BW Whois README File

VERSION:

Current version: 3.2
Released 28 July 2002

Requires Perl 5.6
Requires working MySQL and DBI for caching and other DB functionality. 

You can always find the current version of BW Whois here:  

    http://whois.bw.org/

DESCRIPTION: 

    BW Whois is a whois client designed to work with the new
    "Shared Registration System" whois introduced 1 December
    1999. This new system has proved to be remarkably disorga-
    nized and inconsistent, resulting in tremendous confusion
    for those of us who need to find the ownership of a domain
    now and then.

Here's the same statement said another way: 

    BW Whois is a whois client for RFC-954 compliant whois 
    servers using the Shared Registration System as revised 
    1 December 1999. 


Under the new domain-name regime the whois system is now distributed 
amongst the various domain-police^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H registrars, thereby 
requiring that we know where to request whois data on what domains. 
As if that weren't clever enough, they did not proviide for a reliable 
and complete repository of top-level-domain/whois-server translation data. 

This program will first go to a "root" whois server and ask for a record. 
If found, the root server will tell us where to go get the actual record, and 
then we go get it. 

Optionally, you may use a configuration file (e.g., /etc/whois/tld.conf) to direct 
the program to whois servers for TLDs that the "root" doesn't know about (e.g., 
.net.au or .info or .uk.com). A rather thorrough tld.conf file is included 
with all the whois servers that I know about. 

The author of this program attempts to maintain thorough data on the whereabouts 
of canonical whois servers for various TLDs. Please let me know if you have 
updated data that I should include in it. 

This program is free software. You may modify and distribute it under 
the same terms as perl itself. 

INSTALLATION:

See the INSTALL file. 

FILES: 

This program is distributed as a tarball containing the following files: 

whois       -- The program itself, written in perl. You shouldn't need to 
               modify this at all, unless your perl is in a non-standard 
               place.

               You may need to rename it for CGI mode. 

install.sh  -- A simple install script for UNIX-ish systems. Must be run 
               as root. Results may vary. Use at your own risk. Contents 
               may settle during shipping. See INSTALL for more details. 

tld.conf    -- The optional TLD table. Put this in /etc/whois/tld.conf

sd.conf     -- An optional configuration file for the stripdisclaimer 
               feature. Put his in /etc/whois/sd.conf

whois.conf  -- An optional configuration file. Put this in 
               /etc/whois/whois.conf

whois.html  -- A sample file for use with the CGI mode. This one is a 
               bit fancier than the one that --makehtml creates. 

whois.1     -- The whois man page. Copy this to /usr/local/man/man1/whois.1 
               or to the equivalant location on your system. 

whois.txt   -- The man page in text format, for those of you who don't have 
               man on your sytem.

HISTORY     -- The revision history of the program. 

README      -- This file. 

COPYRIGHT   -- The lawyers made me do it. 

DISCLAIMER  -- Use only as directed. 


--Bill

