Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter1.Data Source
Websites
WHOIS
The whois Unix command is still a workhorse, and I've found the web service a decent altern-
ative, too. You can get the basic registration information for any website. In recent years, some
owners have chosen “private” registration, which hides their details from view, but in many cases
you'll see a name, address, email, and phone number for the person who registered the site. You
can also enter numerical IP addresses here and get data on the organization or individual that
owns that server.
Unfortunately the terms of service of most providers forbid automated gathering and processing
of this information, but you can craft links to the Domain Tools site to make it easy for your
users to access the information:
<a href="http://whois.domaintools.com/www.google.com">Info for www.google.com</a>
There is a commercial API available through whoisxmlapi.com that ofers a JSON interface and
bulk downloads, which seems to contradict the terms mentioned in most WHOIS results. It costs
$15 per thousand queries. Be careful, though; it requires you to send your password as a nonse-
cure URL parameter, so don't use a valuable one:
curl "http://www.whoisxmlapi.com/whoisserver/WhoisService?\
domainName=oreilly.com&outputFormat=json&userName=<username>&password=<password>"
{"WhoisRecord": {
"createdDate": "26-May-97",
"updatedDate": "26-May-10",
"expiresDate": "25-May-11",
"registrant": {
"city": "Sebastopol",
"state": "California",
"postalCode": "95472",
"country": "United States",
"rawText": "O'Reilly Media, Inc.\u000a1005 Gravenstein Highway North
\u000aSebastopol, California 95472\u000aUnited States\u000a",
"unparsable": "O'Reilly Media, Inc.\u000a1005 Gravenstein Highway North"
},
"administrativeContact": {
"city": "Sebastopol",
...
Search WWH ::




Custom Search