Re: FYI: List of current proposals
Hi Peter ! => lookup key. On the other hand I haven't had enough time and expertise => to try to teach a browser about something like => => whois://db-server-FQDN:43/lookup-key = =To my knowledge there are no whois-URLs yet, but you can (ab-)use =gopher-URLs to watch Whois-Entries with your web-browser. =Give it a try with <gopher://whois.ripe.net:43/0WW144> We actually use it in some situations, but there are two major problems involved: - this does no longer work for Netscape V2.x on Windows PCs (while it does work on Unix boxes and V1.x an the PC was fine ;-) - and I think (for good reasons!) the RIPE-NCC is about to discontinue the gopher access to the whois database. It's a fairly limited approach anyway. Thus we have been looking into alternatives and ways of tricking the web browser into doing things that it wasn't meant for :-) Cheers, Wilfried.
Quoting from Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet's message:
Hi Peter !
=> lookup key. On the other hand I haven't had enough time and expertise => to try to teach a browser about something like => => whois://db-server-FQDN:43/lookup-key = =To my knowledge there are no whois-URLs yet, but you can (ab-)use =gopher-URLs to watch Whois-Entries with your web-browser. =Give it a try with <gopher://whois.ripe.net:43/0WW144>
We actually use it in some situations, but there are two major problems involved:
- this does no longer work for Netscape V2.x on Windows PCs (while it does work on Unix boxes and V1.x an the PC was fine ;-)
- and I think (for good reasons!) the RIPE-NCC is about to discontinue the gopher access to the whois database. It's a fairly limited approach anyway.
Thus we have been looking into alternatives and ways of tricking the web browser into doing things that it wasn't meant for :-)
Maybe I've lost the point in this discussion but.. there's no need to trick a web browser as long as the web server (using some cunning cgi-bin) is able to present whois data in html format... That is the approach we followed. Don't think there is a strict relationship between the WAIS indexing and the CGI-BIN parts of our software. Here in Pisa they run on two different machines... If you don't like, or don't want, the serching flexibility of WAIS because you prefer a simpler whois-style searching, what is needed is a WHOIS-WWW gateway. It could be easily implemented using a part of the CGI-BIN software we have already developed.
Cheers, Wilfried.
---------- ---------- Antonio-Blasco Bonito E-Mail: bonito@nis.garr.it GARR - Network Information Service c=it;a=garr;p=garr;o=nis;s=bonito c/o CNUCE - Istituto del CNR Tel: +39 50 593246 Via S. Maria, 36 Fax: +39 50 904052 I-56126 PISA Telex: 500371 CNUCE I Italy Url: http://www.nis.garr.it/nis/staff/bonito.html ---------- ----------
Antonio_Blasco Bonito wrote:
Quoting from Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet's message:
- this does no longer work for Netscape V2.x on Windows PCs (while it does work on Unix boxes and V1.x an the PC was fine ;-)
- and I think (for good reasons!) the RIPE-NCC is about to discontinue the gopher access to the whois database. It's a fairly limited approach anyway.
there's no need to trick a web browser as long as the web server (using some cunning cgi-bin) is able to present whois data in html format... ... or if the whois-server itself can output the data if queried via a web browser. The format may be usual text line by line or even HTML if the server's capabilities are improved accordingly. This does of course not imply the whois-server has to communicate via http - the whois protocol is sufficient. Seeing Wilfried's second remark above I'd like to point out that, although the "gopher" access method is utilized, the gopher server is not involved.
An additional option '-H' directing the server to output HTML instead of plain text could be used both ways - either locally on the web-server, which calls the whois-client via a CGI script or directly from the web browser. For the latter one would either need to propose and spread the "whois"-URL access method or encode the option and parameters into gopher- (or finger-) URLs. The CGI way of accessing the whois data is probably simpler to implement, i.e. already available. -Peter
participants (3)
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Antonio_Blasco Bonito -
Peter Koch -
Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet