Revised Minutes - March 28 1994

[Joan Gargano <[e-mail]>]

                                                                            WNILS
                                           Whois and Network Information Lookup Service
                                                           Minutes - March 28, 1994


I.	Status of the Whois++ Internet Drafts
	Two of the papers are ready for submission as Request For Comments and 
	the recommendation of proposed standard, "Recommended Modifications 
	to the Whois Protocol," Joan Gargano and KenWeiss; and  "The 
	Distributed Whois++ model - Centroids," Chris Weider and Simon Spero.

	The Whois++ Architecture paper by Peter Deutsch has been updated by 
	Rickard Schoultz and Patrik Faltstrom.  This paper will be submitted to the 
	mailing list for review.  Upon approval, this paper will be submitted as a 
	Request For Comments and recommended as a proposed standard.

II.	Overview of the Whois++ Architecture Document
	Rickard Schoultz and Patrik Faltstrom provided an overview of the 
	revisions they made to the Whois++ architecture document based upon 
	implementation experience.  They reported they have 5 Whois++ servers 
	with centroids running in Sweden.

	Summary of proposed changes to the WHOIS++ Architecture document:
	
	*	Server now only sends either FULL or SUMMARY as default.  
		ABRIDGED is only sent on clients explicit demand.

	*	Introduced MAXFULL constraint for limit the number of matches 
		when server sends a SUMMARY

	*	Abridged no longer required to include the attribute value that caused 
		the match

	*	Support for MIME response format

	*	POINTER replaced with SERVERS-TO-ASK

	*	New BNF

	*	POLLED-BY and POLLED-FOR is required

	*	Removed search specifier ATTRIBUTE. No more 
		ATTRIBUTE=x;VALUE=y

	*	VALUE search specifier (as opposed to SEARCH-ALL) now 
		made default

	*	Section on optional commands removed. We need those commands, 
		but we have to put more work into them.  Moved that to a companion 
		paper.

	*	Only kept authentication method PASSWORD

	*	Banner messaged now required from server

	*	Timeoute constraint not changeable by client

	*	Removed all short-form of search term specifiers except '!' (handle)

	*	Described numeric response messages

	*	All search responses must include starting and ending system message.  
		Search response is made optional

	*	Language specified by two-letter ISO language code

	*	Language primary use is for fuzzy matching. System responses in other 
		languages moved to client.

	*	Added leading substring (LSTRING) as search constraint value

	*	LSTRING required, SUBSTRING now optional

	*	OUTCHARSET removed

	*	Clarification on which constraints are global/local

	*	Introduced boolean operators AND OR NOT ()

	*	Redefined DESCRIBE and HELP

	*	Cleanup and rewriting


III.	Workgroup Status
	A new organization within the IETF has been formed to deal with directory 
	service issues.  As a result, a new workgroup has been formed, Access and 
	Synchronization of the Internet Directory (ASID), to work on directory 
	service protocol issues.  It was recommended, and agreed, that the Whois 
	and Network Information Lookup Service (WNILS) workgroup should 
	come to closure and all future work should be performed within ASID.  All 
	activities related to closing down WNILS will occur via electronic mail and 
	should be complete by the next IETF meeting.

Joan Gargano
Distributed Computing Analysis and Support
Information Technology - University of California, Davis
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