From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 7 11:23:43 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 99BD216A4CE for ; Wed, 7 Apr 2004 11:23:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from manganese.bos.dyndns.org (manganese.bos.dyndns.org [63.208.196.3]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C49743D39 for ; Wed, 7 Apr 2004 11:23:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from twilde@dyndns.org) Received: from manganese.bos.dyndns.org (twilde@localhost [127.0.0.1]) i37HswdQ089421; Wed, 7 Apr 2004 13:54:58 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from twilde@dyndns.org) Received: from localhost (twilde@localhost)i37HsvBu089418; Wed, 7 Apr 2004 13:54:58 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: manganese.bos.dyndns.org: twilde owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 13:54:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Wilde X-X-Sender: twilde@manganese.bos.dyndns.org To: Odhiambo Washington In-Reply-To: <20040407160825.GA44406@ns2.wananchi.com> Message-ID: References: <20040407160825.GA44406@ns2.wananchi.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Spam-Status: -4.9 () BAYES_00 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.39 cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: WHOIS Server X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 18:23:43 -0000 On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Odhiambo Washington wrote: > Hello people, > > I am lost as to where to do whois queries these days. It seems that > every TLD extension has been assigned to some particular registrar (or > what do I call it?) > What is the sane way of doing whois for "any" domain extension > (.com/.org/.biz, etc)? FreeBSD's WHOIS does this for you automatically. It works by using whois-servers.net: dig com.whois-servers.net. +short whois.verisign-grs.com. 198.41.3.54 ANYTLD.whois-servers.net will CNAME to the appropriate WHOIS server for that TLD. FreeBSD's WHOIS (for quite a few versions now) will automatically try to extract the TLD from your query and query the appropriate server, as long as you don't explicitly tell it one to use. It will also follow referrals, so WHOIS on a .com will get you the .com registry response followed by the response from the actual registrar the domain is with. Tim Wilde -- Tim Wilde twilde@dyndns.org Systems Administrator Dynamic Network Services, Inc. http://www.dyndns.org/