Bloguito!: Whois behind any domain name

Whois

Discover who is hosting a website.

The secrets that nobody search for….

WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase who is) is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block, or an autonomous system, but is also used for a wider range of other information.

The protocol stores and delivers database content in a human-readable format. [more from Wikipedia]

A WHOIS search provides information regarding a domain name, such as deptec.info. It may include information, such as domain ownership, where and when registered, expiration date, and the nameservers assigned to the domain.

Whois services operate through a whois server. Any one can connect to a whois server and send a query. The whois server will then respond to the query and close the connection.

NOTE:

There are several reasons when a WHOIS search may not provide useful results.

Private WHOIS provided by registrar to protect a domain name’s details.

The domain name does not exists or is not registered.

You can use this online tool to do your queries:

Whois Lookup using Telnet

For example, you want to find the domain registration details for “deptec.info”

The whois server for .info domains is whois.afilias.info. So we need to connect to whois.afilias.info on port 43 (the TCP port defined for WHOIS requests) and then send the string deptec.info followed by a carriage return linefeed pair… or just press the key on your keyboard

Try this on your own!

From the Windows Start button select ‘Run’.

Now type

telnet whois.afilias.info 43

and click OK.

The telnet window will open up and briefly show a ‘connecting..’ message. Once the connection is made the window will be blank.

Now type in any .info domain (e.g. bloguito.info) and press the enter key (please note that the telnet window will not display the text that is being typed in)

You should be able to see the unformatted raw domain record in the window.

Using PuTTY as a Telnet client

A lot of people have been having problems with the telnet client or have been unable to install it on Windows.

An alternative is to use PuTTY, a free telnet client: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

Here are the quick instructions to use PuTTY to connect to WHOIS servers and send queries:

Download and run putty.exe.

Under Connection > Telnet select Passive for Telnet negotiation mode.

Return to the Session page, and select Telnet for Connection type.

Type in the desired hostname (i.e. whois.afilias.info) in the Host Name field.

Type 43 in the Port field.

Select Never under Close window on exit.

Click Open.
You should see a blank terminal window:

Putty is connected