> so.... getting back to opensrs, a "profile" is some ID field in the
> domain's database record. how does this profileID tie the domains
> together? is it in any particularly useful way beyond allowing me
> to switch between domains conveniently in the manage interface?
>
You can think of profile as defining ownership on group of domains. All domains in
profile belong to the same person, and therefore are primarily related to manage
interface. Relationship is 1:n, you can own several domains (technically it's actually
m:n relation taking into account subusers of domain, but I won't go into that any
further).
>
> if i change street address, do profiles enable me to mass update? or
> is that something that i need to code myself in perl?
>
Contacts are really separated from profiles. Contacts could be shared across domains
that belong to the same profile. This is the case when you are doing bulk
registration. First time you access one of this domains, and you update one of the
contacts, you're getting your unique contact handle for that domain.
As answer to your question, yes you can do mass update if you click appropriate flags.
Since one domain could have up to 4 contacts, and one contact could be shared inside
of profile, relationship is n:m.
>
> should i just download the OpenXRS code and figure out the answers
> to these questions myself? :-)
>
You won't find anything relevant there, registry itself couldn't care less about
contacts - that is registrar responsibility. This is NSI and their
RegistrarRegistryProtocol (RRP) heritage.
>
> finally, is there a logical explanation for why opensrs doesn't have
> contact handles?
>
> thanks :)
Not sure what exactly are you referring here. Technically speaking, we do have contact
handles, but they are not exposed. You can manipulate them only through our
interfaces. If you think of .ca, .tv contact handles, these are new registries that
choose to store contact information. OpenSRS has grown up from NSI oriented registrar.
Our database schema still can handle presenting/keeping info for both contactless
(.com,.net,.org,.cc,.vc) and contact-aware registries (.ca,.tv.,.info...)
Regards,
Zeljko Dimic
OpenSRS Developer
Disclaimer: These opinions are only mine, blah, blah, ....
