Richard,

First of, thanks for providing your efforts.

Secondly, thanks for the great work!

A very nice module, though I first had to look around a bit, to notice, that it has no bocks, and therefore integration can be a little more difficult for a truly unexperienced user. Then again, this is not the kind of module, such a user would probably be interested in installing

Thanks again Richard.

Hi Jason.

Glad you liked it. Our friend JMorris (above) is now in the process of making it into a "proper" Xoops Dev project. So he may add blocks and all kinds of other "bells and whistles" at some point. It's entirely up to him.

In the meantime, I'd be interested in hearing about the difficulty you had "integrating" it. It should install itself like any other XOOPS module creating both user menu and admin menu entries automatically. It should also create and initially populate the dB tables that it uses for configuration of its feature availability and whois lookups. If it failed to do any of that, it has nothing to do with the lack of blocks and I'm curious about what the problem might be. If you can elaborate a bit more, it would also be helpful to its new developer.

Regards,
Richard

P.S.: The Postnuke edition also creates its own admin entry, but, unlike the XOOPS and Xaraya versions, does require a {Netquery} item to be added manually to the items in the CMS's main menu block list. I got lazy.

Don't forget to include timed caching of queried objects and prevention of robot hijacking. Keeping the module away from anonymous useage or direct URL calls is a first step. If you've ever seen an online whois hijacking you'll understand why this can be a disaster. BW Whois is a long standing perl app that behaves nicely in this regard.

Good advice. That part of the module does query port 43 directly on the designated whois servers. As this was an "experiment" developed in our corporate environment, behind closed doors so to speak, I gave no real attention to the "hijacking" issue as such. On the other hand, XOOPS makes prevention of anonymous usage a readily available option. And, of course, the admin can disable Netquery's whois function entirely if s/he so chooses.

Regards,
Richard

A little story: years ago I had a handy Whois/Traceroute form on my site. When NetSol was told to allow additional registrars I caught one of the smaller and less than honest registrars with an online Whois that had scripted their form to query mine. You couldn't tell from their site but mine showed the constant requests.

So I changed it to first only allow requests made from my server directly and from selected hosts. A limit on how many queries can be made in a period of time. A cache of queries so redundant requests are not redone until the cache timeout. The queried server lookup tables has to be maintained and updated.

I did similar lockdowns for traceroutes. That registrar hit the barriers and didn't notice for a few weeks. Their form no longer worked and didn't help their market share.

Thanks for the module!

I will check it out as well.

Do you need your own whois server or are there universal whois that you can use?

JMass

DonXoop: Heheh -- sounds like your "revenge" was right on the mark.

jmass: The initial population of Netquery's whois lookup table in the CMS dB configures it to use external whois servers appropriate to each of the pre-entered domain name.ext TLD entries (whois.crsnic.net for .com, whois.cira.ca for .ca, etc.). But that table can be reconfigured any way you wish from the Netquery admin menu. So all of those choices (and others) are entirely up to the site administrator.

If you look in the install help file, I think I included a very long list of whois servers, although I can't recall if I put that into all of the ZIPs. So you may need to download one of the other editions.

Regards,
Richard.

I wanted to publically thank you, Richard, for giving me the opportunity to take over the development of this module. I've been looking for an opportunity to develope a module, but until now, I didn't have a clue where to begin. This module is of special interest to me as it ties directly into my daily work and college curriculum. I'm excited to work on this project and I hope others will benefit as much from it as I will.

I've setup the project homepage at the Dev site with a little more detail of the project and what I have planned.

Direct Link:
http://dev.xoops.org/modules/xfmod/project/?mwr-netquery

I've split the project into two packages, NetQuery DH and NetQuery SH. The DH designates dedicated hosting required. The SH designates shared hosting compatible.

NetQuery DH is the module as Richard left it. Nothing has been changed except for the name of the file to download. This package will remain untouched so users can view the code as it was originally written. This package is distributed as-is. I have tested it on Windows and *NIX servers and verified it's functionality, but I cannot guarantee its security. Use at your own risk.

NetQuery SH is the spin-off of DH. This module will be based on Richards work, but will be compatible with shared hosting environments. As of now, the SH module is in planning / pre-alpha stage. Once I work out a viable, secure means of emplimenting this module in a shared environment, I will release the first version.

I have made a note of the suggestions offered in this thread at will consider them thoroughly. I cannot comment at this time regarding the feature set I intend to offer since my primary concern at this point is functionality and security.

Once again, thank you, Richard, for your contribution.

Best Regards,

JMorris

Damn! He's quick. Already slicing and dicing on the module.

I look forward to your progress. I do not have a great NEED for this mod, but it interests me as a network admin.

If I can be of any help, please let me know. I too have been looking for a mod to contribute to. I don't feel qualified to do it on my own or be the lead dev. But I would like to help in a community development project.

JMass

Edit - How can I joing the XOOPS forge project??

Well, I registered there like I registered here. As far as I know, registration is completely open.

Here's the direct link to the Registration Form.

Quote:

Well, to be 100% honest, I'm no developer, but there's one thing I do know.... The best way to learn is to DO. So, I'm going to do it. I personally believe that the only limitations to what you can do lie in between your ears. In other words, baring serious mental problems, anyone can do anything they set their mind to.

If you're interested in getting involved with the project, send me a PM with a little info about what you can do and we'll talk it over.

Best Regards,

JMorris