How to Use the WHOIS Command to Lookup Ip and Domain Name Information

Summary

The video tutorial demonstrates how to use the WHOIS command to obtain information about IP addresses and domain names. It covers the process for both Mac/Linux and Windows users, with instructions on how to install the WHOIS command on Windows if it's not already present. The host explains that WHOIS can reveal registration and contact details for domain registrants, and even hosting information. Examples are provided, including looking up Google's domain and a personal website, to illustrate the type of data that can be accessed. The video also touches on privacy protection for domain registrants and how to find a website's hosting by using the 'ping' command to get the IP address and then querying that IP with WHOIS. The tutorial concludes with a demonstration of installing the WHOIS command on a Windows system.

Takeaways

• 💻 The WHOIS command is used to look up IP address and domain name information, including contact details and hosting information.
• 📡 On Mac or Linux, the WHOIS command is pre-installed and can be accessed via the terminal; on Windows, it's not installed by default but can be installed from a Microsoft URL.
• 🔎 Running WHOIS with a domain name, such as `whois google.com`, returns various details about the domain's registration and registrar.
• 📅 Domain names have a registration date, and the example shows Google's domain was registered on September 15, 1997, with an expiration date in 2028.
• 🤖 Some contact information is hidden for privacy, while some is publicly available, such as the organization name and state.
• 🌐 Name servers' details are provided in the WHOIS output, which are essential for domain functionality.
• 📝 Privacy protection services are available to prevent public exposure of personal contact information, instead providing a contact form or a disguised email address.
• 🏢 The WHOIS command can also reveal the registrar of a domain, such as MarkMonitor Inc. for Google's domain.
• 🏠 By using the `ping` command followed by a domain, one can obtain the IP address of the hosting provider for that domain.
• 🌐 WHOIS can also provide information on IP addresses, not just domain names, which can help identify hosting services used by a website.
• 💡 Cloudflare, mentioned in the script, is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that can be associated with a domain for asset delivery, but it doesn't necessarily mean the website is hosted on Cloudflare.
• 📚 The tutorial also guides on how to install the WHOIS command on a Windows computer by downloading a zip file from a provided URL and extracting it to a folder.

Q & A

What is the purpose of the 'whois' command?

The 'whois' command is used to look up IP address and domain name information, which can include contact details for the domain registrant and hosting information.

Is the 'whois' command available on all operating systems by default?

The 'whois' command is available by default on Mac and Linux systems through the terminal. However, on Windows, it is not installed by default and needs to be installed separately.

What is the process to use the 'whois' command on Windows?

On Windows, you can use the command prompt to execute the 'whois' command after installing it. The installation involves downloading a 'whois' zip file from a Microsoft URL, extracting it, and then copying the path to the folder it was extracted to.

What is the significance of the domain registration date?

The domain registration date indicates when the domain name was first registered. It is important as it shows the age of the domain, which can be a factor in its credibility and search engine rankings.

Why might some contact information be hidden from public view in a 'whois' lookup?

Some contact information may be hidden due to privacy protection services that domain registrants use to prevent their personal details from being publicly accessible on the internet.

What is the role of Verisign in the domain registration process?

Verisign is the company that manages .com domain names. Every .com domain that is registered goes through Verisign at some point in the registration process.

What does a 'name server' refer to in the context of domain names?

A name server is a server that appends domain names to IP addresses. They are part of the Domain Name System (DNS) and are crucial for directing traffic to the correct location on the internet.

How can one find out the hosting information of a website?

One can use the 'ping' command to find the IP address associated with a website's hosting. Then, by using the 'whois' command on that IP address, one can obtain information about the hosting company.

null

null

What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and how is it related to website hosting?

A CDN is a system of distributed servers that deliver web content to users based on their geographic location, the origin of the web page, and the content delivery server to ensure fast and reliable access. It can be related to website hosting as it may host some of the website's assets to improve load times and performance.

How does the 'whois' command provide information about a domain's registrar?

The 'whois' command provides information about the registrar when it returns the details of the domain's registration. This includes the name of the registrar company, the registration and expiration dates, and sometimes contact information.

What is the difference between a registrar and a hosting company?

A registrar is a company that manages the reservation of internet domain names, while a hosting company provides the actual space and resources on the internet for websites to be viewed by others. A domain can be registered with one company and hosted with another.

How can the 'whois' command be used to look up information on an IP address?

The 'whois' command can be used on an IP address by simply inputting the IP address after the command, just as you would with a domain name. This will return information about the organization that owns the IP address and related details.

Outlines

00:00

🔍 Introduction to WHOIS Command for Domain Lookup

This paragraph introduces the WHOIS command, which is used to look up IP address and domain name information. It explains that this can include contact details of the domain registrant and hosting information. The speaker notes that the WHOIS command is pre-installed on Mac and Linux systems and can be accessed via the terminal, while Windows users need to use the command prompt and may need to install WHOIS separately. The tutorial then demonstrates how to use the WHOIS command by looking up information for 'google.com', including its registration date, registrar, and some contact details. It also touches upon privacy protection for domain registrants and how some information may be hidden from public view.

05:01

🌐 Exploring WHOIS for Different Domains and IP Lookup

The second paragraph continues the discussion on WHOIS by comparing the results of looking up 'google.com' with another domain, 'tonyteachers.tech'. It highlights the differences in the registrar and the level of public information available for each domain. The speaker also demonstrates the use of a contact form for privacy protection, which is a feature provided by some registrars to prevent direct public access to the registrant's contact information. Additionally, the paragraph explores how to find out the hosting information for a domain by using the 'ping' command to get the IP address and then using WHOIS to look up the hosting company associated with that IP. The paragraph concludes with a brief mention of installing the WHOIS command on a Windows computer by downloading it from a Microsoft URL.

Keywords

💡WHOIS command

The WHOIS command is a query and response protocol used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name. In the video, it is used to look up IP address and domain name information, which can include contact details for the registrant and hosting information. It is a crucial tool for understanding the ownership and registration details of a domain name.

💡IP address

An IP address is a unique numerical label assigned to each device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. In the context of the video, the WHOIS command can be used to find out the IP address associated with a domain name, which can then be used to determine the hosting company or physical location of the website.

💡Domain name

A domain name is a human-readable string of characters that represents an IP resource and is used to identify a collection of such addresses under a single name. The video demonstrates how to use the WHOIS command to find information about a domain name, such as its registration date, expiration date, and registrar.

💡Registrar

A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. In the video, Mark Monitor Incorporated and Google Domains are mentioned as registrars, responsible for the registration of the domain names google.com and tonyteachers.tech, respectively.

💡Privacy protection

Privacy protection is a service that domain name registrants can use to hide their personal contact information from the public WHOIS database. In the video, it is mentioned that some domain registrants, like the owner of tonyteachers.tech, use privacy protection to prevent their contact details from being publicly available.

💡Name servers

Name servers are the servers that handle the Domain Name System (DNS) records for a domain name. They are crucial for translating human-friendly domain names into IP addresses that computers use to identify each other on the network. The video discusses how the WHOIS command can reveal the name servers associated with a domain name.

💡Hosting company

A hosting company provides services required for a website or an application to be accessible over the internet. In the video, WPX Hosting is mentioned as the hosting company for tonyteachers.tech, and Cloudflare is mentioned in relation to networkchuck.com, indicating that it may be used for content delivery or hosting.

💡Ping command

The ping command is a computer network administration utility used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It measures the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer. In the video, the ping command is used to find the IP address associated with a domain name, which can then be used to determine the hosting company.

💡Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The main goal is to provide high availability and performance by distributing the service spatially relative to end-users. In the video, Cloudflare is mentioned as a CDN that may be used for hosting assets for networkchuck.com.

💡VeriSign

VeriSign is an American company which provides domain registration services and internet infrastructure, including operating two of the internet's root name servers and managing the .com and .net top-level domains. In the video, VeriSign is mentioned as the company that manages .com domain names, and the WHOIS information for google.com begins with VeriSign's data.

💡Radix

Radix is a domain name registry that manages the registration and operation of various top-level domains (TLDs). In the video, it is mentioned that all .tech domain names are registered through Radix, which is based in Mumbai, India.

Highlights

The WHOIS command can be used to look up IP address and domain name information.

On Mac or Linux, WHOIS is accessible via Terminal, while on Windows it's accessed through Command Prompt.

WHOIS can provide contact information for domain registrants and hosting information.

Every .com domain goes through Verisign, the company managing .com domain names.

Google.com was first registered on September 15, 1997, with registration until 2028.

Some contact information for domains is hidden from public view for privacy.

WHOIS can also provide information from the registrar, such as creation, update, and expiration dates.

Different domain endings, like .tech, are registered through different companies, such as Radix.

Privacy protection can prevent contact information from being publicly visible.

A disguised email address can be provided for contact forms to protect privacy.

The ping command can reveal the IP address associated with a domain's web hosting.

WHOIS can also look up information based on an IP address, not just domain names.

Hosting companies can be identified through WHOIS lookups of associated IP addresses.

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) like Cloudflare may be associated with a domain but not necessarily the hosting provider.

WHOIS command is not installed by default on Windows but can be installed from a Microsoft URL.

After installing WHOIS on Windows, it can be executed from the Command Prompt for any domain or IP address.

Transcripts

in this video i'm going to show you how

to use the who is command to look up ip

address and domain name information and

this information can be contact

information for whoever registered the

domain name and it can even be hosting

information so let's go ahead and hop on

into the tutorial if you're on a mac or

a linux computer you're already going to

have the whois command installed and you

can access it via terminal if you're on

windows you're going to use the command

prompt but this is not installed by

default stick around to the end of the

video if you want to learn how to

install who is on windows but otherwise

let's go ahead and proceed so like i

said we have the who is command

installed and you can see how to use it

here we're going to do our first example

with who is google.com so it's just who

is and then the name of a domain name

so hit enter and it's going to spit out

a lot of information definitely

overwhelming at first but let me walk

you through it so

every single dot com domain name that

you look up is going to start with this

section it's just

generic information for

anybody who has a dot com so every dot

com goes through verisign

that is the company who manages dot com

domain names so if you register a dot

com domain it's going to go through

verisign at some point so

not not the most interesting stuff at

the top maybe something that's

interesting is that the first.coms were

recruited in 1985. okay so the next

section is more along the lines of what

we're interested in so specifically the

domain name google.com

has some information here so that was

first registered on

september 15 1997

and they have the domain name registered

until 2028 so

they they're well out there and that's

like a what is it eight years into the

future six to eight years into the

future

they registered with their registrar is

mark monitor incorporated okay they have

a little bit of contact information in

here but it seems they have a lot of

that information hidden from the public

view uh here's some name servers

and that's about all the interesting

stuff so that was a who is from verisign

uh there's also a who is from mark

monitor their registrar so you see some

redundant information so google.com

uh the same

creation date updated date the

expiration date

and then

uh the same type of contact information

and

the name servers as well so

they do have a little bit more public

information that they're out of

california the the organization's called

google llc

but that's about it for google let's try

another example i'm going to pull up

another terminal window here just to

show you how these these two compared to

each other so

uh where were we who is so who is we'll

try who is tony teaches dot tech

okay so this is a different domain

ending so we're not gonna see a com at

the top we're going to see a dot tech so

all dot tech domain names are registered

through

radix okay and they're out of mumbai

india

and that came into existence the tech

domain name

first came into existence in 2015. so

cool but uh not what we're here to look

at

so let's look at tonyteachers.tech so

that is my website if you haven't

figured that out i registered that on

january 19th of 2020

i registered it with google so google

domains

here is my name servers they're all

google domain name servers and i have

some privacy protection so you can't see

any of my contact information

that is here here's the who is that who

is google.com

this is my registrar this is the

information for my privacy protection

the only way the only kind of public

information that is exposed

which really isn't much is this

registrant email so it's not my email it

just takes you to a contact form and let

me show you

what that looks like so i'm going to go

here open that up and if you did want to

get in touch with me

you can

type the domain name in it already

pre-filled it for you confirm that

you're not a robot submit and then it's

going to give you a contact form that

will

actually it's not going to give you

contact form sorry it's going to give

you an email address a hidden email

address the disguise email address but

this will actually end up in my email

box so you can

some people have their information

public some of them

have contact forms some of them have

private email addresses like this just

so that your public information isn't

sitting out there on the internet so

that's what that looks like

anything else interesting in here

not really

what is interesting though i got my

domain name from google domains as you

can tell here but what about my website

where is my website hosted well there is

a way you can sometimes figure this out

so for a particular

website or a particular domain name

let's go ahead and ping it use the ping

command so if we ping tony teaches

dot tech that's going to give us back

the ip address associated with the web

hosting for that that domain name so now

we can use the whois command to look up

that ip address it doesn't have to be a

domain name it can be an ip address as

well so let's see what's going on at

194.1.147

dot

what was the other

147.33 okay so

that shows us

uh let's see the organization that

i guess owns that ip address is ripe ncc

uh

k

media tech okay we're getting onto

something here and there it is wpx

hosting wpx hosting is my hosting

company that's what i use to host my

website and they are out of

sofia bulgaria okay so that's where my

website is hosted

we can try this for

another website right so we can do who

is

network

chuck

dot com

and he has a dot com so you see that

same exact verisign information at the

top

and he registered his domain name

in 2016

from

godaddy so his he he used godaddy to

register his domain but that doesn't

necessarily mean that his website is

hosted with godaddy so we can try a

similar technique we can do ping

network

chuck.com

that'll give us back the ip address of

his web hosting and then we can do who

is

this ip address

and we'll see information from

cloudflare so cloudflare is like it's a

cdn a content delivery network so that

doesn't necessarily mean his website is

hosted from that that just means that uh

some of his assets are there but it it

could be the case that he's hosting

directly with cloud failure

um

so yeah i think now i'll show you how to

install the

uh whois command on windows so check

that out next as you can see here the

who is command is not installed on this

windows computer but we can install it

by going to this microsoft url and

downloading this who is zip file and we

can go ahead and extract that zip file

and then what you're going to want to do

is copy the path to the folder that it

was extracted to

open up a command prompt window

cd into that directory and now you can

execute the whois command for any domain

name or ip address that you desire

[Music]