/or useless until sometime next week after May 1.
I've seen domains that show NO contact information at all in the past day or so.
I was told that their database is fine and that all the information is there and I should just trust them that all would be okay.
Oh... That's what I'm going to do. Just trust NSI. The people who sold the .com database to the spammers. Sorry. Not gonna happen.
They did not have an answer as to why they did not announce this before hand or gave warning as to the length of the outage.
I have a theory: 1) mailboxes filling and phones ringing off the hook about contact info vanishing. 2) Contact M$/Clinton spin doctors. They seem to know how to get out of these kind of messes. 3) Go with outright lie about "upgrading" the database. 4) Ignore any questions regarding REQUIRED notifications that did not happen. In other words, when you look up SNAFU in the dictionary, it says: See: Network Solutions
Also I must note that I had to go to bigyellow.com to find their phone number as they seemed to have removed it completely from their new website and the "about" portion of their site is forwarded to a black hole.
I noted this as well. Then again, it might be part of their stress management program for their telephone operators -- It is rumored that they are leaving in mass to go be air traffic controllers citing "less stress" as their reason for the career move. ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------ ML.ORG is gone. Check out http://www.EZ-IP.Net - It's *FREE* ------------------------------------------------------------------ Get your *FREE* Parked Domain account at http://www.EZ-Hosting.Com ------------------------------------------------------------------ John Fraizer | __ _ | The System Administrator | / / (_)__ __ ____ __ | The choice mailto:John.Fraizer@EnterZone.Net | / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / | of a GNU http://www.EnterZone.Net/ | /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ | Generation PGP Key fingerprint = 7DB6 1CA2 DAA6 43DA 3AAF 44CD 258C 3D7E B425 81A8
Actually they kind of did it a round about way. I noticed they have turned to the TV news media to explain some of their problems and they kind of hinted at they were having technical difficulties but that these problems would be resolved shortly. -henry Derrick Bennett wrote:
Seeing as how my main technical contact was completly missing from Internic I called them. I was told by their helpdesk that Whois is being updated and will be unreliable and/or useless until sometime next week after May 1. I was told that their database is fine and that all the information is there and I should just trust them that all would be okay. They did not have an answer as to why they did not announce this before hand or gave warning as to the length of the outage. Also I must note that I had to go to bigyellow.com to find their phone number as they seemed to have removed it completely from their new website and the "about" portion of their site is forwarded to a black hole.
just my .02 and frustration.
Derrick Bennett
At 04:23 PM 4/26/99 -0700, you wrote:
Actually they kind of did it a round about way. I noticed they have turned to the TV news media to explain some of their problems and they kind of hinted at they were having technical difficulties but that these problems would be resolved shortly.
-henry
And giving the information to the media vs the established channels (or even their own web site) is an acceptable alternative who WHAT reason? To NetSOL, it is acceptable because they know that the vast majority of the media are clueless and will thus take whatever is given them as scripture. To those of us who depend (for now) on NetSOL actually doing their job and earning our $35/yr per domain, it is outright unacceptable. I am not saying that NetSOL is the ONLY provider of services critical to operations who is falling down on the job but they DO own the patent on the process of screwing up and then lieing about it, getting caught and still getting away with it. (They just license it to the politicians.) ------------------------------------------------------------------ ML.ORG is gone. Check out http://www.EZ-IP.Net - It's *FREE* ------------------------------------------------------------------ Get your *FREE* Parked Domain account at http://www.EZ-Hosting.Com ------------------------------------------------------------------ John Fraizer | __ _ | The System Administrator | / / (_)__ __ ____ __ | The choice mailto:John.Fraizer@EnterZone.Net | / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / | of a GNU http://www.EnterZone.Net/ | /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ | Generation PGP Key fingerprint = 7DB6 1CA2 DAA6 43DA 3AAF 44CD 258C 3D7E B425 81A8
Actually they are like any animal as it attempts to survive in a competitive marketplace and demonstrated rather clearly they have over 300 online operators processing submissions 24/7 with over 300,000 applications a month. I not here to argue the semantics or right or wrong. I simply pointed out an observation of mine and stated it. I understand the problems and the frustrations. The problems now will multiply. soon when more people get into the game and the expense will go up with the added problems. I think for the most part people do not now realize the disruptions to come from companies that do not have the experience or i infrastructure. I wish there were any easy solution. I wish computers and networks didn't break and that software wasn't broke ware when came out the door, but then if it were a perfect world they wouldn't need us to fix the problem and yes I am being sarcastic, just because I can be. -henry John Fraizer wrote:
At 04:23 PM 4/26/99 -0700, you wrote:
Actually they kind of did it a round about way. I noticed they have turned to the TV news media to explain some of their problems and they kind of hinted at they were having technical difficulties but that these problems would be resolved shortly.
-henry
And giving the information to the media vs the established channels (or even their own web site) is an acceptable alternative who WHAT reason?
To NetSOL, it is acceptable because they know that the vast majority of the media are clueless and will thus take whatever is given them as scripture. To those of us who depend (for now) on NetSOL actually doing their job and earning our $35/yr per domain, it is outright unacceptable.
I am not saying that NetSOL is the ONLY provider of services critical to operations who is falling down on the job but they DO own the patent on the process of screwing up and then lieing about it, getting caught and still getting away with it. (They just license it to the politicians.)
------------------------------------------------------------------ ML.ORG is gone. Check out http://www.EZ-IP.Net - It's *FREE* ------------------------------------------------------------------ Get your *FREE* Parked Domain account at http://www.EZ-Hosting.Com ------------------------------------------------------------------ John Fraizer | __ _ | The System Administrator | / / (_)__ __ ____ __ | The choice mailto:John.Fraizer@EnterZone.Net | / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / | of a GNU http://www.EnterZone.Net/ | /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ | Generation PGP Key fingerprint = 7DB6 1CA2 DAA6 43DA 3AAF 44CD 258C 3D7E B425 81A8
On Mon, Apr 26, 1999 at 08:43:09PM -0700, Henry R. Linneweh wrote:
I think for the most part people do not now realize the disruptions to come from companies that do not have the experience or i infrastructure. I wish there were any easy solution.
The major problem is that NSI refuses to be honest about what's going on. -- Steven J. Sobol - Tech Support Guru, Abuse Desk Guy, Bill Gates Lookalike New Age Consulting Service, Inc. http://www.nacs.net/ Send personal mail to: sjsobol@nacs.net Send support issues to: support@nacs.net To complain about net abuse by a NACS customer, send mail to: abuse@nacs.net
At 11:15 AM 4/27/99 -0400, Steven J. Sobol wrote:
The major problem is that NSI refuses to be honest about what's going on.
Thank you for contacting Network Solutions.
Each contact in NSI's database is assigned one "handle" - a unique tag to differentiate him/her from all other contacts in the database. Only one handle should exist for each Individual or Role. If the contact handle is already in the database, insert it and leave the rest of the section blank. If the contact handle is inserted and additional information is also provided, only the contact handle will be used. Any additional information will be ignored.
We are pleased to help you consolidate your multiple NIC handles. In order to accomplish this task, please take the follwowing steps in the prescribed sequence.
1. Choose which one of your NIC handles will become your sole NIC handle.
2. For each domain name registration affected, submit a Domain Name Registration Agreement modification. On these Domain Name Registration Agreements, replace any occurence of the additional NIC handles with the one NIC handle you chose to be your sole NIC handle.
The Domain Name Registration Agreement is available on our Web site at www.networksolutions.com. From our home page, choose Make Changes, enter your domain name, then select the Domain Name Registration Agreement.
3. After you have received confirmation from Network Solutions that your modification request has been processed, you should delete the contact records for each additional NIC handle. Accomplish this task by submitting a Contact Form deletion to HOSTMASTER@INTERNIC.NET.
The Contact Form is also available on our Web site at www.networksolutions.com.
From our home page, choose Make Changes, then select Contact Form at the bottom of the page.
If your request to delete your NIC handle is not submitted from your e-mail address according to our database, you will be sent an e-mail message
Well, I got one from them today concerning this. You'll love this. I have included my reply to them as well: To: help@networksolutions.com Subject: Re: [NIC-990424.199e] Lost Objects Cc: Ahem, Excuse me. These are separate ROLE accounts. They have separate purposed and actually have a separate person on the other end of the email address. We use these ROLE accounts so we don't HAVE to modify any domains when/if someone leaves the company. We are a hosting company. We have a NIC handle for our NOC, and a NIC handle for our registration services department. I notice that Network Solutions, Inc has a separate NIC Handle for your accounts payable department. Accounts Payable (AP5173-ORG) ap@NETSOL.COM 703-742-0400 Wow... CERF.NET has the same scheme on their end: Administrative Contact: CERFnet Administrator (CA597-ORG) cerf-admin@CERF.NET 619-812-5000 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: CERFnet Hostmaster (CERF-HM) dns@CERF.NET 619-812-5000 Same goes for BBNPlanet: Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: BBN Network Operations Center (BNOC) ops@BBNPLANET.COM 800-632-7638 Fax- 781-262-6351 Billing Contact: AP, GTEI Domain (GDA35) domain-bill@GTEI.NET 800-632-7638 (FAX) 617-873-6012 OOPS! It looks like C&W are in the same boat I am: Cable & Wireless, Inc. (CW3-DOM) 1919 Gallows Road Vienna, VA 22182 Domain Name: CW.NET Record last updated on 18-Mar-99. Record created on 13-May-95. Database last updated on 26-Apr-99 10:40:23 EDT. Domain servers in listed order: NS.CW.NET 204.70.128.1 NS2.CW.NET 204.70.57.242 NS3.CW.NET 204.70.25.234 NS4.CW.NET 204.70.49.234 Look Ma! No Contact handles! At 12:19 PM 4/27/99 -0400, you wrote: providing
you with your tracking number, and giving you instructions for completing and submitting a faxed authorization letter.
Best Regards, Alix J Network Solutions Registration Services
World Wide Web: http://www.networksolutions.com E-mail: hostmaster@internic.net Tax ID #: 52-1146119 cc 03/08/99 ==========================================================================
Hello,
My name is John Fraizer. I recently noticed the disappearance of two of our objects in the whois database.
The objects are NOC99-ORG and NOC179-ORG.
The objects SHOULD be as follows:
Network Operations Center (NOC179-ORG) noc@ENTERZONE.NET EnterZone.Net 6227 Headley Road Gahanna, OH 43230 US
+1 614 316-2708
Record last updated on 24-Mar-99. Database last updated on 26-Mar-99 17:24:34 EST.
----------------
Registration Services Account (NOC99-ORG) hostmaster@ENTERZONE.NET EnterZone.Net 6227 Headley Road Gahanna, OH 43230 US
+1 614 316 2708
Record last updated on 24-Mar-99. Database last updated on 26-Mar-99 17:24:34 EST.
Both objects still exist in the ARIN whois database and have obviously been deleted (by acident?) from the InterNIC whois database.
Note: The address information has not yet been updated in the ARIN database.
Registration Services Account (NOC99-ORG-ARIN) hostmaster@ENTERZONE.NET EnterZone.Net 604 East Rich Street Suite 1100 Columbus, OH 43215 US (614) 463-1220
Record last updated on 13-Sep-97. Database last updated on 23-Apr-99 16:13:50 EDT.
Network Operations Center (NOC179-ORG-ARIN) noc@ENTERZONE.NET EnterZone.Net 604 East Rich Street Suite 1100 Columbus, OH 43215 US (614) 463-1220
Record last updated on 16-Sep-97. Database last updated on 23-Apr-99 16:13:50 EDT.
Please give this issue your immediate attention as we have orphan records without these contacts.
John Fraizer President EnterZone, Inc john.fraizer@EnterZone.Net
------------------------------------------------------------------ ML.ORG is gone. Check out http://www.EZ-IP.Net - It's *FREE* ------------------------------------------------------------------ Get your *FREE* Parked Domain account at http://www.EZ-Hosting.Com ------------------------------------------------------------------ John Fraizer | __ _ | The System Administrator | / / (_)__ __ ____ __ | The choice mailto:John.Fraizer@EnterZone.Net | / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / | of a GNU http://www.EnterZone.Net/ | /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ | Generation PGP Key fingerprint = 7DB6 1CA2 DAA6 43DA 3AAF 44CD 258C 3D7E B425 81A8
At 04:05 PM 4/27/99 -0400, John Fraizer wrote:
At 11:15 AM 4/27/99 -0400, Steven J. Sobol wrote:
The major problem is that NSI refuses to be honest about what's going on.
Well, I got one from them today concerning this. You'll love this. I have included my reply to them as well:
As pointed out on the DNS lists, it seems that NSI has a real problem with the customer services people not knowing what they're doing and needs some serious training. Perhaps that training should include basic reading skills. "Small minds can only contemplate small ideas".....Unknown Dean Robb Owner, PC-EASY (757) 495-EASY [3279] On-site computer repair, upgrades and consultations Read my game reviews/columns in SimOps on WWW.TheGamers.Net
NANOG Members, Where can I find additional information about a decent DNS mailing list? On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, Dean Robb wrote: :As pointed out on the DNS lists, it seems that NSI has a real problem :with the customer services people not knowing what they're doing and :needs some serious training. Perhaps that training should include basic :reading skills. --- __o William R. Lorenz <wrl@nacs.net> --- _-\<,_ New Age Consulting Service, Inc. [http://www.nacs.net] --- (_)/ (_) Proud of Cleveland - [http://www.cleveland.com]
Two things have occured over the past week that have lead to changes in whois. First, there is a bug in the whois generation code that generates the indexes that whois uses. The information is still correct in the database that whois is generated from. The fix is in QA now and should be in operations shortly. Second, in the advent of the registry coming operational to other testbed registrars, we cleaned up a number of hosts that where orphaned (parent domain of the nameserver did not exist). Thus, if you had an orphaned host listed as a nameserver, it has been removed as a nameserver to the domain. Regards, Mark On Mon, Apr 26, 1999 at 02:03:09PM -0700, Derrick Bennett wrote:
Seeing as how my main technical contact was completly missing from Internic I called them. I was told by their helpdesk that Whois is being updated and will be unreliable and/or useless until sometime next week after May 1. I was told that their database is fine and that all the information is there and I should just trust them that all would be okay. They did not have an answer as to why they did not announce this before hand or gave warning as to the length of the outage. Also I must note that I had to go to bigyellow.com to find their phone number as they seemed to have removed it completely from their new website and the "about" portion of their site is forwarded to a black hole.
just my .02 and frustration.
Derrick Bennett
-- Mark Kosters markk@internic.net InterNIC Registration Services PGP Key fingerprint = 1A 2A 92 F8 8E D3 47 F9 15 65 80 87 68 13 F6 48
On Tue, Apr 27, 1999 at 02:55:24PM -0400, Mark Kosters wrote:
Two things have occured over the past week that have lead to changes in whois.
My ghod; they _are_ alive! You know, I didn't see those things mentioned on RS-ANNOUNCE... Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Buy copies of The New Hackers Dictionary. The Suncoast Freenet Give them to all your friends. Tampa Bay, Florida http://www.ccil.org/jargon/ +1 813 790 7592
Hi Jay! rs-announce@merit.edu is for route server-related news.... -abha ;) On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
On Tue, Apr 27, 1999 at 02:55:24PM -0400, Mark Kosters wrote:
Two things have occured over the past week that have lead to changes in whois.
My ghod; they _are_ alive!
You know, I didn't see those things mentioned on RS-ANNOUNCE...
Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Buy copies of The New Hackers Dictionary. The Suncoast Freenet Give them to all your friends. Tampa Bay, Florida http://www.ccil.org/jargon/ +1 813 790 7592
__________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- abha ahuja ahuja@merit.edu Merit Network, Inc. 734.764.0294
On Tue, Apr 27, 1999 at 03:48:43PM -0400, Abha Ahuja wrote:
rs-announce@merit.edu is for route server-related news....
No, I meant the RS-announce list at Internic, for registry services announcements... Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Buy copies of The New Hackers Dictionary. The Suncoast Freenet Give them to all your friends. Tampa Bay, Florida http://www.ccil.org/jargon/ +1 813 790 7592
First, there is a bug in the whois generation code that generates the indexes that whois uses. The information is still correct in the database that whois is generated from. The fix is in QA now and should be in operations shortly.
you have the gall to spend time ensuring that it will work before deploying it? while all of us out here who paid $35 are waiting for the absolutely mission critical whois service without which our lives can not continue! what nerve! we all look forward to the new day when all the brilliant nanog posters who know how to do the job oh so much better will deploy fixes immediately without testing. then again, they won't have to, because they won't have any bugs. and pigs fly. randy
On Tue, Apr 27, 1999 at 01:38:53PM -0700, Randy Bush wrote:
From: Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> To: Mark Kosters <markk@internic.net> Subject: Re: Contact handles disappearing mysteriously from the whois database!
you have the gall to spend time ensuring that it will work before deploying it? while all of us out here who paid $35 are waiting for the absolutely mission critical whois service without which our lives can not continue! what nerve!
Randy: Thanks for helping to verify my theory that your posts to nanog consist mainly of personal attacks and innuendos, with relatively little content compared to most of the other regular posters. It seems to me that a number of people have already said that their major problem is not the changes, per se, but the lack of any kind of announcements of said changes. I'm one of those people. The few mails I've seen from NetSol have been more promotional than operational in nature. But, please don't let the facts get in the way of the wonderful prose you contribute to NANOG on a regular basis.
... because they won't have any bugs.
This is about as likely as us seeing a post where you *don't* tell the entire readership of NANOG how ignorant we are. Mark: I speak only for myself here, but as far as I'm concerned, you're not part of the problem. The problem is at the top. NetSol has no accountability, and refuses to let customers know about upgrades and potential outages. The company's entire philosophy of customer service is apparently "Customer? Screw the customer, we'll do whatever we feel like doing." Feel free to pass that on. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I have a hunch that that will not happen. -- Steven J. Sobol - Tech Support Guru, Abuse Desk Guy, Bill Gates Lookalike New Age Consulting Service, Inc. http://www.nacs.net/ Send personal mail to: sjsobol@nacs.net Send support issues to: support@nacs.net To complain about net abuse by a NACS customer, send mail to: abuse@nacs.net
Steve Sobol wrote:
Thanks for helping to verify my theory that your posts to nanog consist mainly of personal attacks and innuendos, with relatively little content compared to most of the other regular posters.
Let me get this right. The '0' in nan0g stands for? -- Alex Bligh GX Networks (formerly Xara Networks)
you have the gall to spend time ensuring that it will work before deploying it? while all of us out here who paid $35 are waiting for the absolutely mission critical whois service without which our lives can not continue! what nerve! Thanks for helping to verify my theory that your posts to nanog consist mainly of personal attacks and innuendos, with relatively little content compared to most of the other regular posters.
hypocrisy alert! bye steve <plonk>
On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Randy Bush wrote:
First, there is a bug in the whois generation code that generates the indexes that whois uses. The information is still correct in the database that whois is generated from. The fix is in QA now and should be in operations shortly.
you have the gall to spend time ensuring that it will work before deploying it? while all of us out here who paid $35 are waiting for the absolutely mission critical whois service without which our lives can not continue! what nerve!
I find it rather curious that QA procedures were not in place to prevent the bug from happening in the first place. I also find it curious that there are no rollback procedures in place to recover quickly from a bug in generating whois data. For example, most network operators store their router configs in a revision control system and can quickly rollback to a previous config when changes go awry. -- Michael Dillon - E-mail: michael@memra.com Check the website for my Internet World articles - http://www.memra.com
michael, you forgot the mandatory ad hominem attack on me falsely claiming that i had made a personal attack. where is your contribution to nanog hypocrisy? sheesh! :-)
I find it rather curious that QA procedures were not in place to prevent the bug from happening in the first place.
to paraphrase dijkstra because i am too lazy to look up the reference, testing can demonstrate the presence of bugs, it can not demonstrate their absence. i.e. if they could do what you suggest, there would be very few new bugs in the world. this would be a truly great advance.
I also find it curious that there are no rollback procedures in place to recover quickly from a bug in generating whois data.
good point. a possible explanation is that they changed the back end, and hence the front end. while one might roll back the front end, the back end could be much more difficult as o new updates had flowed in, i.e. can't just roll back, need to convert the data back, and o when people write database conversion code, they tend to think of it as one way, and do not double the cost by writing un-conversion code. in private email, an acquaintance suggested that extensive alpha and beta testing might have caught it. with a product such as whois this might be hard. i.e. alpha/beta tests are usually done by shipping product to a select few. how would one do this with whois? with registration services? etc.? not saying one could not, just that this is far from trivial or obvious. as i have said before, i would not want nsi's job. randy, who spent 20+ years in software development
At 16:44 -0700 4/27/99, Randy Bush wrote:
michael, you forgot the mandatory ad hominem attack on me falsely claiming ^ % Invalid input detected at '^' marker. that i had made a personal attack. where is your contribution to nanog ^ % Invalid input detected at '^' marker. hypocrisy? sheesh! :-) ^ % Invalid input detected at '^' marker.
Hmmm. This could be a problem in 11.3(2)XA3. I've opened a case with the TAC. Jim Browne jbrowne@jbrowne.com "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." -- VP Al Gore trying to top Quayle's "potatoe" gaffe
On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Randy Bush wrote:
michael, you forgot the mandatory ad hominem attack on me falsely claiming that i had made a personal attack. where is your contribution to nanog hypocrisy? sheesh! :-)
Damn! You're right. You arrogant fool! How dare you preach to us gods when we all know you come from the same state as Bill Gates, the evuil Satan.
to paraphrase dijkstra because i am too lazy to look up the reference, testing can demonstrate the presence of bugs, it can not demonstrate their absence.
Right again. However, the frequency with which there has been corruption of whois data over the years makes it seem as though there is no QA in place. Either that or the tools they use to do the job are the most bizarre Rube Goldberg lashup you've ever seen. I tend to suspect a little of both.
I also find it curious that there are no rollback procedures in place to recover quickly from a bug in generating whois data.
good point. a possible explanation is that they changed the back end, and hence the front end. while one might roll back the front end, the back end could be much more difficult as o new updates had flowed in, i.e. can't just roll back, need to convert the data back, and o when people write database conversion code, they tend to think of it as one way, and do not double the cost by writing un-conversion code.
I have done database conversions many times in my carreer and while I have always written the code to do a one way conversion I have also always made provision for rolling back the database to a prior state even when that meant logging transactions so they could be reapplied after a rollback. Most of the clients I have done database work for rely on their databases for the mission critical infrastructure of their business and cannot accept failures like this. Where there is a will there is a way to prevent buggy conversions from corrupting your database.
as i have said before, i would not want nsi's job. randy, who spent 20+ years in software development
If only they had a few people like you and I on staff, we would not be discussing this now. -- Michael Dillon - E-mail: michael@memra.com Check the website for my Internet World articles - http://www.memra.com
If only they had a few people like you and I on staff, we would not be discussing this now.
dunno 'bout you, but i helped deliver my share of bugs to customers in my years. that's life in the big city. what drives me up the wall is developers who deny problems, "just tell the customer not to code that way," instead of just fixing them. as an industry we still undervalue qa folk, just look at their pay. but the rate of and nature of some of the problems we see in the net infrastrucure today do make one wonder about a lack of rigor or a failure to transfer the lessons from some years of software engineering. as our society relies more and more on the net (no accounting for taste), formal methods and the like become more crucial. whether they do remains to be seen. then again, in about '88, when asked why he, hoare, parnas, et al. were no longer beating the software methodology/engineering drums, klaus wirth replied "no one was listening." but, to keep this somewhat operational, would any large registrants be actually willing to use test.whois.internic.net and test.internec.net or whatever they would be called? i.e. is there anyone with significant data willing to be test victims? i doubt i could make a case for it in my company. what's the perceived gain i could use to sell it? randy
At 05:00 PM 4/27/99 -0700, Michael Dillon wrote:
I have done database conversions many times in my carreer and while I have always written the code to do a one way conversion I have also always made provision for rolling back the database to a prior state even when that meant logging transactions so they could be reapplied after a rollback. Most of the clients I have done database work for rely on their databases for the mission critical infrastructure of their business and cannot accept failures like this. Where there is a will there is a way to prevent buggy conversions from corrupting your database.
Maybe I'm missing something...and I'm NOT a software engineer...but what's wrong with simply backing up your current system before making changes? It *should* be getting backed up anyway, but is there some reason that you/NSI can't back up the database and the DB software and simply restore it if your changes don't work right? "Let there be light!"...and God invented Thomas Edison. Dean Robb Owner, PC-EASY (757) 495-EASY [3279] On-site computer repair, upgrades and consultations Lead SimOps columnist/reviewer on http://WWW.TheGamers.Net
At 08:46 PM 4/28/99 -0400, Dean Robb wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something...and I'm NOT a software engineer...but what's wrong with simply backing up your current system before making changes? It *should* be getting backed up anyway, but is there some reason that you/NSI can't back up the database and the DB software and simply restore it if your changes don't work right?
They were watching Sneakers on DVD on the backup server. You don't expect them to interrupt the movie for something as mundane as a backup do you? ------------------------------------------------------------------ ML.ORG is gone. Check out http://www.EZ-IP.Net - It's *FREE* ------------------------------------------------------------------ Get your *FREE* Parked Domain account at http://www.EZ-Hosting.Com ------------------------------------------------------------------ John Fraizer | __ _ | The System Administrator | / / (_)__ __ ____ __ | The choice mailto:John.Fraizer@EnterZone.Net | / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / | of a GNU http://www.EnterZone.Net/ | /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ | Generation PGP Key fingerprint = 7DB6 1CA2 DAA6 43DA 3AAF 44CD 258C 3D7E B425 81A8
At 04:44 PM 4/27/99 -0700, Randy Bush wrote:
I find it rather curious that QA procedures were not in place to prevent the bug from happening in the first place.
to paraphrase dijkstra because i am too lazy to look up the reference, testing can demonstrate the presence of bugs, it can not demonstrate their absence. i.e. if they could do what you suggest, there would be very few new bugs in the world. this would be a truly great advance.
So what's the problem in *testing* your software before putting in general release? Running the "upgraded" software on a testbed machine before putting it on-line? Dropping contact information is kinda noticable...it's not like this is some obscure, only-happens-on-wierd-configurations, blue-moon bug; this is pretty obvious. Hell, even *I* test a new part in a computer before closing the case and pronouncing it fit for use...you'd think NSI could do the same. It's basic common sense, after all.
I also find it curious that there are no rollback procedures in place to recover quickly from a bug in generating whois data.
good point. a possible explanation is that they changed the back end, and hence the front end. while one might roll back the front end, the back end could be much more difficult as o new updates had flowed in, i.e. can't just roll back, need to convert the data back, and o when people write database conversion code, they tend to think of it as one way, and do not double the cost by writing un-conversion code.
Or maybe testing their code? Or would that have been more expensive than writing a patch?
in private email, an acquaintance suggested that extensive alpha and beta testing might have caught it. with a product such as whois this might be hard. i.e. alpha/beta tests are usually done by shipping product to a select few. how would one do this with whois? with registration services? etc.? not saying one could not, just that this is far from trivial or obvious.
Hmmm...how about using a partial database to test the revision before deploying it? Say, just a random sampling to make sure everything works the way it should before you step on your privates in front of a few million people. That's certainly what I would have done! It's pretty obvious and yes, even trivial...one machine (or two, if you want to verify network performance).
randy, who spent 20+ years in software development
And never learned to test before deployment? I learned that in high school BASIC classes.... "Let there be light!"...and God invented Thomas Edison. Dean Robb Owner, PC-EASY (757) 495-EASY [3279] On-site computer repair, upgrades and consultations Lead SimOps columnist/reviewer on http://WWW.TheGamers.Net
At 01:38 PM 4/27/99 -0700, you wrote:
First, there is a bug in the whois generation code that generates the indexes that whois uses. The information is still correct in the database that whois is generated from. The fix is in QA now and should be in operations shortly.
you have the gall to spend time ensuring that it will work before deploying it? while all of us out here who paid $35 are waiting for the absolutely mission critical whois service without which our lives can not continue! what nerve!
we all look forward to the new day when all the brilliant nanog posters who know how to do the job oh so much better will deploy fixes immediately without testing. then again, they won't have to, because they won't have any bugs.
Would it be productive at all to point out that NSI did, in fact, deploy buggy WhoIs software without testing in the first place...which is why they are now testing a fix? Naw, probably not. Some people refuse to believe the wall exists until they run into it, and then they have doubts. "Small minds can only contemplate small ideas".....Unknown Dean Robb Owner, PC-EASY (757) 495-EASY [3279] On-site computer repair, upgrades and consultations Read my game reviews/columns in SimOps on WWW.TheGamers.Net
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