On Tue, Mar 25, 2003 at 12:24:12AM -0600, Bill Weinman wrote: > > At 11:17 PM 3/24/03, you wrote: > > > Personally, I think the whois servers should just stop giving IP addresses > > > at all, they are so often wrong. > >For registrar whois servers, I'd agree, but for registry servers that > >are *supposed* to be kept up to date, I'd posit that unreliability of a > >data source is an indication of a problem to be fixed. > > Okay, in theory I see your point; but in practice, . . .
Uh huh. What's the difference between theory and practice? In theory, there's no difference. ;) > Applications will always get their IP addresses from DNS, so where is the > value in maintaining two data sets on two different protocols for same > data? DNS is not always available. In particular, if the parent domain of a host record expires, the host record glue is removed from the root DNS servers. In that case, WHOIS is the only source of the data. >Any process that queries whois already has a DNS resolver (or it > wouldn't be able to find the whois server in the first place), so it would > be trivial to query the root nameservers for an IP address anyway. > > Removing IP addresses from the whois data would reduce the propensity for > error (which *is* a problem today), reduce the overhead for the registries > (also a problem today) and reduce confusion for those who think the IP > addresses in whois records are authoritative (they are not); all with no > loss of data and no loss of access to data. These are not my problem. I'm not aware of ever having been affected by errors due to misunderstanding of how this stuff works, and for overhead issues, I apply the band-aid of paying perhaps-higher-than-necessary prices to my registrar. If my registrar wants to improve their product or reduce their prices by encouraging their supplier to streamline things, that's fine, but I hope it will not be at the expense of an existing source of data which is not 100% duplicated elsewhere. I admit, this data isn't something that's used every day, but when we do need this data, it's *really* useful. I only recall two occasions in the last year where I used WHOIS records to track down IP addresses. In one case, the previous provider had "forgotten" to renew their own domain and I got four hosting customers out of their negligence. In the other case, the customer was a reseller of another provider's service, and the previous provider's support address was listed as the reseller's admin contact, hence the lack of renewal. Both cases required gathering of DNS information that was still on live servers but not available through the root servers. Why would I encourage a change whose benefit is the redcution of other people's confusion and whose expense is part of my profits? -- Paul Chvostek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Operations / Abuse / Whatever it.canada, hosting and development http://www.it.ca/
