ace domain format not allowed for .de whois servers

[Manuel Domke]

Binary package hint: whois

Hi,
since Ubuntu 10.04, the whois client has a new feature (or bug), which converts domain names with special characters to the so called ace format (müller.de --> xn--mller-kva.de) (ascii compatible).

This only happens, when you specify any parameters. Doing "normal" whois querys ( "whois müller.de" ) are working fine for the actual .de whois servers. For the next generation whois servers this does not seem to work ( whois -h whois.test.denic.de müller.de )

http://www.denic.de/en/background/whois-service/changes-within-public-whois.html

The DENIC whois servers only accept domain ace's when the parameter "-T ace" (only in combination: "-T dn,ace" or "-T dn,st").

So, now when asking for the domain name "müller.de" you get the message that that domain name is valid, even if its registered.

As I could figure out, this problem is part of the whois since version 4.7. I'd recommend turning off that idn2ace conversion to solve the problem..

I've already tested to disable the conversion by commenting out line 1010,1011 and 1026,1027 in whois.c and for me it worked fine!

1010: if (idna_to_ascii_lz(domain_start, &q, 0) != IDNA_SUCCESS)
1011: return ret;

1026: if (idna_to_ascii_lz(ret, &q, 0) != IDNA_SUCCESS)
1027: return ret;

whois:
  Installiert: 5.0.0ubuntu3
  Kandidat: 5.0.0ubuntu3
  Versions-Tabelle:
 *** 5.0.0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Chuck Short (zulcss)]

Thanks for the bug report, Ill try to see if I can get this fixed for the development release and backport it for an SRU.

[Chuck Short (zulcss)]

When doing this, does the behavior change for non .de domains?

[Dave Walker (davewalker)]

@Manuel, Did you see Chuck's question?

@Chuck, Did you have any success with this?

[Thierry Carrez (ttx)]

wontfix as a papercut since it requires some input

[Marco d'Itri (md)]

Either me or the submitter do not understand how this is supposed to work. I do not see any bug.

[Manuel Domke (domke)]

Hi,
I don't know how much ace-conversion other whois servers do, but I'd guess most of the registries which support special characters in their domain names may also support the conversion.

I'd just recommend to keep this whois client as simple as possible, so I'd remove any conversions and leave that to whois servers.
But surely it would change the behaviour for non .de domains with special characters.

If you like, you can also add an exception that the conversion won't be done for .de domains.

[Marco d'Itri (md)]

This is an intelligent client, if you want simple you have telnet.
And again, I do not understand what you are complaining about.

[Manuel Domke (domke)]

I'm complaining about the fact, that i'm requesting information about "müller.de", I get information about xn--mller-kva.de, which is not the object I requested.

My already given example:
whois -h whois.test.denic.de müller.de
This should be asking for "müller.de", but actually it asks the whois server for "xn--mller-kva.de", which is an invalid domain name.
If I really wanted to make a request for xn--mller-kva.de, I would have done..

whois -h whois.test.denic.de -T dn,ace müller.de
Asks for The domain "müller.de" providing the ace flag returns the correct output.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for whois (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]