PIR limits .org whois

[Whois-Search]

As of 20 August, 2005 Pir changed the .org whois rules......

This means software like status checkers no longer works and .org is now blocked on my site


http://www.pir.org/GetAORG/FAQ-Whois.aspx#q6


4. Why is PIR limiting WHOIS Port 43 access for the general public?
PIR is committed to protecting the rights and privacy of registrants of .ORG domain names. In an effort to reduce access by speculators and data miners of WHOIS Port 43, and based on consultation with ICANN and registrars, PIR will introduce rate limiting logic on the WHOIS Port 43 server on 20 August, 2005.

5. How is PIR limiting WHOIS Port 43 access for the general public?
PIR will monitor all IP addresses accessing the .ORG WHOIS Port 43 server. All traffic will be logged and rate-limit validation logic will be applied to limit access by any given IP address to a maximum of four queries per minute. If a unique IP address exceeds the limit, the query will be stopped, and a message will be relayed back to the public user indicating that they have exceeded their limit.

6. What message will the public user see when the WHOIS query limit is exceeded?
Public users who exceed the WHOIS Port 43 query limit will receive an error message that says: "WHOIS LIMIT EXCEEDED — SEE WWW.PIR.ORG/WHOIS FOR DETAILS."

7. How does a public user regain access?
Public users exceeding the query limit within the set time frame (i.e., four queries/minute) will automatically be able to regain access to the WHOIS Port 43 server after the limitation period has expired (one minute). To preserve stability of operations, repeated efforts to circumvent these query limits may result in further restrictions on use of the public WHOIS server.

8. What changes will be made to the Web WHOIS available at www.pir.org?
Effective 20 August 2005, WHOIS queries submitted through the Web-based WHOIS search mechanism on the www.pir.org Web site are limited to 50 queries per minute.

[Bashar]

if the ban is automatically removed thats good move.

I'd say they should point the whois servers to the registrars rather than serving all whois requests themselves and avoid this exceeding requests.

[Whois-Search]

But when you have hundreds of visitors requesting .org at the same time on a whois site - its always blocked.

http://www.betterwhois.com/bwhois.cgi?domain=test.org refresh that 5 times and see what happens

It should be like .com and .net where you can always do a internic whois if the register whois is blocked.

[Domagon]

#8 seems backwords to me ... PIR says they allow 50 queries per minute via the web and yet only 4 queries per minute via whois port 43?...

One would expect the limits to be reversed - whois queries via port 43 use less resources ... or is that somehow not true? ... it seems to me that 50 web-based requests per minute is going to use more server resources than 50 whois port 43-based requests would.

Someone enlighten us here ...

Ron

[Whois-Search]

#8 seems backwords to me ... PIR says they allow 50 queries per minute via the web and yet only 4 queries per minute via whois port 43?...

One would expect the limits to be reversed - whois queries via port 43 use less resources ... or is that somehow not true? ... it seems to me that 50 web-based requests per minute is going to use more server resources than 50 whois port 43-based requests would.

Someone enlighten us here ...

Ron

Thats true yes and I will have no option but to send people to their site :huh:

[Dale Hubbard]

Hmmm. whois.sc seem to have got around the problem. I tried there and didn't get any refusals after about 20 attempts in 2 minutes, and they weren't results that were cached either. Not with you on the "internic" whois -- do you mean the top level results at rs.internic.net which gives you the correct whois server for com and net? Doesn't work at all for .org:

dale-hubbards-powerbook-g4:~ dalehubbard$ whois -h rs.internic.net test.org

Whois Server Version 1.3

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

No match for "TEST.ORG".

[Whois-Search]

Whois.sc cache the whois though - they don't do it live ?

The only way is to have enough ips for 4 requests per minute for the number of visitors you have.

Yeah I mean wish Internic did work for .org.

[Dale Hubbard]

They cache it for history and add the live request result to the history. They are getting around it. If you do an arbitrary 20 requests, you'll see they say the 'last stored' result is today's date. Have you tried proxies to route your requests?

[Whois-Search]

I could do but proxies break the rules of the terms of PIR :(

[Dale Hubbard]

This is all I see in their whois TOS:

Access to .ORG WHOIS information is provided to assist persons in determining the contents of a domain name registration record in the PIR registry database. The data in this record are provided by PIR for informational purposes only, and PIR does not guarantee their accuracy. This service is intended only for query-based access. You may use these data only for lawful purposes; you may not use these data to (a) allow, enable or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail, telephone or facsimile of mass unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations to entities other than the data recipient's own existing customers or (b) enable high-volume, automated, electronic processes that send queries or data to the systems of a registry operator or any registrar accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or modify existing registrations.

Don't see anything about proxies? It would be different if you were harvesting data with repeated queries from a source file, but you're only responding to live requests from people at your site. It's my view that what you're doing is not against their TOS even if you use proxies. The key in my view is "...except as reasonably necessary to register domain names..." -- that's the clincher that you could argue to make your case. You could add something on your site to this effect also.

[Acro]

It even affects direct queries from the unix shell. The block is lifted after a few minutes.

[Dale Hubbard]

It even affects direct queries from the unix shell. The block is lifted after a few minutes.

Unix/BSD/Linux/Bash/Win/server-side -- makes no difference what client/method you are using -- only the originating IP address. Now - can anyone guess how whois.sc gets round it? Not rocket science even if they don't use proxies.

[Dave Zan]

Should this be a big deal?

[Acro]

Yes. Snapcheck is done now with ORG expirations.

[Dale Hubbard]

There's an easy way around this. Just use an extra dynamic IP DSL line on another box and write a timed loop script that telnets into the router and resets it, which will renew the IP from the ISP. If the query is refused on the primary box, route the query to the secondary box as above. Add more lines/boxes according to load. The loop time will depend on the amount of queries being refused. Or use proxies.

[jaugusto]

What are current limits? (sorry for bumping an old thread)

[coreymanshack]

Old thread or not, I am glad to find out the ban is lifted after a few minutes, as long as I can keep my queries down to 50 a minute I'll be golden!

---------- Post added at 10:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:47 PM ----------

Old thread or not, I am glad to find out the ban is lifted after a few minutes, as long as I can keep my queries down to 50 a minute I'll be golden!

I am only able to get 4 queries a minute from port 43, not 50 :(
That doesn't make much sense!