Announcing whois++ server

Rickard Schoultz <schoultz@admin.kth.se> Fri, 30 July 1993 15:45 UTC

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To: ietf-wnils@aggie.ucdavis.edu
Subject: Announcing whois++ server
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 16:52:17 +0200
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From: Rickard Schoultz <schoultz@admin.kth.se>

I have written a whois++ server based on the document that was
released just before the Amsterdam ietf.

I wanted something to test centroids on, but realized that I had
to implement the whole thing if it would be useful for that
purpose. 

During the hack I stumbled on a couple of questions on things in
the document.  They are out of context in this announcement, so
I'll come back to them later.  I have made some quick assumptions
about responses that are not covered by the document. 


Blurb

Currently I have implemented 
- required system commands
  (commands,constraints,describe,help,list,show,polled-by,polled-for,
   version, ":hold")
- most search methods
   generalterm (see below), shortterm, combinedterm.
   (specificterm not implented).
- required search contraints 
   (maxhits,format)
- required response formats.
   (full,abridged,handle,summary)


About the implementation.

The server is written in perl using ndbm to hold databases of
pointers.  I don't consider these as a good pair of tools to
build stable, scaleable services (particularly not ndbm), but
they will help the job of testing the protocol.  There are some
known bugs.

Example queries that works:

  help	:hold
  schoultz
  !risc01
  anders;university
  schoultz, maxhits=1
  schoultz,format=full
  university;template=user,maxhits=5,format=handle
  kth, maxhits=15, format=abridged
  value=sweden,format=abridged

The server is accessible on the whois port (43) on othello.admin.kth.se
Please try it and please abuse it. Comments are welcome!

-Rickard

--
Rickard Schoultz			schoultz@admin.kth.se
SUNET/KTH				+46-8-790 90 88   (voice)
S-100 44 Stockholm (SWEDEN)	    	+46-8-10 25 10    (fax)