>List Mail User wrote on Thu, 25 May 2006 23:02:21 -0700 (PDT):
>
>> DeNIC does not follow this protocol;
>
>1. there's nothing which backs your claim, *nothing*.
>2. "example" is an example and nothing else. You should know that. There are
>also special
>words in RFCs which clearly define mandatory things. What you claim is a wish,
>it's not
>defined by that RFC. There is nothing in that RFC that defines a *required*
>syntax other
>than terminating the one-line query. There is *nothing* in that RFC that
>*requires* a
>certain output volume or content volume, just that you get some text about the
>queried
>object back.
>
>> BTW. The many common clients use the "ISO-8859-1" character set, which only
>> works for a subset of the domains at DeNIC - so please don't count any of
>> these as "not broken" (and "US-ASCII" still doesn't work for all domains
>> either - just nearly all).
>
>What's the problem with this? Non-ISO-8859-1 text isn't text? Is that what you
>want to
>say? Think about that again.
>
>> Oh, and for clients that follow referrals to HTTP servers (which
>> many country specific NICs do provide in place of Whois servers), we have:
>
>> Simply, if it isn't plain text on port 43, it isn't a RFC compliant Whois
>> server.
>
>You are making up your own rules, again. There's nothing in the text you
>quoted that
>requires "plain text" (whatever you mean by that) and disallows referrals.
>
>Kai
>
>--
>Kai Schätzl, Berlin, Germany
>Get your web at Conactive Internet Services: http://www.conactive.com
>
Kai,
There doesn't seem to be any language barrier, so either you refuse
to read and follow the RFC trail yourself, or you require "spoon-feeding".
What about RFC1032, page 5
"
VERIFICATION OF DATA
The verification process can be accomplished in several ways. One of
these is through the NIC WHOIS server. If he has access to WHOIS,
the DA can type the commmand "whois domain <domain name><return>".
The reply from WHOIS will supply the following: the name and address
of the organization "owning" the domain; the name of the domain; its
administrative, technical, and zone contacts; the host names and
network addresses of sites providing name service for the domain.
"
(NOTE: The misspelling of "commmand" is not a typo, but exists in the
original document.)
This RFC is not obsolete, and make quite clear that indeed certain
data is required. RFC3912 greatly reduces the requirements from what was
in RFC954, but *some* means of contact remains required, as does an identity
of the registrant (any of a person, organization or agent will suffice).
Also, read again about the ISO-8859-1 and US-ASCII charset
references I made: If you do not specify these (using an undocumented
option) to DeNIC - you don't get back any data. This is the case *you*
called "outdated and broken". Let us rephrase your question and pose it
to you: If I don't declare my text to be ISO-8859-1 or US-ASCII should
I never get any of the data mandated by RFC1032?
Further reading (by you) of RFC3912 will indeed point out that its
authors did consider the case of other characters sets and do note that the
use of anything other than US-ASCII will historically cause many Whois servers
to fail; However if you give DeNIC a string in US-ASCII, but don't specify
a character set (undocumented fact), one gets nothing of value back (unless
you count "connected").
In fact the DeNIC extensions would seem to violate the protocol
for Whois by their very existance:
RFC3912 Section 4
"
4. Internationalisation
The WHOIS protocol has not been internationalised. The WHOIS
protocol has no mechanism for indicating the character set in use.
Originally, the predominant text encoding in use was US-ASCII. In
practice, some WHOIS servers, particularly those outside the USA,
might be using some other character set either for requests, replies,
or both. This inability to predict or express text encoding has
adversely impacted the interoperability (and, therefore, usefulness)
of the WHOIS protocol.
"
NOTE - "The WHOIS protocol has no mechanism for indicating the character set
in use..."; So requiring the use of an undocumented command extension to
specify a character set *IS NOT PART OF THE PROTOCOL*. It looks like any
examples you can give of not "outdated and broken" clients (your words) are
speaking something that is not "WHOIS protocol" as defined by RFC. Simply,
whether you like it or not, if a client can get data from DeNIC, they aren't
using a RFC defined method but are using an "adhoc, arbitrary hack".
So lets see - By your argument all Whois is required to do is say
if a domain exists or not? Or would you also allow the empty string as
valid? If the latter, why require anything? I think you seem to have a
"religious" issue here, unstated as yet, and simply either don't like that
you live in a country where the national registry is less than perfect or
some equally specious reason.
Referrals - HTTP is not on port 43. Throw a fit if you like, but
nothing you say will make it so.
Paul Shupak
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
