Frequently Asked Questions about the whois/nslookup pages
This page attempts to explain what the various pages sitting on this website are all about. I've decided to create a webpage here to clear up some misunderstandings people get about them.
1 The Results
Q: The results I am getting for an object are wrong.
A: The website only interprets what it is given. You probably need to talk to the relevant registry about it. Sometimes if the changes are recent then it takes a little while to forward the information into the whois databases.
Q: Why do I keep getting messages about connection refused or no results at all (not even Not Found)?
A: The website needs to connect to a remote server called a whois server. The connection that is being refused is the webserver connecting to that server. There are two reason why this happens.
Some of these servers have a limit on how often you can connect to them. A small subset of these servers have stupidly low limits which this website easily trips. The other reason is that the remote server has died or crashed.
Q: Why do some results come out all plain and not nicely formatted?
A: There are many (last count 212 that I know of) whois servers and some are appearing, going or being renamed all the time. A server that we don't know about gets the raw information dumped to the screen. There are nearly 40 different types of parsers being used, not to mention the sub-sets of parsers (for things that are almost the same format but are not). Getting all the different whois formats into some common sensible format is quite difficult.
2. The Registrars and Registries
Q: What is a Registrar, what about a Registry?
The Registry is the holder of all the information for the object, such as a domain or IP address allocation. This is organisations like APNIC, ARIN or RIPE. A Registrar is where you apply for a domain who then communicate to the Registry to get it assigned to you. The website looks up both the Registries' and Registrars' information, depending on what you are looking for.
What is your relationship with the Registrars or Registries?
I am a customer of some of the registrars as I have some domain names. There is no other relationship with the registries and registrars. They treat us as badly or as well as everyone else out there.
How did you find out the information about a person or domain? Isn't it secret?
Any information that is found in the lookup tools is available publically from The Internet. All this website does is work out where the information is, re-formats it and makes some minor adjustments (such as country code AU becomes Australia).
Other
Q: What information do you track?
A: We keep the standard weblogs that every website keeps and process this information into some aggregate data. In addition, any query to an unknown whois server generates an email to the administrator. The email only contains the query string and the whois server used. An example email is shown below. As you can see it doesn't say who asked for it, just that it was asked for.
There have been a problem with the whois query. The query was for enc.com.au and extra was unknown whois server whois.aunic.net
Q: Who uses this information and what for?
A: For the most part, I don't know what the vast majority of the 4000+ unique visitors a month do with the site. I do know some chat room or bulletin board admins use it to check if people say who they are. Also administrators use it to see who is visiting their website or where spam came from. I've even had an escort agency use it (my guess is to check where their online bookings came from).
Of course it can be used to check if a domain is available or, if already allocated, who has it. I may be guessing, but I think this is what it is used for the most. BTW, 15% of the bandwidth is consumed by 3 people; they must be seeing my logo in reverse when they go to sleep by now.
Q: Why have Google adwords?
A: Hardware doesn't grow on trees, nor does it last forever when it is run 24x7. The revenue from the adwords is about enough to pay for the hardware.
Q: Why is the site down at times?
A: The site is run off a dynamic DNS server off my ADSL link. We're on country power; country power likes going away when storms are around (or if it just feel likes it).
Q: Why is the site so slow now?
A: My main webserver, Rizzo finally died and I couldn't be bothered to replace the hardware (again). The sites are now crammed on my overworked server Gonzo which is on a ADSL connection and is rate-limited.