What is Happening with the Desktop Software?

dpadmin

We are still working on the new major versions of the desktop software. The process is slow because we decided to completely rework all the software products from scratch.

All our desktop software products use our own back-end libraries in C and C++ that have been built over many years starting from 1995 (even before the Company was founded).

We were tasked with building and testing all core code from scratch in a different language and using a framework that had just launched (Tauri). As development progressed, it became evident that we had massively underestimated the scope of the project. The good news is we have been able to work through most of it and are well on the way to the first practical product.

In conclusion, you can expect to see new major versions beginning to come out in the next few months. We will soon be revamping the site at domainpunch.com. We will also move the existing desktop products under a ‘Legacy Products’ heading.

Update on Desktop Version Software

dpadmin

We are currently in the process of changing the codebase of all our desktop software products. New major versions of the software will be ready in late September or early October.

You can safely purchase any of the current versions and get a free upgrade to the new major version when it is released because we provide free major version upgrades if we release a new version within an year of your purchase. Please contact us if you have any questions.

These desktop version upgrades were originally planned for 2020-2021. The Covid related shutdowns and their aftermath massively affected our ability to work on these and the development of desktop editions had to be temporarily stopped.

A new major version of the Watch My Domains SED (Cloud Edition) is also under development and should be available in early September.

Watch My Domains SED and SAML/SSO Setup

dpadmin

Watch My Domains SED supports SAML for select providers by default and you can add support for other providers easily. Here is a screenshot that shows setting up Azure AD as the provider.

When you configure Watch My Domains SED at the identity provider, you will be prompted to enter details like Recipient URL, ACS URL, Single Logout URL etc. This is typically ‘saml.php’ at the root URL of the Watch My Domains SED installation.

For example, if the Watch My Domains SED application is installed at

https://domains.yourdomain.com/

The Recipient URL will be

https://domains.yourdomain.com/saml.php

For ACS (Consumer) URL, use

https://domains.yourdomain.com/saml.php?acs

For Single Logout URL, use

https://domains.yourdomain.com/saml.php?sls

If you have to enter an Entity ID/Identifier, use

https://domains.yourdomain.com/metadata.php

Endurance / ResellerClub Registrar RDAP Problem

dpadmin

The registrar RDAP server of ResellerClub/Endurance is at rdapserver.net and it has a problem.

The domain whoisview.com expired on May 4th 2022 and registry WHOIS/RDAP shows the expiry date as one year from the real expiry, that is May 4th 2023. This is normal because the registrar updates the expiry date with +1 year at the registry while the domain is in the renewal grace period. With most registrars you can find the actual expiry date by querying the registrar WHOIS/RDAP directly. The one year discrepancy between the registry and registrar expiry dates is an immediate indication that the domain has gone past it’s original expiry date and is in grace period.

What is not normal is the registrar records obtained by directly querying the registrar RDAP server (in this case, rdapserver.net) showing a +1 year expiry date. This is very dangerous if you are monitoring the expiry dates using only RDAP.

The WHOIS server for Resellerclub at whois.PublicDomainRegistry.com shows the actual expiry as May 4th 2022 for whoisview.com, but the RDAP records at https://rdapserver.net/domain/whoisview.com doesn’t. It even shows the original name servers and not the currently active parking name servers (*.parkpage.foundationapi.com)

To recap

If you use RDAP to monitor your domains and have a domain that is expired and is in grace period, both the expiry dates will lead you to believe that you have renewed the domain for an year when you actually haven’t.

The problem doesn’t exist if you use registrar API or port 43 Whois.

Other registrar RDAP data too may have similar problems. Always look at the name servers (they will be often changed to registrar parking pages) and the domain status codes (domains in grace period will often have clientTransferProhibited)

Watch My Domains Mac / Windows Versions

dpadmin

The new Watch My Domains Pro v6 for Windows and macOS has caused some confusions about updates because of the original and older version 1.5 of Watch My Domains Mac. Here are some clarifications on this.

Originally we had separate Mac and Windows versions with different feature sets. Watch My Domains 1.5 for Mac is an original Mac only version.

We are now moving to combined Windows and Mac editions like Watch My Domains Pro v6. However, the original v1.5 for Mac has more features than the corresponding v6 we released recently. The proper upgrade path for 1.5 (Mac) version will be another software called Domain Punch Professional v5 that is currently under development.

You may purchase either v1.5 (Mac) or v6 and contact us to get a complimentary registration code for the other (applicable only to purchases made after May 2nd 2021). You will also have the options to move to Domain Punch Pro v5 when it is released.