Infinite loops in client processes --

[David Blacka]

Paul Townsend wrote:
> -----
> Second try.  I wasn't registered the first time.  I apologize if it's a
> duplicate.
> 
> Recently, I've encountered a number of infinite referral loops (ranges supplied 
> below).  I use both rwhois-client-1.6.1 and a modified version of jwhois that 
> understands a basic set of the rwhois syntax.  I've modified the jwhois variant 
> to the point where it can detect the loop and display a message about it.
> 
> RFC2167 describes this condition (Section 3.3.7) as a "recursive referral" and 
> suggests that a "-notify recurref ..." directive be sent back the the server 
> when the loop is encountered.  My question is to which of the servers should 
> the directive be sent?    Below are the query paths that the modified jwhois 
> followed where it detected a loop.  Note that the start of the "rwhois" portion
> of the loop depended on how the request was phrased.

Wow, I had totally forgotten about the -notify directive.  In practice,
the -notify directive is useless.  In rwhoisd, all it does is log
something, and I seriously doubt any operators look at the log.
Basically, it is just important for the client to to handle the referral
loop.

You are right, though.  It is totally unclear to which server the
-notify directive should be sent.  Looking at your examples, the problem
is actually rwhois.covad.net.

-- 
David Blacka                      <davidb at verisignlabs.com>
Sr. Engineer    VeriSign Infrastructure Product Engineering