Re: NSI Bulletin 098-010 | Update on Whois

[Leo Bicknell <bicknell () dimension net>]

> 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

        I hadn't looked at rwhois in a long time, so I went
ahead and reread some things on it.  It is close, but I believe
it is missing some key data.  For instance, I could not get
any phone numbers for any of our domains or contacts, information
readily available via whois.  Phone numbers are one of the
very useful things whois provides when you have immediate
problems with far-off networks.

        I did hack up a nice perl client to connect to
the server and return information in the exact same format
as "whois", which is kinda cool, and I also hacked up a nice
web page interface that makes everything links and all that.
Functionalty wise I think it's much better than the one
on the rwhois page.  See http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/rwhois.cgi
if you want to try it for yourself.  (NB: I seem to be
getting "connection refused" far too frequently tonight,
which for now results in a blank page...I have no idea
why right now.)

        If someone can tell me how to get phone numbers in
I'll post a URL to the script itself, so you can have your
own "whois" client that uses "rwhois".  If they are completely
unavailable I go back to stating a need to replicate the
whois data, perhaps into a "rwhois" database. :-)


-- 
Leo Bicknell - bicknell () dimension net
Network Engineer (CCIE #3440) - Dimension Enterprises
1-703-709-7500, fax, 1-703-709-7699