Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 16:10:24 +0100 (BST)
From: Martin Hamilton <M.T.Hamilton@lut.ac.uk>
Subject: whois++ // was -- Re: URNs in the DNS
To: Rob Raisch <raisch@ora.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.03.9307161308.A1469-b100000@amber.ora.com>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.07.9307201529.E3261-b100000@sloth>
Rob said:
> Ummmm.... Perhaps I should mention that the way Registrar is set up is almost
> a one-for-one match with IAFA templates. What this means is that there is a
> template for each URN, and each template contains a list of URL records, as
> well as mucho other meta information. The only reason I wrote registrar to
> begin with is that whois++ is, (as far as I am aware), currently vapourware,
> and I felt it was really important for people to actually see something which
> approached the problem.
Well, I've been playing with the whois++ implementation from Adelaide
(Oz), which uses the LDAP package from Umich to talk to the Quipu X.500
implementation (ouch!). This isn't quite as silly as it sounds, as
we're thinking about joining the UK X.500 pilot, and if we're going
to go to the trouble of running X.500, I'd like to get that directory
servicing lots of other things like finger and gopher. It would be
really neat to get whois++ in there too (via X.500 or more direct
means!), but we'll have to see...
whois++ -> ftp://ftp.adelaide.au.edu/pub/whois/whois++beta.tar.Z
LDAP -> ftp://terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu/x500/beta/ldap.tar.Z
Quipu -> "lots of places" as part of isode-8.0.tar.Z
FWIW, I might take a stab at a more, err... "lightweight" whois++
implementation as I find the concepts it's based on very attractive
(though I have reservations about centroids :-). This would
probably be in Perl. Time to make a nuisance of myself in the
WNILS group too, methinks!
Tx,
Martin
PS Would anyone care to venture X.500 schemas for the UR* stuff?
(Perhaps this has been raised already in another arena?)