PHP Cookbook

17.11. Getting Information About a Domain Name

Problem

You want to look up contact information or other details about a domain name.

Solution

Use PEAR’s Net_Whois class:

require 'Net/Whois.php';
$server = 'whois.networksolutions.com';
$query  = 'example.org';
$data = Net_Whois::query($server, $query);

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)  [e-mail]
      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'); ...