=> The basic obstacle that stopped me to make any progress is to find a => way (protocol, port, lookup key transfer mechanism) to query the db and => then to convince the browser to read the text as html. The best I => managed was gopher and interpretation as text. => Not that useful in the end... = =I want to do the following (as dicussed with you earlier in a private =conversation): = =Make a 'whois -w' that let the whois program behave as cgi-bin script: = =The whois server will return you an html formatted document instead of =regular plain text objects. It's then very easy to put such a 'whois' =program in your cgi-bin directory and here you go... The nice thing about =this the unified presentation of objects in a web based context. =Furthermore, people can use url's to specified objects in the database. Do I read this correctly to expect me (the users wanting access) to install some cgi script on the/a local server to provide that interface? That might drastically limit the usefulness of this approach. I'd prefer something that is more along the lines of the good old to be retired gopher interface - I'd like to give a special port number and have the script run at the whois DB server side. I think we do have all the building blocks in place (like telnet to 43), but this breaks 'cause a telnet opens a separate window from the browser and fails to submit the rest of the url to be treated as a 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

Example:

An html document about the escalation procedures for network outages of an ISP can point directly to a 'role:' object in the RIPE database.

That's exactly one of the applications for that approach. Another one would be to have a domain object point to the URL for the application template. And another one would be to do a "whois help" to give access to documentation. And another to reference person objects for people being regularly updated in the DB...

Shall I add such a feature to my proposal list in addition to the WAIS interface (with a note that the WAIS interface can be enabled quickly with some hacks as proposed by Blasco) ?

My private opinion is: YES. My DB-WG opinion is: probably, but we didn't have it on the agenda - thus as a proposal for future decision Wilfried. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber@CC.UniVie.ac.at Computer Center - ACOnet : Vienna University : Tel: +43 1 4065822 355 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4065822 170 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : NIC: WW144 --------------------------------------------------------------------------