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25 lines
1.3 KiB
Plaintext
25 lines
1.3 KiB
Plaintext
What is Referral Whois (RWhois)?
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With the exponential growth of the Internet, a central Whois database that
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provides host and network information of systems connected to the Internet,
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and electronic mail (email) addresses of the users of those systems has
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proven to be very inefficient. The sheer size and effort needed to maintain
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a centralized database necessitates an alternate, decentralized approach to
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storing and retrieving this information.
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RWhois is a Directory Services protocol which extends and enhances the Whois
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concept in a hierarchical and scaleable fashion. It focuses on the
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distribution of "network objects"--the data representing Internet resources
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or people--and uses the inherently hierarchical nature of these network
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objects (domain names, Internet Protocol (IP) networks, email addresses) to
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more accurately discover the requested information.
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RWhois synthesizes concepts from other, established Internet protocols to
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create a more useful way to find resources across the Internet. The RWhois
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protocol and architecture derive a great deal of structure from the Domain
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Name System (DNS) [RFC 1034] and borrow directory service concepts from
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other directory service efforts, primarily [X.500]. The protocol is also
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influenced by earlier established Internet protocols, such as the Simple
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Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) [RFC 821] for response codes.
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