Hi David,
David Conrad writes :
Theoretically speaking:
if( $suffix eq "RIPE" ){ `whois -h whois.ripe.net $arg`; } elsif( length( $suffix ) == 2 ){ `whois -h whois.apnic.net $arg`; } else { `whois -h internic.net $arg`; }
I know, but one exception (Internic) is probably nicer ;-).
And what if you have more registries in one country ?!?
Again, theoretically, this would be an internal issue within the country. One possible solution would be to have a second level (like, oh say, the DNS), e.g., XX1-Y-TV.
OK, but this is something I don't disagree with, I say only: "name of registry should be the same name as the suffix for the nic handle" The name for the registry can easily be a DNS like name ...
Personally, I think the whole idea of handles suck. However,
But we have them right now ... It is still better then getting 100 people with the same name after a query (you know all that Davids ;-)).
I feel it is long past time for the architecture of handles to be completely redone. As an off-the-cuff proposal not having thought about this in any great detail, but stealing the general concept from your imperious leader (:-)):
You might be right here (Exercise for the reader: which part of the paragraph am I talking about ;-))
Use the DNS. Have handles.net (or somesuch) allocated and allocate subdomains for APNIC (and APNIC's assorted sub-registries, underneath APNIC's subdomain), RIPE, and InterNIC. When you have a handle (say, XX1.AP), the whois server appends .handles.net, does a DNS lookup and gets the IP address of the whois server where the record associated with the handle is stored. The rest is left as an excersize or the reader (so I can just handwave around all the obvious problems (like InterNIC's huge number of handles) :-)).
Comments?
No comments (yet). I will keep this proposal in mind. Kind regards, David Kessens