Problems with Network Solutions whois
Sam Kington
Network Solutions, as of 10:50am UK time today, have started blocking whois
requests from UK2. Whois queries result in:
==Start==
Welcome to the VeriSign Registrar WHOIS Server.
The IP address from which you have visited the VeriSign Registrar WHOIS
database is contained within a list of IP addresses that may have failed
to abide by VeriSign's WHOIS policy. Failure to abide by this policy can
adversely impact our systems and servers, preventing the processing of
other WHOIS requests.
To see the VeriSign WHOIS Policy, click on or copy and paste the following
URL into your browser:
http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois/
If you feel that you have received this message in error, please contact us
at
1-888-642-9675, (703)-742-0914, or via e-mail at:
whois...@networksolutions.com
==End==
Has anyone else had this? Does anybody know what Network Solutions are
playing at? Some random phone droid claimed they'd installed a new limit on
whois queries, but couldn't tell me what it was.
Sam
--
UK2.NET Senior Developer
{$D...@cyberstrider.net
> Has anyone else had this? Does anybody know what Network Solutions are
> playing at? Some random phone droid claimed they'd installed a new limit on
> whois queries, but couldn't tell me what it was.
As far as I know, NSI have had a limit at all time.. maybe they have
just tightened it.
In any case, for any com/net/org domain you should not be looking at
NSI's whois - instead you should be querying whois.crsnic.net and
then recursively checking the actual registrar's whois based on the
output you get from crsnic
--
Denesh Bhabuta
Cyberstrider Limited - www.cyberstrider.net
Aexiomus Limited - www.aexiomus.net
Nominet PAB Member ; co-Chair RIPE LIR-WG
Gordon Hudson
"Sam Kington" <skin...@uk2.net> wrote in message
news:B8F1CC50.110CE%skin...@uk2.net...
Its to prevent harvesting of e-mail addresses and postal addresses for
adevertising purposes.
Any IP hitting the whois for a certain number of times a day gets locked
out.
Normally you would use whois.crsnic.nic and then go to the
whois server it points to for that domain.
Gordon
--
http://www.hostroute.co.uk/ Web hosting from £5.95
http://www.nameroute.co.uk/ Domain names with 10MB free web space
Tikon
Does anybody know what Network Solutions are
> playing at? Some random phone droid
It's nice when you can get to a phone droid as opposed to no phone contact
whatsoever ;-)
Gary
Sam Kington
[limit on NSI queries]
> As far as I know, NSI have had a limit at all time.. maybe they have
> just tightened it.
If so, they've tightened it drastically - we do significantly fewer lookups
over the weekend than we do during the week.
> In any case, for any com/net/org domain you should not be looking at
> NSI's whois - instead you should be querying whois.crsnic.net and
> then recursively checking the actual registrar's whois based on the
> output you get from crsnic
We're *doing* that. We're only querying whois.networksolutions.com when
we're looking for the details of a Network Solutions domain - we have a
number of them on our systems, and we can potentially move them in so we
need to check whether they're already on our handle. Of the 111,000-odd
queries we've done so far today, only 6,000-odd have been for
whois.networksolutions.com.
It's all very annoying.
Sam Kington
OK, fair point, but their automated message gave out the wrong number. I had
to speak to a supervisor, on my third attempt, before getting a reasonable
answer.
(And who makes a major change to a customer-facing system on a Sunday
morning, anyway?)
{$D...@cyberstrider.net
Yes, quite... I can see why. :-(
Unfortunately, all the people I knew at NSI (and previously
InterNIC, when it was called that) were made redundant last year a
few months after the Verisign takeover.... otherwise I may have been
able to put you in touch with the actual manager of the department
that deals with the tech stuff - pgp, whois queries etc etc. the
organisation is a typical plc type org with a web of departments and
personnel and nothing like the older company I used to knwo so
well..
Adrian Wontroba
>(And who makes a major change to a customer-facing system on a Sunday
>morning, anyway?)
Saturday night upgrades are common practice in some areas. If you are
doing something potentially risky, Sunday is the least worst day to have
no service while you regress.
Sam Kington
Personally, if I thought that a large number of complaints was something
that I might have to weather while you were working on a system, I would
have a) made sure the support people knew about it (they didn't), and b)
made sure the people who could answer the queries were at the phone number
that we were publicly quoting as a response to a failed query. (The official
phone number to call was an individual person's number, which was on voice
mail during the weekend.)
Needless to say, we got a response at 9:14am (their time - -0400 GMT, which
I believe to be East Coast time), but since then, nothing.
Andy
>Hi,
[snip]
>Has anyone else had this? Does anybody know what Network Solutions are
>playing at? Some random phone droid claimed they'd installed a new limit on
>whois queries, but couldn't tell me what it was.
Speaking of WHOIS changing - are they removing expire'd dates from output?
Recently re-regged domains (is this with new domains too?) show:
Record created on 30-Mar-2001.
Database last updated on 30-Apr-2002 06:28:45 EDT.
or
Record created on 22-Mar-2002.
Database last updated on 30-Apr-2002 06:34:00 EDT.
.. and thats it.
I know they removed the Billing contact and "updated" date recently, but
the date the domain expires is damn crucial IMHO - otherwise you have to
rely on spammers reminding you your domain is gonna expire :)
So anyone know whats going on here?
Andy.
--
Remove the "invalid." from my email address to reply
Sam Kington
> Speaking of WHOIS changing - are they removing expire'd dates from output?
[...]
> I know they removed the Billing contact and "updated" date recently, but
> the date the domain expires is damn crucial IMHO - otherwise you have to
> rely on spammers reminding you your domain is gonna expire :)
Not on all domains, it seems: the whois for uk2.net says
Record expires on 08-Jun-2011.
Record created on 08-Jun-2000.
Database last updated on 1-May-2002 11:37:07 EDT.
Andy
Must be a new thing then, take yo.com for example:
Domain Name: YO.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Levitt, Gabriel (SLHPPCJLVI)
Grand Central Holdings, LLC
250 Lafayette St. 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10012
US
212-625-9710
Record created on 22-Mar-2002.
Database last updated on 1-May-2002 12:37:45 EDT.
But I haven't got any new domains from NetSol to see if it happens on
new registrations as well - but if they do I'm staying well away from
them, the other registrars are much better for info.
Oh well.
Gromett
news:slrnad06mq...@buffy.carrier1.net...
> Database last updated on 1-May-2002 12:37:45 EDT.
>
> But I haven't got any new domains from NetSol to see if it happens on
> new registrations as well - but if they do I'm staying well away from
> them, the other registrars are much better for info.
Yet another reason to move from NetSol. I verified your results
and it is indeed correct. NetSol no longer provide expire info.
This is just when Nominet are changing their whois to start offering
this info.
I cannot believe that people (new reg) are still using them!!!!
Other registrars are still offering the full info. BR for instance
Record updated on 2002-03-01 08:12:31.
Record created on 2000-03-03.
Record expires on 2004-03-03.
Database last updated on 2002-05-01 19:39:04 EST
Oh well.
Grom
Stuart
"Gromett" <gr...@thepissup.com_> wrote in message
news:U0%z8.20116$OP.745178@stones...
> "Andy" <an...@invalid.bribed.net> wrote in message
> news:slrnad06mq...@buffy.carrier1.net...
> > Must be a new thing then, take yo.com for example:
> >
> > Domain Name: YO.COM
> > Record created on 22-Mar-2002.
> > Database last updated on 1-May-2002 12:37:45 EDT.
> >
> > But I haven't got any new domains from NetSol to see if it happens on
> > new registrations as well - but if they do I'm staying well away from
> > them, the other registrars are much better for info.
>
> Yet another reason to move from NetSol. I verified your results
> and it is indeed correct. NetSol no longer provide expire info.
> This is just when Nominet are changing their whois to start offering
> this info.
There is something very strange going at NSI. A domain stopped working this
week. We immediately did a WHOIS to find it was 'available' despite being
renewed for 2 years only 14 months ago! No invoices and I've never known a
domain deactivated and released sameday!
We re-registered thru Joker and it was working again within 12hours at a
much cheaper cost.
We went thru all our other NSI domains and found another that had its expiry
date changed from 2003 to 2002. I'm not going to bother arguing with them -
we will move everything asap.
Are people generally satisfied with Joker, or should we be looking
elsewhere?
Stuart
Sam Kington
> Are people generally satisfied with Joker, or should we be looking
> elsewhere?
Word of warning: it is *stupidly* fiddly to change owner details. They don't
believe that someone can change their address or their email address, and
require a one-year renewal for *any* change.
Other than that they're OK - they're *fast*, for instance - although they're
difficult to get in touch with if anything goes wrong.
Sam
--
UK2.NET Senior Developer
Disclaimer: Not necessarily an official opinion
Stuart
> Stuart wrote:
>
> > Are people generally satisfied with Joker, or should we be looking
> > elsewhere?
>
> Word of warning: it is *stupidly* fiddly to change owner details. They
don't
> believe that someone can change their address or their email address, and
> require a one-year renewal for *any* change.
>
> Other than that they're OK - they're *fast*, for instance - although
they're
> difficult to get in touch with if anything goes wrong.
Thanks - I remember UK2 changed from NSI to Joker about 2/3 years ago. Have
you found better in the same price range?
Stuart
Sam Kington
[...]
> Thanks - I remember UK2 changed from NSI to Joker about 2/3 years ago. Have
> you found better in the same price range?
We're in the process of becoming ICANN accredited, so it doesn't make sense
this late in the day to find yet another registrar to integrate with. Tucows
/ OpenSRS is often quoted, though I haven't looked into it myself.
Robert
try http://www.godaddy.com/ at current x change rates they similar to joker
Rob
Andy
>"Andy" <an...@invalid.bribed.net> wrote in message
>news:slrnad06mq...@buffy.carrier1.net...
>> Must be a new thing then, take yo.com for example:
>>
>> Domain Name: YO.COM
>> Record created on 22-Mar-2002.
>> Database last updated on 1-May-2002 12:37:45 EDT.
>>
>> But I haven't got any new domains from NetSol to see if it happens on
>> new registrations as well - but if they do I'm staying well away from
>> them, the other registrars are much better for info.
>
> Yet another reason to move from NetSol. I verified your results
> and it is indeed correct. NetSol no longer provide expire info.
> This is just when Nominet are changing their whois to start offering
> this info.
Hmmm on yo.com, the expiration is now showing. Maybe they f***ed up and
fixed it, though still odd.
Dave Forward
wrote:
We moved from Joker to OpenSRS some time ago and found them to be much
better for both support and service. I can heavily recommend them.
Dave Forward.
Vision Internet Services - http://www.visn.co.uk