Announcement: new whois server in production+new features

Dear all,

First of all, it is recommended for everybody to read the *whole*
announcement. I have just put the new RIPE database whois server in
production. The new server has a couple of new features (and bug fixes):

- twice the speed for any classless lookups

- the lookup algoritm is changed such that: Matyas Matyas can finally be
  found and also Daniel David hasn't problems anymore with finding
  himself in the database

- email addresses in the person objects are now also indexed and can thus
  be used as a search key from now on.
  
- unlimited number of matches allowed. You can now find all Davids in the
  RIPE database
    
And then the *BONUS* feature (made in France during my vacation!):

- Inverse lookup has been implemented, that is:

  $ whois -h whois.ripe.net -T limerick -i author MN131

  will give you all limericks written by Mike Norris (as long as his NIC
  handle is used, else try the same search with 'Mike Norris' as the key)

  $ whois -h whois.ripe.net -T route -i origin AS3333

  will give you all routes with origin AS AS3333
  (this makes the ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/as/db directories obsolete,
   and they will thus be removed)

  Also a comma separated list can be used as in:

  $ whois -h whois.ripe.net -i admin-c,tech-c,zone-c DK13-RIPE

  which will give you all objects that reference myself as an admin-c,
  tech-c or zone-c.

  You can use the following attributes for inverse lookups:

  admin-c
  as-exclude
  author
  as-in
  as-list
  as-out
  comm-list
  default
  interas-in
  interas-out
  localas
  mnt-by
  mnt-lower
  mnt-nfy
  nserver
  notify
  origin
  peer
  rev-srv
  tech-c
  zone-c


Furthermore, the RIPE whois client program has been updated to support
the new options (I finally got the chance to do some C coding ;-)). The
program is now packaged with some other small C programs for use in
conjunction with the RIPE database:

ftp://ftp.ripe.net/tools/ripe-whois-tools-2.0.tar.gz

(perl versions will be packaged together with the new release of the
 database software, when the updating code is also ready)

You will also need to upgrade the prtraceroute in case you use this
program (ftp://ftp.ripe.net/pride/tools/prtraceroute-2.0beta6.tar.gz).
(see also separate announcement).
 
Finally an important note to software developers:

The whois server now returns objects always in the following sequence:

newline
object/message
newline
object/message
newline
newline

(The newline at the start is new)

This change allowed for more consistency and faster code. However, I am
willing to make an ugly fix in case too many tools cannot handle this
corectly and need updates. Please let me know if this is indeed needed.

As always: please send bug reports directly to me and I will fix the
problem.

Kind regards,

David Kessens
RIPE NCC
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RIPE whois tools 2.0

This is a set of C programs (perl versions of the same programs are
available in the RIPE database distribution) to be used in conjunction
with the RIPE database. It contains the following programs:

- whois 

  The RIPE version of the whois client program.
  
  This is intended for European users as it will query a RIPE whois
  server with extended whois capabilities rather than a standard whois
  protocol server. The whois program is fully compatible with the
  standard whois protocol and can thus replace your default whois
  program.
  
  This program is aware of quite some extra flags that the standard whois
  doesn't support. Just try 'whois' without arguments to see an
  explanation of these. Please note that most of these flags are NOT
  supported by non RIPE whois servers. In cases where you use this client
  to query non RIPE whois servers, you should not use any of these
  flags.
 
- networkupdate

  A program that allows updating the RIPE database with the whois
  protocol instead of the usual E-mail interface. This program can
  usually only be used by the administrators of the whois server itself.
  The updating mechanism is too powerfull (for now) to allow the general
  public to use this mechanism. The server is protected by means of an
  accesslist.
  
- cryptpw

  Calculate a crypted password with given password and salt.
  
  This password can then be used in the 'auth:' field of maintainer
  objects.
  
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