Verifying Domains

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Verifying Domains

To verify if Unplugged Cities does any type of service for a domain please try the following steps.

WHOIS - Run a whois check on a domain to determine if UPC is the registrar of the domain. This will also let you know the authoritative DNS servers for the domain as well as the domain expiration date. Doing a WHOIS allows you to determine the registrars information as well as determining the DNS hosting information. Below are different WHOIS services available on the net for free.

Tucows - all Metro Provider domain registration should be through Tucows, the WHOIS links is http://resellers.tucows.com/whois.

Network Solutions (Netsol) - a major domain registrar and formally part of ICANN, now a separate company, the whois address is http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp.

ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) is the IP assigning authority for the America's, their WHOIS search is for advanced users http://www.arin.net/whois/.

Below are the WHOIS results for stampprof.com on Tucows whois.

Whois info for, stampprof.com:
Registrant:
 The Stamp Professor
 8841 Preserve Pl
 Savage, MN 55378
 US

 Domain name: STAMPPROF.COM

 Administrative Contact:
    Bean, Frederick  fbean@stampprof.com
    8841 Preserve Pl
    Savage, MN 55378
    US
    952-496-0577

 Technical Contact:
    Administrator, Domain  domainreg@metroprovider.com
    800 Washington Ave. N
    Minneapolis, MN 55401
    US
    763-235-3060

 Registration Service Provider:
    Metro Provider, domainreg@metroprovider.com
    763-235-3060
    763-235-3000 (fax)
    http://www.metroprovider.com

 Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
 Record last updated on 11-Jun-2008.
 Record expires on 10-Jul-2009.
 Record created on 11-Jul-1997.

 Registrar Domain Name Help Center:
    http://domainhelp.tucows.com

 Domain servers in listed order:
    1.NS.ORBIS.NET   
    0.NS.ORBIS.NET   
    2.NS.ORBIS.NET

Domain status: ok

NSLOOKUP - A command that can be run most easily using MS-DOS or a Unix command line. This command will check what IP address the domain name is pointed to for web-hosting. The format for this command is 'nslookup domain.tld' . See screenshot from DOS below.

You can then do a nslookup on the IP address and determine the name of the server that it is hosted on, generally this will tell you who hosts the domain. See 'Metro Provider > Hosting > Hosting Servers' in KB for UPC hosting servers. Below is a screenshot of a nslookup for the IP resolved from the previous screenshot.

NSLOOKUP for Mail Servers - the procedure for determining who does the e-mail hosting for a domain are identical except that you would want to use mail.domain.tld after nslookup. See example screenshots below.

Here we do the nslookup of the IP from the previous screenshot. You can see it ultimately points back to the dc1mail01.unpluggedcities.com mail server.

If you are still unsure of the host based on the nslookup you can do a WHOIS of the IP address itself. This will tell you who the actual owner of the IP address. One way or another they are responsible for that IP address.

DIG - is a UNIX command that is the successor to the nslookup command. DIG features many improvements and more information available. The features are listed below.

The format of the command is dig domain.tld

Shows the IP address that is associated with that host name.

Shows the authoritative DNS servers for the hostname.

Shows you the DNS server that was used to perform the query. Also allows you to specify the DNS server if needed.

DIG shows you the total query time for the command.

DIG also allows you to do a MX (mail) command that allows you to query the mail information for a hostname. The format of the command is dig MX domain.tld.

Articles

Domain Records Guide
DNS Record Example

Keywords

Domain
DNS

Filename	Description
verifyingdomains-original.html	Original Verifying Domains document

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http://staff.metroprovider.com/wombat/KBIssue.asp?id=1079