WHOIS "failing" ( was Re: What mode should `whois' be? )

[Jordan Hayes]

Thomas Eric Brunner <brunner at sri-spam.UUCP> writes:

	Note too that whois occasionally fails, even when one is only
	tens of meters "remote" from SRI-NIC, try more than once, or
	twice, or ...

I think it refuses connections based on how many are open ... there
seems to be some sort of threshold before it will refuse to let you
have a connection (anyone know if this is a TOPS-20 "feature" or if the
server was written this way ...? Just some arpanaut trivia ...).

Barry mentioned that whois(1) opens a connection to the NIC because the
command is pretty useless if you aren't on the Internet ... he didn't
know that the original poster (from JPL) had just recently gotten his
link to the Internet through CalTech to work ...

/jordan