Then use a "real" directory system, like the UDD. It's neither X.500 nor Standard in any way, but it exists and works, today. It's not very well documented but then it's not the only thing which is not very well documented either. There have already been several changes to the SIGNUP FILE contents and exact format since /WHOIS was written, fortunately none of them happened to create any problem for /WHOIS but it should be clear that SIGNUP FILE was never meant to be used as a directory service, and its format can change at any time for performance or usability considerations. Eric