
These installation instructions are for UNIX-based systems. I know that 
this program will run on NT using the ActiveState Windows port of Perl 
(www.activestate.com), altough I have little experience with that platform 
so I cannot write installation instructions for it. 

NOTE: In the following instructions directory paths are enclosed in 
square bracktes [thusly]. Don't type the brackets. 

  1.  Copy the file "whois" to a directory in your path, preferably 
      [/usr/local/bin] (if you have root access). (You may need to 
      remove [/usr/bin/whois] if you have an older whois client.)

  2.  Copy the man page (whois.1) to a directory in your man-path. 
      this file usually goes in [/usr/local/man/man1]. (You may need 
      to remove the file from [/usr/man/man1/whois.1] if there is 
      already a man page there for an older whois client.)

  3.  If you look up a lot of domains outside of .COM .NET and .ORG, 
      you will need the tld.conf file. This file is entirely optional. 
      The default location of this file is [/etc/whois/tld.conf]. You 
      can put it in a different location by setting an option in the 
      whois.conf configuration file. See the man page for instructions. 

  4.  If you want to customize the operation of the program, or plan 
      to use advanced features, you will need to install the whois.conf
      file. The default location for this is [/etc/whois/whois.conf].

  5.  If you want to use the "stripdisclaimer" feature, you will need 
      to install the sd.conf configuration file. The default location 
      for this is [/etc/whois/sd.conf].

  6.  If you will be using the whois program in a CGI environment (as 
      a web application) and you want Apache-style SSI support, then 
      you will want to install bwInclude.pm in your perl lib path. 

I have included a script that will do the above steps on a UNIX system. 
It's probably better to do the steps yourself, as I believe that you are 
never in control of your system if you do not know it's underpinnings 
well. The script is called [install.sh] and while it probably does no 
harm, you must run it as root so you must assume responsibility for 
running it. 

OPTIONAL DATABASE FEATURES

  If you will be using the database features of this program and you 
  have MySQL/DBI installed, then you will need to create the apporpriate 
  database and tables in your SQL system. 

  My script does not do this for you because I consider it a security risk
  to give create permissions in the database system to "root", and the script 
  needs to run as "root" in order to install the whois script for 
  command-line use. Perhaps I will think of a solution to this at a later 
  time. 

  You will need to create a database; then edit the create_whois.sql 
  file and pipe it into mysql to create the tables. Be sure to edit your 
  whois.conf file with the appropriate connect string for your setup. 

Enjoy.

--Bill Weinman, 27 Jyly 2002

