whois : Java Glossary

Whois

There are five common questions about domain names and IPs you may have:

1. Who owns this IP?
2. I know the domain name. What IP does it map so I can put an entry in my hosts. file.
3. Who owns this domain name?
4. Where on the planet is this IP broadcasting from?
5. What is my face IP?
6. Is this server available/up?

1. Who Owns This IP?

For the first question, who owns or is currently using this IP, see IP lookup services

• domaintools.com; most comprehensive list of trivia
• GeekTools: find owner of a given IP.
• arin.net
• CyberAbuse.org: find owner given IP or DNS name.

2. Finding the IP From a Domain Name

For the second question, finding the IP given the domain name, you need an DNS lookup service:

• domaintools.com for .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us. This search is more flexible letting you find usaweatherreport.??? by typing just weather. The best way to figure out what all the option check boxes are for is just to tick them one at a time and see what the effect is.
• www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp for .com, .net and .org
• www.cira.ca for .ca
• You can use TweakDUN to look up DNS names and add their ips to your host file. You can also use it to lookup up DNS names with the DNS abilities of your computer and its gateway.

3. Finding out who owns a Domain

For the third question (who owns this domain) use one of these whois services:

• 101Domain.com. Does not make you take a typing test to use the service as many others do.
• www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp for .com, .net and .org
• www.cira.ca for .ca

You might think it sufficient for to check if a domain name is taken to simply point your browser to www.xxxxx.com and see if you get a 404 not found error. However, the name may be taken, with no webserver set up, so the name would appear to be free when it was actually taken.

4. Finding out Where a Domain/IP is Located

For third question (where is the domain located) use one of these IP locator services:

• Discussion of kludges to get an approximate answer.
• IP Locator
• ShowMyIP.com: just tells your face IP.
• netgeo.
• Google geographical location ip address
• MaxMind sells code to obtain the country, region, city, latitude, and longitude of any IP address. This would often be an ISP rather than the actual company responsible for content.

5. Finding our Your Face IP

Ways of Finding Your Face IP
Logo	Link	Notes
	Your face IP:[38.107.191.111]	Your face IP is displayed at the bottom of every page of this website. I do this with SSI.
	IPchicken.com	tells your face ip, and which ports you have open. They also tell you your face name, e.g. your URL on the web, possibly temporarily assigned for your connection. It might look something like this S010609991195576dda.gv.shawcable.net or d207-81-138-97.bchsia.telus.net That is not my real one. I don’t want to encourage hackers.
	checkip.dyndns.org:8245/	Offers many other services as well.
	WhaIsMyIPAddress.com	has many annoying ads you must close to discover the answer.
—	—	In a Servlet you can use javax.servlet. ServletRequest. getRemotePort().

6. Is this server available/up?

is a whoIs that tells you if a server is available/up. It also tells you the IP given the host or the host given the IP.