[sf-lug] dig and whois; also VeriSign

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alex Kleider (a_kleider at yahoo.com):

> I notice that the VeriSign notice indicates that only .com, .net and
> .edu TLDs are supported but in fact 
> $ whois kleider.ca 
> gets appropriate results.

Alex, that's because your "whois" client is re-routing your WHOIS
request to a more-appropriate WHOIS server for the TLD (top-level domain)
you asked about, and (in particular) to a non-Verisign WHOIS server
located at the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) that
serves Canada's country-code TLD ("ca").

Notice that this re-routing becomes more explicit if you include the
"--verbose" flag:

$ whois --verbose -H kleider.ca
Using server whois.cira.ca.
Query string: "kleider.ca"

Status:         EXIST                                             
Registrar:      easyDNS Technologies Inc.                         
Registrar-no:   88                                                
Registrant-no:  2156038                                           
Domaine-no:     2156038                                           
Subdomain:      kleider.ca                                        
Renewal-Date:   2009/01/15                                        
Date-Approved:  2008/01/15                                        
Date-Modified:  2008/01/15                                        
Organization:   Alex Kleider                                      
Description:                                                      
Admin-Name:     Alex Kleider                                      
Admin-Title:    concept artist                                    
Admin-Postal:   Kleiderstudios.com                                
                2760 W4th ave                                     
                Vancouver BC V6K1R1 Canada                        
Admin-Phone:    778-552-5280                                      
Admin-Fax:                                                        
Admin-Mailbox:  kleider at gmail.com                                 
Tech-Name:      Alex Kleider                                      
Tech-Title:     concept artist                                    
Tech-Postal:    Kleiderstudios.com                                
                2760 W4th ave                                     
                Vancouver BC V6K1R1 Canada                        
Tech-Phone:     778-552-5280                                      
Tech-Fax:                                                         
Tech-Mailbox:   kleider at gmail.com                                 
NS1-Hostname:   ns1.easydns.com                                   
NS1-Netaddress:                                                   
NS2-Hostname:   ns2.easydns.com                                   
NS2-Netaddress:                                                   
NS3-Hostname:   remote1.easydns.com                               
NS3-Netaddress:                                                   
NS4-Hostname:   remote2.easydns.com                               
NS4-Netaddress:                                                   
NS5-Hostname:   ns3.easydns.org                                   
NS5-Netaddress:                                                   
NS6-Hostname:   ns6.easydns.net                                   
NS6-Netaddress:                     


> (the ca is for Canada, not California;

Well, yeah.  I know that most Yanks are abysmally and embarrassingly
ignorant about Canada, but I'm not.  I'm even a longtime fan of Rick
Mercer's "Talking to Americans" segment on "This Hour has 22
Minutes".[1]

There actually are two "whois" client programs in common use on Linux
One is Marco d'Itri's and is a relatively simple C program controlled by
configuration file /etc/whois.conf .   http://www.linux.it/~md/software/
You can use that conffile to update the program's knowledge of where 
WHOIS service is available for particular TLDs; sometimes, countries
move that service around without informing even the IANA (Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority), let alone authors of whois programs.
It's the default whois program on Debian, Mandriva, SUSE, and a bunch of
others.

The other common "whois" program is Jonas Oberg's "jwhois", at FSF:
http://www.gnu.org/software/jwhois/  It's somewhat more modular, is
commonly found on Ubuntu, among others. and is configured via
/etc/jwhois.conf .

If you'd like to read more on this subject, please see:
http://linuxgazette.net/142/moen.html

[1] And my mother-in-law is Canadian dual-citizen, and has a house in 
Courtenay, Comox Valley, Vancouver Island -- not -too- far away from
Kleiderstudios.