Recipe 16.11. Getting Information About a Domain Name

Recipe 16.11. Getting Information About a Domain Name 16.11.1. Problem You want to look up contact information or other details about a domain name. 16.11.2. Solution Use PEAR's Net_Whois class: require 'Net/Whois.php'; $server = 'whois.networksolutions.com'; $query = 'example.org'; $data = Net_Whois::query($server, $query); 16.11.3. Discussion The Net_Whois::query( ) method returns a large text string whose contents reinforce how hard it can be to parse different Whois results: Registrant: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (EXAMPLE2-DOM) 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330 Marina del Rey, CA 90292 US Domain Name: EXAMPLE.ORG Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Billing Contact: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) iana@IANA.ORG 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330 Marina del Rey, CA 90292 US 310-823-9358 Fax- 310-823-8649 Record last updated on 07-Jan-2002. Record expires on 01-Sep-2009. Record created on 31-Aug-1995. Database last updated on 6-Apr-2002 02:56:00 EST. Domain servers in listed order: A.IANA-SERVERS.NET 192.0.34.43 B.IANA-SERVERS.NET 193.0.0.236 For instance, if you want to parse out the names and IP addresses of the domain name servers, use this: preg_match_all('/^\s*([\S]+)\s+([\d.]+)\s*$/m', $data, $dns, PREG_SET_ORDER); foreach ($dns as $server) { print "$server[1] : $server[2]\n"; } You must set $server to the correct Whois server for a domain to get information about that domain. If you don't know the server to use, query whois.internic.net: require 'Net/Whois.php'; print Net_Whois::query('whois.internic.net','example.org'); require 'Net/Whois.php'; print Net_Whois::query('whois.internic.net','example.org'); [whois.internic.net] Whois Server Version 1.3 Domain names in the .com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information. Domain Name: EXAMPLE.ORG Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC. Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com Name Server: A.IANA-SERVERS.NET Name Server: B.IANA-SERVERS.NET Updated Date: 19-aug-2002 >>> Last update of whois database: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 04:56:56 EDT <<< The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and Registrars. The Whois Server: line says that the correct server to ask for information about example.org is whois.networksolutions.com. 16.11.4. See Also PEAR's Net_Whois class at http://pear.php.net/package-info.php?package=Net_Whois.