Adding Whois Lookup Support for More Domains
All the domain name software products featured at this site allow you to configure the way domain names are checked for availability. This article explains the whois server configuration. Example configurations for a number of ccTLDs are available here.
The information in this article applies to the following products:
- Domain Name Analyzer Professional v4
- Watch My Domain Professional v2
- Watch My Domains ISP v2
- Domain Punch Professional v1.
Adding Support for a new Country Code Domain
To configure support for any top level or country code domain you will need to know
- The port 43 whois server for the domain
- A unique string in the whois output that indicates the availability or non availability of a domain for registration
- Any additional query options (specified by the whois server operator)
To configure various top level and country codes you should use the Edit > Top Level Domain List menu option. This will list all the currently configured top level and country code extensions.
To add a new domain extension, simply type in the extension into the box (at the lower part of the window) and click the Add button. Then select the new extension in the list and click the Settings... button.
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Basic Whois Server Setup
The settings screen allows you to configure the basic whois server information. Please see screen shot below.
Normally the query prefix box should be left blank. However for Com and Net domains the proper query prefix is domain and is required.
The query prefix is useful for whois servers that require special options. For example, to manage German domain names with umlauts, the following query prefix is required.
-T dn -C ISO-8859-1
Please visit the registrar web sites for details on similar options supported by different whois servers.
You can also change the port used for doing whois lookups (from the default port 43). Use this only if you have special access to whois servers on a different port (eg: Nominet DAC).
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Domain Availability String Token
The search token is a unique string in the whois output that indicates the availability of a domain for registration. However there are cases where the whois output indicates the reverse. For example a whois output may show Not available when a domain is already registered. In such cases you can put a~ before the string to indicate that the domain is available when the string is not present.
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Resetting changes made to whois configuration
If you make changes and the software stops working properly you can reset the changes for a specific domain extension. For example, let us assume that you wish to reset the whois configuration for UK domains.
- Right click any .UK domain in your main list (not in the domain configuration dialog)
- Select Data Extraction Setup > Reset to default menu option
- You will be asked to confirm, do so.
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Advanced Whois Server Configuration
You can use the Whois Server Settings button to access the advanced configuration dialog. This allows you to specify the connection interval, number of simultaneous connections, etc. for a whois server. Please see whois usage restrictions to see why this is important.
To increase the speed of lookups you should increase the number of allowed simultaneous connections and decrease the connection interval.
For TLDs and ccTLDs that have multiple registrars (eg: COM, NET domains) the connection intervals and connection count need to be set separately each whois server. The easiest way to do this is by right clicking a domain and selecting the "Data Extraction Setup > Whois Server..." menu. Please see the next section (authoritative whois servers) for a better explanation of this.
Most whois output have standard header and footer messages that may be removed for a better on screen display. You can specify string tokens for cleaning the whois output.
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COM and NET domains - Authoritative Whois Servers
COM and NET domains do not have an all purpose single whois server. This is because the authoritative whois data for a domain is only available with the actual registrar. For example, if you register a domain with Register.Com, only Register.Com will have the actual owner records for the domain.
This means that more than one lookup is required for COM and Net domains. The first lookup queries the registry (normally done through whois.crsnic.net, port 43). This will provide information about the authoritative whois server. This information is used to make a second query to retrieve the actual whois data. You can prevent the second lookup (in case you don't want the additional information) using the Lookup > Do Authoritative Whois Lookup menu option.
You can do advanced whois server configuration for most authoritative whois servers. However this can be accessed only by right clicking a domain and selecting appropriate Data Extraction Setup menu option. For example, to configure the advanced settings for whois.opensrs.net (Tucows / OpenSRS whois server) you would right click on any domain registered through OpenSRS and then select Data Extraction Setup > Whois Server menu option.
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