Your favorite whois service?

[DomainMagnate]

So which one do you use?

 

[typeins]

Domain Dossier

 

[Theo]

whois.sc

 

[typeins]

the whois history tool is pretty damn cool too

 

[GAMEFINEST]

dynadot.com and do the who is ...very fast

 

[Devil Dog]

domaintools.com and nothing else.

 

[dolansco]

domaintools.com and nothing else.

indeed

 

[PRED]

domaintools.com and nothing else.

:yes:

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Linux or BSD command line client.

 

[ck89102]

domaintools.com and nothing else.

I've added domaintools.com to my favorites. It is terrific. Thank you.

And thank you for the post. It gave me an idea & late yesterday, I registered whosis.org (not pretty, I know.). Today, it's making me money.
Go figure.

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Beware of cached results using HTTP. For a mission-critical result, you need to use TCP on port 43, with a request to the authoritative whois server for the extension.

I regged and still have whois.hn - the last extension in the world I could find unregged, and still have it. Not even bothered to optimise it on parking yet. Lazy

 

[DomainMagnate]

Hey Dale, what site do your scripts query for the whois info?

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Hey Dale, what site do your scripts query for the whois info?

Hi Michael

Well, here's how whois works for TLDs:

First, you need to send a TCP port 43 request to rs.internic.net and then you need to parse the secondary whois server from that result, and send a TCP port 43 request to THAT whois server.

To wit:

First pass:

MacBook:~ dalehubbard$ whois -h rs.internic.net dalehubbard.com

Whois Server Version 1.3

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: DALEHUBBARD.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS1.MESSAGINGENGINE.COM
Name Server: NS2.MESSAGINGENGINE.COM
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Updated Date: 30-oct-2006
Creation Date: 05-mar-1999
Expiration Date: 05-mar-2008

Notice now that rs.internic.net:43 indicates the second and final pass for the last query which is whois.godaddy.com:

To wit:

MacBook:~ dalehubbard$ whois -h whois.godaddy.com dalehubbard.com
The data contained in GoDaddy.com, Inc.'s WhoIs database,
while believed by the company to be reliable, is provided "as is"
with no guarantee or warranties regarding its accuracy. This
information is provided for the sole purpose of assisting you
in obtaining information about domain name registration records.
Any use of this data for any other purpose is expressly forbidden without the prior written
permission of GoDaddy.com, Inc. By submitting an inquiry,
you agree to these terms of usage and limitations of warranty. In particular,
you agree not to use this data to allow, enable, or otherwise make possible,
dissemination or collection of this data, in part or in its entirety, for any
purpose, such as the transmission of unsolicited advertising and
and solicitations of any kind, including spam. You further agree
not to use this data to enable high volume, automated or robotic electronic
processes designed to collect or compile this data for any purpose,
including mining this data for your own personal or commercial purposes.

Please note: the registrant of the domain name is specified
in the "registrant" field. In most cases, GoDaddy.com, Inc.
is not the registrant of domain names listed in this database.


Registrant:
Dale Hubbard
Shangri La
Sidmouth Road
Clyst St Mary, Devon EX5 1DN
United Kingdom

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: DALEHUBBARD.COM
Created on: 05-Mar-99
Expires on: 05-Mar-08
Last Updated on:

Administrative Contact:
Hubbard, Dale [email protected]
Shangri La
Sidmouth Road
Clyst St Mary, Devon EX5 1DN
United Kingdom
7821964540 Fax --

Technical Contact:
Hubbard, Dale [email protected]
Shangri La
Sidmouth Road
Clyst St Mary, Devon EX5 1DN
United Kingdom
7821964540 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MESSAGINGENGINE.COM
NS2.MESSAGINGENGINE.COM

Okay - now that's a *definitive* whois query, and how my own whois client is built.

 

[DomainMagnate]

thanks, is there any limit on number of queries you can send to that server from one ip?

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Michael, indeed there is; hence my caveat for HTTP and cacheing. Different *secondary* or 'second level' or 'secondary' lookups have different quotas, but the top-level rs.internic.net has no quota.