Re: [registrars] Whois

["Ross Wm. Rader" <ross@tucows.com>]

> Didn't Tucows used to have a block on NSI servers
> from accessing your Opensrs whois for the same reason? I seem to remember
> never being able to do a whois on an Opensrs domain when querying
> whois.networksolutions.com. It appears that it was just lifted within
> the last week?

We've only ever blocked specifically one address on their network from time
to time if we were really getting hammered. Of course, when we first got
smacked by NSI, we only had 2 processors taking the load ;) Scaling it was
really a development issue that we deferred on for a while and used
filtering as a short term hack instead of building better code. Earlier this
year we re-examined our whois architecture and got it to the point where
binary decisions are no longer necessary. Everyone querying gets the same
service and it's our job to make sure that there's enough gear behind it to
guarantee service.

Like I mentioned to Elana earlier, there is a big difference between "high
volume" and a couple of transactions per minute (or a couple of minutes
between transactions). On the day we think we were banned we processed about
2.4 million whois requests, which is not an unusual amount for us.

IANAL, but you might want to re-examine your current policy in light of the
new RAA. While it's still fair game to limit access to your whois under
abusive or emergency circumstances, it specifically notes that reasonable
access by other registrars is viewed in a different light. You're probably
on the clean side because of the specific nature of the filter, but at the
very least, familiarity with the new clauses is not a bad thing either...


Take care,

-rwr