Re: bug in the whois/wais query?

Dear Janos,

> Janos Zsako writes :
> 
> I have noticed a problem with a person called Matyas Matyas.
> I needed him in the RIPE database. I queried the database and got:
> 
> whois -h whois.ripe.net "Matyas Matyas"
> person:      Dedi Matyas
> address:     RADCOM Ltd.
> address:     8 Hanechoshet St. Tel-Aviv 69710, Israel
> phone:       +972 3 6472694
> fax-no:      +972 3 6474681
> e-mail:      dedi@localhost
> nic-hdl:     DM55-RIPE
> notify:      lir@localhost
> mnt-by:      NNCC
> changed:     steiff@localhost 960225
> source:      RIPE
> 
> I therefore registered the following person:
> 
> person:      Matyas Matyas
> address:     HotSoft Tirgu Mures - ROMANIA
> address:     O.P. 1, C.P. 172
> address:     4300 Tirgu Mures - Romania
> phone:       +40 65 16 65 16
> fax-no:      +40 65 16 62 90
> e-mail:      matyi@localhost
> nic-hdl:     MM200-RIPE
> notify:      ncc@localhost
> changed:     zsako@localhost 960403
> source:      RIPE
> 
> I queried the database in the same way and I got the same result as the first
> time!
> 
> Therefore I suspected the person had been registered earlier and I queried
> the database with the WAIS option (through telnet info.ripe.net).
> I looked for the word "Matyas" and I got three results, one of them was the
> object below:
> 
> person:      Matyas Matyas
> address:     HotSoft Tirgu Mures - ROMANIA
> address:     O.P. 1, C.P. 172
> address:     4300 Tirgu Mures - Romania
> phone:       +40-65-166516
> fax-no:      +40-65-166290
> e-mail:      matyi@localhost
> nic-hdl:     MM184-RIPE
> changed:     alina@localhost  960326
> source:      RIPE
> 
> and two irrelevant person objects, but the person with the NIC-handle
> MM200-RIPE was not there!
> I got a similar result with a different keyword ("matyi" from the e-mail
> address) and again got MM184-RIPE, but not MM200-RIPE.
> 
> Is this normal (did I miss something) or is this a bug?
> (I see two different problems which might have the same cause:
> - why does the whois not give me both MM184-RIPE and MM200-RIPE as an answer to
>   the 'whois -h whois.ripe.net "Matyas Matyas"'?
> - why does the WAIS not give me the person object MM200-RIPE?
> ).
> 
> I could explain however the behaviour of the WAIS query by the fact that it
> does not search the "real" database, but a copy of it, which is updated in
> bigger chunks. Is this the explanation for the second problem?

Correct, WAIS gets updated only once a day. We can should be able to see
the object tomorrow.

> I find no explanation for the first problem though...

I think that we are dealing with a 'feature' and possibly a bug (I need
to investigate this in more detail to be sure).

The database uses the following algoritm to find an object:

- break up the search key on space boundaries:

  Matyas Matyas  ---->  (Matyas, Matyas)
  
- Then it looks for objects that match the keys

  Dedi Matyas  (Dedi, Matyas)

  Example:
  
  Matyas -> 3,5,10
  Dedi   -> 5

- It returns the objects that are pointed by all the keys (not one of
  them) but ignores keys that don't reference anything:
  
  Thus a query for:
  
  Matyas Matyas 
  
  will give you back any objects that have a Matyas key (objects 3,5,10)
  
  and
  
  Dedi Matyas
  
  will give you object 5 (not 3 & 10)


It looks like the database gives consistent output except for the
following case:

$ whois -r Matyas Matyas

person:      Dedi Matyas

because the above described algoritm should give you all objects that have
a key Matyas and should give the same result as the following query:

$ whois -r Matyas

person:      Dedi Matyas
...
person:      Matyas Matyas
...
person:      Matyas Matyas
...


I made some completely new code for this part of the RIPE database in my
own time but it is far from production quality but the problem is on the
list (This code also solves the 'too many hits' problem for people with
very common first and last names).

Note that it is recommended to do your first search with a not too refined
key: You cannot always be sure that people that registered a person had
the same idea of the first name of a person (only initials, full name).

Thanks for noticing and informing me of this problem. It will certainly
be looked into,

Kind regards,

David Kessens
RIPE Database maintainer
----