nanog mailing list archives Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARIN’s Directory Services)

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From: Sam Thomas via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2026 19:26:11 -0500

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</lurk><grumpy_old_router_hacker>

when I asked the goog^WAI about CLI rdap tools, one suggestion was
"nicinfo," apparently produced by ARIN.

deprecated, and they recommended icann-rdap, which is produced in
rust. It is still compiling on my development system as I write this.

 Compiling icann-rdap-cli v0.0.31 (/home/sthomas/src/icann-rdap/icann-rdap-cli)
    Building [=======================> ] 539/545: rdap-srv-data(bin),
rdap-test(bin), rdap(bin), rdap-srv(bin)

meanwhile, on one of the few cores not getting rusted...

<farfarello:/usr/src/usr.bin/whois% wc -l whois.c
     610 whois.c
<farfarello:/usr/src/usr.bin/whois% make
[Creating objdir /usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/usr.bin/whois...]
echo whois.full: /usr/lib/libc.a  >> .depend
cc -fpie -DPIC   -O2 -pipe -fno-common   -fPIE
-ffile-prefix-map=/usr/src=/usr/src
-ffile-prefix-map=/usr/obj/usr/src=/usr/obj -g -gz=zlib -MD
-MF.depend.whois.pieo -MTwhois.pieo -std=gnu17 -Wno-format-zero-length
-fstack-protector-strong -Wsystem-headers -Werror -Wall
-Wno-format-y2k -W -Wno-unused-parameter -Wstrict-prototypes
-Wmissing-prototypes -Wpointer-arith -Wreturn-type -Wcast-qual
-Wwrite-strings -Wswitch -Wshadow -Wunused-parameter -Wcast-align
-Wchar-subscripts -Wnested-externs -Wold-style-definition
-Wno-pointer-sign -Wdate-time -Wmissing-variable-declarations
-Wthread-safety -Wno-empty-body -Wno-string-plus-int
-Wno-unused-const-variable -Wno-error=unused-but-set-parameter
-Wno-error=cast-function-type-mismatch  -Qunused-arguments      -c
/usr/src/usr.bin/whois/whois.c -o whois.pieo
cc -O2 -pipe -fno-common -fPIE -ffile-prefix-map=/usr/src=/usr/src
-ffile-prefix-map=/usr/obj/usr/src=/usr/obj -g -gz=zlib -std=gnu17
-Wno-format-zero-length -fstack-protector-strong -Wsystem-headers
-Werror -Wall -Wno-format-y2k -W -Wno-unused-parameter
-Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wpointer-arith -Wreturn-type
-Wcast-qual -Wwrite-strings -Wswitch -Wshadow -Wunused-parameter
-Wcast-align -Wchar-subscripts -Wnested-externs -Wold-style-definition
-Wno-pointer-sign -Wdate-time -Wmissing-variable-declarations
-Wthread-safety -Wno-empty-body -Wno-string-plus-int
-Wno-unused-const-variable -Wno-error=unused-but-set-parameter
-Wno-error=cast-function-type-mismatch -Qunused-arguments  -Wl,-zrelro
-pie    -o whois.full whois.pieo
objcopy --only-keep-debug whois.full whois.debug
objcopy --strip-debug --add-gnu-debuglink=whois.debug  whois.full whois
gzip -cn /usr/src/usr.bin/whois/whois.1 > whois.1.gz

<farfarello:/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/usr.bin/whois% ls -lh whois
-rwxr-xr-x  1 sthomas wheel   17K Aug 15 19:08 whois

the icann-rdap build finally finished:
<farfarello:~/src/icann-rdap/target/release% ls -lh rdap
-rwxr-xr-x  2 sthomas sthomas   18M Aug 15 19:08 rdap

only 1000x the bits to do the same job; progress!. :)

tongue firmly in cheek, as I do love the JSON, but good grief do we
have to make everything this way? it's perfectly ok to have one
standard for machine-to-machine data exchange and a separate standard
for human consumption, especially if we rely on only one canonical
source for the data.

On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 12:37 PM Job Snijders via NANOG
<nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:

On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 10:19:23AM -0700, Randy Bush via NANOG wrote:

can we assume there will be somewhat finger compatible CLI client tools
for most platforms?

I know of two tools, both seem useful:

https://openrdap.org/ (doas pkg_add openrdap)

        $ openrdap 192.0.2.1 | head
        IP Network:
          Handle: NET-192-0-2-0-1
          Start Address: 192.0.2.0
          End Address: 192.0.2.255
          IP Version: v4
          Name: TEST-NET-1

https://metacpan.org/dist/App-rdapper (doas pkg_add rdapper)

        $ rdapper rg.net
        Object type: Domain Name
        URL: https://rdap.joker.com/domain/rg.net
        Name: RG.NET
        Nameserver: NLNS.GLOBNIX.NET
        Nameserver: NS1.RG.NET
          IP Address: 46.224.94.61
          IP Address: 2a01:4f8:1c1a:5360::1
        Nameserver: RIP.PSG.COM
          IP Address: 147.28.0.39
          IP Address: 2001:418:1::39
        DS Record: rg.net. 1 IN DS 12391 8 2
          0fb5f11e4fe4045d519a55915bd71d6dcfb1fa045b01be891640c8ea1c0792c9
        Registration: 1993-04-28T04:00:00Z
        Last Changed: 2025-12-23T03:23:28Z
        Expiration: 2028-04-29T04:00:00Z
        Last update of RDAP database: 2026-08-14T17:25:00Z
        ...

and a staged trasition, to allow for lot of automation that is gonna
have to change.

Yes, perhaps so.

However, the usual "RIR IRR source -> NRTM -> IRRd instance -> query utility"
flow seems out-of-scope for the proposal, right?

speaking of automation, sure would be nice if the rirs were compatible.

For posterity it might be worth to repeat what exactly the incompatibilities
are and what ARIN (or other RIRs) can do to improve.

Kind regards,

Job
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Current thread:

• Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARIN’s Directory Services) John Curran via NANOG (Aug 14)
  • Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARIN’s Directory Services) Randy Bush via NANOG (Aug 14)
    • Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARINʼs Directory Services) John Curran via NANOG (Aug 14)
      • Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARINʼs Directory Services) Cat Okita via NANOG (Aug 14)
    • Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARIN’s Directory Services) Job Snijders via NANOG (Aug 14)
      • Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARIN’s Directory Services) Sam Thomas via NANOG (Aug 15)
    • Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARINʼs Directory Services) Mark Kosters via NANOG (Aug 14)
  • Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARIN’s Directory Services) Lavender-Jamie via NANOG (Aug 15)
    • Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARIN’s Directory Services) Randy Bush via NANOG (Aug 15)
    • Re: Re: Whois using these ARIN services?? (fwd: Consultation on the Future of ARIN’s Directory Services) John Levine via NANOG (Aug 15)