RFC 1834 (rfc1834) - Page 1 of 7
Whois and Network Information Lookup Service, Whois++
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group J. Gargano
Request for Comments: 1834 K. Weiss
Category: Informational University of California, Davis
August 1995
Whois and Network Information Lookup Service
Whois++
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.
I. Introduction
As currently defined, NICNAME/WHOIS [HARR85] service is a TCP
transaction based query/response server, running on a few specific
central machines, that provides netwide directory service to Internet
users. The Network Information Center (NIC) maintains the central
NICNAME database and server, defined in RFC 954, providing online
look-up of individuals, network organizations, key host machines, and
other information of interest to users of the Internet. The
usefulness of this service has lead to the development of other
distributed directory information servers and information retrieval
tools and it is anticipated more will be created. Many sites now
maintain local directory servers with information about individuals,
departments and services at that specific site.
Typically these directory servers are network accessible. Local
development of these services has resulted in wide variations in the
type of data stored, access methods, search schemes, and user
interfaces. The purpose of the Whois and Network Information Lookup
Service Working Group (WNILS) is to expand and define the standard
for WHOIS types of services, to resolve issues associated with the
variations in access and provide a consistent and predictable service
across the network. This memo describes new features for WHOIS to
meet these goals.
II. Architecture
The WHOIS service should be provided in a client/server model. There
are no restrictions on the design of the client, provided it is
capable of passing queries to the server in the proper format, and
capturing the server's response in some useful format. Existing
WHOIS specifications call for clients to display responses in human-
readable form. This more general proposal does not impose that
Gargano & Weiss Informational