FYI: new 2.00 whois server runs now on port 4444

Dear all,

The new 2.0 whois server runs now on port 4444.
People might want to give it a try before we put it in production.

New features:                                         

 - twice the speed for any classless lookups
 
 - the lookup algoritm is changed such that:
   Matyas Matyas can finally be found and also
   Daniel David hasn't problems anymore with finding himself in the database
   
 - unlimited number of matches allowed                  
   you can now find all davids in the RIPE database
   
As always: please send bug reports directly to me and I will fix the problem.

The service will be a little bit less reliable then our standard whois
server since I am still working on the code. In general: I will try to
keep the new server only 5 seconds behind the normal server between
9:00-19:00 local time.

We will put the server in production when I have finished the code for
the role object and auto NIC handle generation. I plan to finish that in
about a week time.

Kind regards,

David K.
---

How to try this out:

Do the next command if your whois client supports choosing different
ports then the default one (or edit the RIPE perl whois source code)

$ whois -p 4444 -h whois.ripe.net Matyas Matyas


Or do:

$ telnet whois.ripe.net 4444 <return>
Trying 193.0.0.194...
Connected to dbase.ripe.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
Matyas Matyas <return>

(The new database distribution will include a whois version that supports
 the selection of the port)