A DNS Database Referral Mechanism

Hi Blasco,

Antonio-Blasco Bonito writes:

>> would it be possible to implement the suggestion made by Robert Martin-Legen
>> e ?
>> 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)

We actually discussed this point a bit in a slightly different light. 
An important question is: should the forward type be up to the object 
maintainer, to the whois server providing the referral (in this case 
RIPE), or the whois client, or end user. 

As proposed here, it is the whois server, but could be modified in the
future to also be the whois client. 

The object maintainer can in fact always prevent automatic request
forwarding by putting the referral information in a remarks field. 

However, if such a mechanism should become popular, then it may be
suitable that whois clients be developed that can parse the refer
field and resend the request to the appropriate server. If we allow
the object maintainer to determine this in the <forward-type> field, 
then it actually limits flexibility in the future. 

Or is my thinking twisted?

-- Carol