[dns-operations] Glue IP addresses in whois output in .com (and may be others)

[Mike Jones]

On 10 October 2017 at 01:52, Phil Pennock <dnsop+phil at spodhuis.org> wrote:
> There was a recent change in output format from the main whois servers,
> resulting in breaking a bunch of substring and regexp-based clients
> trying to parse the results to find the next whois server to query.
>
> So for instance, I patched my local FreeBSD system with a one-line
> change in the #define for the substring which the code searches for, to
> find the whois server and chase along to the "real" server.
>
> "Whois Server: " vs "Registrar WHOIS Server: "
>
> Reality is messy,

I've seen the subject come up multiple times on different lists, and I
think the answer is in these proposal documents.

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/rdds-labeling-policy-2017-02-01-en

If I understand correctly, it was a deliberate fix for the problem of
WHOIS records not being cosmetically appealing enough.

They were considering both:
1. A technical change that would stop clients from following referrals
automatically.
2. A structural change which would result in clients no longer
following referrals to get data.

They wanted to emphasise that 1 should NOT be delayed until after 2.

- Mike