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##################################################
# About
##################################################

Prefix WhoIs displays the origin-as and other interesting information
related to the most specific prefix currently advertised within the
Internet's global routing table that corresponds to the IP address in
your query. This package provides two main components to make this
possible.  

  1) The 'pwhois-updatedb' program downloads the global routing table 
from a router or route-view server of your choosing and stores this data 
(about 150,000+ prefixes, and over 5 million unique entries (from some 
route-views)) in a MySQL or PostgreSQL database.  With a cron script this 
data can be updated at an interval of your choosing, however we recommend 
not more frequent than every 4 hours (to be considerate of the route-view 
server from which you pull the data).  pwhois-updatedb is smart enough
to merge the data and expire records that are no longer in the global
routing table, so this provides some limit to the amount of disk space you
will need.
	
  2) The 'pwhoisd' server process serves up this information to clients over 
the whois protocol (port 43/tcp).  In addition, the pwhoisd daemon supports 
some new query types and output formats including its own internal pwhois 
format, Team Cymru's output format (see www.cymru.com), and RPSL (RFC 2622) 
for further compatibility.

pwhoisd also supports bulk queries for integration with other processes, 
including Layer Four Traceroute (LFT), which is popular with network engineers. 
See www.pwhois.org for more details.

Obviously, any whois client that supports the ability to supply your own
whois server to query is compatible with pWhoIs.

This package is most useful with our own whois client, called WhoB, and
associated whois client library, released separately.  We encourage the use 
of this client with the pWhoIs server package for the most benefit.

For more information, please visit:

	http://www.pwhois.org/

Once you have your pWhoIs server running, for additional information about
the features and functions of the server, try executing the command:

	whois -h <your_pwhois_server_ip> help


##################################################
# System Requirements:
##################################################

The global routing table is large, over 150,000+ prefixes at present, and
in order to achieve fast performance with the server process, this information
is cached in memory in a patricia tree.  BE FOREWARNED: You may require as much 
as 300MB of RAM to run both the pwhoisd and pwhois-updatedb programs if you are
using a full Internet routing table, not including what is required for your 
MySQL or PostgreSQL database.


##################################################
# Global pWhoIs Service:
##################################################

The pWhoIs team and fellow good netizens also maintain a global network of 
pWhoIs servers which provides the best server for answering your queries based 
upon the distance/location of the client from the DNS server you speak with 
(your location on the Internet).  This greatly improves the performance of 
the Global pWhoIs service available at:

	whois -h whois.pwhois.org <query>

UltraDNS is used to provide this 'directional DNS' service.  To learn more about 
UltraDNS's Directional DNS service, please visit: 

	http://www.ultradns.com/

If you would like to host a node in the global pWhoIs service, given you have
enough hardware resources and bandwidth, please contact us.


##################################################
# Authors:
##################################################

This software was primarily developed by a small group of security-minded 
individuals, who are concerned about the accuracy and availability of data 
regarding the global Internet routing table.  We conduct research into the 
security of the Internet and needed this service for our own research.  
We thought it might be useful to the Internet community as a whole and made 
it freely available in March, 2005.

Some of these individuals are (and special thanks go to):

	Zachary Kanner
	Victor Oppleman
	Robb Ballard
	Rob Thomas and Team Cymru
	Rodney Joffe
	Brett Watson
	

##################################################
# Your Help:
##################################################

Like we said, this is free software, developed by people that care about what 
happens on the Internet.  We are not paid to do this.  If you feel you can 
contribute in some way, we would be happy to hear from you.  Please send your 
patches, questions, comments, money, beer (we like amber and R-E-D-STRIPE!), 
coffee, etc.  to pwhois-team@pwhois.org.

