Re: whois syntax

[Andrew Brown <twofsonet () graffiti com>]

> > i was arguing with my friend about whois servers.  he thought that all
> > whois servers were relatively similar in design and function, and i
> > convinced that wasn't the case.
>
> In theory they are all similar. In theory, all languages in the world are 
> similar in design and function. They enable people to communicate and 
> express ideas. Whois servers allow people to find out information about 
> domains, hosts, and netblocks. Every company seems to have a different way 
> of doing this.

in theory the protocols that flow over "well known ports" are somewhat
standardized.  it seems, instead, that the protocols are sometimes
standardized and sometimes not, with a broad array of alternatives in
between.

> > the output of all of them differs (which makes parsing the output a
> > lot of fun :).
>
> There is no standard specified in the RFC for output, just for query language.
>
> > the thing that gets me, though, is that the radb.net whois server
> > seems to have some 'extended command language' whereby one can pass
> > query after query over one tcp connection and not get dropped.  is
> > this 'language' documented anywhere, or do i just have to find and
> > read source code that uses it?
>
> As is usually the case, the RFCs are far too wordy. Basically, there are a 
> number of basic mandatory functions and a larger set of optional commands 
> which can be implemented if the developer desires. Since I have written 
> several whois and rwhois servers, I have distilled the essential functions 
> down to a one page cheat sheet I use to query and to write/modify our whois 
> servers.
>
> The command you are looking for is part of the standard features:
>
> -holdconnect on (for multiple commands, keep the connection open after 
> sending the response)
>
> -holdconnect off (to disconnect after the response is sent)

actually...it turns out that it's rpsl, and the commands you have here
aren't understood by this whois server.  you might be using those, but
they aren't.

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