I have been looking at websites liket namedroppers.com where you can
query domain names in ways that you cannot with whois, such as
keywords. It is clear from the information on their site that they
are maintaining their whois database for their search engine.
I am interested in the techinical aspects of this setup. I know that
this information can be easily obtained from whois queries, but for a
standard whois query you must know the domain name to obtain the
information. What type of query must you issue to get a list of
registered domain names? Once you have obtained the full list of
registered domain names what type of query must you issue to only get
a list of updated records.
It seems that these should all be trivial tasks with any database, but
I am unable to find much for documentation on how to structure these
queries. I have tried reading through the published RFCs, but have
come up with nothing useful.
Any help in uncovering this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Steven Potter |
Request for Question Clarification by
joseleon-ga
on
09 Sep 2002 12:16 PDT
Hello:
Under Linux you can use this command:
whois "acme."@whois.crsnic.net
which will show a list of all domains that contain acme in its name.
Is this kind of information what are you looking for?
Regards.
|
Clarification of Question by
phred_02-ga
on
09 Sep 2002 16:08 PDT
Well, that is a start... With that command, I am provided with all
domain names that start with acme. But really what I am trying to do
is mirror the whois system to a local database. So I would need
information on all sorts of advanced whois queries such as how to
obtain a list of all registered domain names. I suppost I could issue
the commands "whois 1. @rs.internic.net", "whois 2.
@rs.internic.net",..... 0-1, a-z.... But what I noticed when
testing this is that it stops after 50 results. Is this a result of
the server I am connecting to, or is it a result of the client program
I am useing.
Then once I have obtained a list of the registed domain names, it
doesn't make sense to transfer the whole list again when looking for
updates... I would think there is some sort of query to obtain a
list of only the updated records.
So in general I am looking for a comprehensive list of whois queries
and related information that is written in a format a little easier to
understand than RFCs or man pages...
|
Request for Question Clarification by
joseleon-ga
on
09 Sep 2002 23:39 PDT
Hello:
I think the best way for you to develop that kind of software is this
Perl Module:
Net::Whois::RIPE
http://search.cpan.org/author/PAULG/Net-Whois-RIPE-1.19/RIPE.pod
It allows to process a lot of records, right now I'm looking for a
more comprehensive whois manual.
Regards.
|
Clarification of Question by
phred_02-ga
on
10 Sep 2002 07:33 PDT
That looks like it would be a handy little module... Let me know when
you find a more comprehensive manual.
Thanks
Steven Potter
|
Clarification of Question by
phred_02-ga
on
10 Sep 2002 18:04 PDT
The more I read, the more confused I get. Whois seems to be a
standard protocol that is used with many different types of databases.
It also seems that there are several different databases that contain
the whois information for domain names. Some athoritive and others
not. Then there is the whole matter of the number of domain name
registrars, each of which seems to maintain a whois database of their
own domain names.... How confuseing... Like I said before, any
clerification would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Steven Potter
|
Request for Question Clarification by
markoft-ga
on
10 Sep 2002 21:16 PDT
Do you need to query more then just the domain names themselves? FTP
access is given by VeriSign for the .com, .net, and .org TLD zones.
The zone file will contain only the domain name and it's registered
nameservers. A normal whois query will be required to obtain the full
information of the registrant.
Whois itself is a simple database query tool, but has become
associated with the domain name system since that is it's more
familiar use.
|
Clarification of Question by
phred_02-ga
on
11 Sep 2002 19:17 PDT
The ability to obtain the zone files could be handy, but is still not
a solution to the problem. I tried looking around
networksolutions.com for a mention of ftp access to zone files, and I
was unable to find anything.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
markoft-ga
on
11 Sep 2002 22:14 PDT
phred_02,
Network Solutions is to VeriSign like Lincon is to Ford. Same company
but you can't get a Lincoln Mustang. VeriSign is the registry owner
and Network Solutions is a registrar owned by Verisign. That would be
why you found no FTP access at Network Solutions.
So far as namedroppers.com, I would have to say that they are using
the FTP access to get the zonefile then allowing searchs among the
domain names listed in the zone file. The results are used to create
a webpage that links to a CGI script that queries the appropriate
whois server for the full information.
Are you looking to do the same task as namedroppers or are you looking
to search through more information such as the registrant or the
admin, technical and billing contacts?
|
Clarification of Question by
phred_02-ga
on
13 Sep 2002 09:51 PDT
After reading all that I can find on the subject, I would have to
assume that you are correct in that they must be FTPing the zone files
from verisign. If you would like to submit that as an answer I will
accept it.
I am still interested on documentation on complex whois queries. If
you happen to know of a place where I can get this information, it
would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Steven Potter
|
