Description of problem: jwhois is built without cache support. This causes problems with repeated queries on TLD jwhois server swith rate limit. It is also NOT clear from looking at either the man page or the config file Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 3.2.3-8.fc6 Expected results: A working cache. Using setgid jwhois with /var/cache/jwhois should be perfectly safe. Additional info: Even if there is an argument against disabling this functionality, could we at least mention this in the /etc/jwhois.conf file. I've had to go through this broken cache more then once now to "remember" that it was disabled on purpose
Created attachment 146855 [details] Document that cache can be disabled at compile time. Thanks for your report. As the README file says: "Chances are, if you don't use jwhois actively, there is little point in configuring a cache since it would not be used very much anyway." There are two kinds of potential vulnerabilities in jwhois when using the cache code: - Exploiting jwhois to run arbitrary code as the "jwhois" group and eventually as other users running jwhois. It is difficult to estimate the risk, it is probably comparable to the risk of exploiting jwhois by a malicious server, which we must live with. - Intentionally polluting the shared cache with incorrect data. From a quick look, this seems to be possible under favorable conditions. The code isn't very strict about keeping the cache correct, and the fact that adding the whois server as a part of the cache lookup key has happened only in jwhois-3.2.3 doesn't inspire much confidence. So, I don't think enabling the global cache is worth the risk; I have sent the attached patch upstream to note the possibility of disabled cache in the documentation. Ideally, it should be possible to have a per-user cache, but that development probably needs to happen upstream.