A DNS Database Referral Mechanism

Quoting from Carol Orange's message:
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Below is a proposal put together by Wilfried Woeber and myself to 
> address the need for a referral mechanism for domain name queries in
> the RIPE database. 
> 
> The mechanism is designed to address the immediate needs of those
> trying to get domain related information, and of DNS administrators
> trying to provide it. Certainly the mechanism may be adapted with time
> (see the three options below), however we choose to start with
> something that can provide the required functionality immediately.
> 
> We hope to discuss this proposal on the mailing lists and in the 
> database and dns working group meetings in Dublin.
> 
> Carol Orange
> RIPE NCC

Hi Carol,

would it be possible to implement the suggestion made by Robert Martin-Legene ?
It is more flexible...

Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 17:16:09 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Robert Martin-Legene <robert at DK.net>

> Forward
> -------
> If the TLD object contains a whois referral, we can=20
>=20
> a) query the server, and pass the response to the requester, preceded
> by a comment of the form: "The following data has been obtained from=20
> domain-registry.nl".
> b) pass the referral to the requester
> c) send the query to the server with the address of the requester

I like the a) as well, but it shouldn't be a problem doing all three and
let it be up the the owner of the object. Then the refer attrib could be

refer: <forward-type> <whois-server-type> <host> [<port>]

I guess the whois-server-type isn't needed on forward-type b, but it look=
s
good for consistency... (it's up to the client to use it then)

-- Robert Martin-Leg=E8ne (RM59), Network Manager (AS2109)