whois – Domain Punch Blog

Domain Name Management Software: Transition to RDAP

November 14, 2019November 14, 2019 Softnik Support

The Registration Data Access Protocol, or RDAP, is soon going to replace the traditional port 43 Whois. Once RDAP has been deployed, ICANN no longer requires gTLD registries to provide a port 43 whois service. However, most registries are expected to do this in a phased manner .

All the current versions of our software products will be updated before the end of the year to support RDAP.

What this means

Are you using older (major) versions of the software? Once the registries and registrars fully transition to the RDAP and abandon the port 43 Whois, you will no longer be able to retrieve domain related information using your version of the software.

To be able to continue using the software you will have to purchase an upgrade to the latest major version.

The transition to RDAP will not affect the domains that are managed using registrar APIs.

When will this happen?

Registries and registrars are likely to begin providing more information about their plans to phase out the port 43 service in due course. This will happen after the current Registry Agreement (RA) and Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) are amended. As per an ICANN blog post negotiations have been initiated to begin this process and to define a coordinated transition from the WHOIS protocol to RDAP.

Status Report: Watch My Domains SED v4

January 7, 2019February 25, 2019 Softnik Support

The first public beta version will be available for download on February 27, 2018

It has been a while since we announced our plans to release Watch My Domains SED v4. Our original plan was to release it in late 2018. Unfortunately we didn’t account for the large number of tests we had to do on a version that is around 3-4 times bigger.

Version 4 has an extremely large number of new features, add to this the code rewrites and we are left with a huge number of unit, integration, system and user interface tests. We also decided to create a comprehensive Application Programming Interface and use only the API for the user interface. This required even more tests.

We also revised some user interface elements after obtaining feedback from some of our corporate customers.

The good news is that we are extremely happy with how this version is shaping up and we hope to have the first release candidate ready by the third week of January.

What’s New in V4

Here are some of the important improvements:

Support for multiple database back-ends (Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL, SQLite)
Support for importing and Looking up Domains using registrar APIs (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Dynadot, etc.)
Support for Importing Data from DNS Providers like DNSMadeEasy
Control over who can see each data column. You can now define access levels for each data column and specify which user can view the columns.
Full control over lookup and report scheduling from the user interface. There is no need to add additional cron-jobs to control lookups or generate reports.
Create Reports in HTML, PDF or CSV formats.
Complete control over color schemes and fonts.
Vastly improved user interface.
Multiple authentication options including SAML / SSO.

Here are some screen shots.

GDPR and its Effects

May 24, 2018July 17, 2018 Softnik Support

GDPR is almost here and here is a quick note about how it might affect our domain name management tools.

The effects of GDPR will depend on what you have been using the software for. There shouldn’t be any issues if you have been using it to manage your own domains. The technical data will continue to be available as part of port 43 lookups. You can still monitor the expiry dates, name servers, MX records, SSL data etc.

Monitoring the technical data related to your domains is going to be more important in the post GDPR world because there is likely to be a higher incidence of domain thefts in the short term. Some registrars have already started adding security features because of GDPR.

The personal information will most likely disappear from whois. This has already happened for many TLDs / registrar whois outputs. For example, the personal information was already not available for domains that use proxy addresses, many ccTLDs and even the new TLDs like .APP. GoDaddy has been masking some information for a while now.

You can use registrar APIs instead of port 43 whois to obtain the data for your domains. Please see below.

Changes to Transfer Process

The domain transfer process (from one registrar to another) will be undergoing some changes because the gaining registrar will no longer be able to lookup the email addresses. So it is even more important to keep an eye on your name servers, associated IP addresses and domain dates.

Use Registrar APIs instead of Whois

You can use registrar APIs to import domains and obtain the domain information. Currently GoDaddy, Namecheap, Dynadot and Resellerclub are supported. Please see

Registrar API Support

for more details. We are hoping to add support for more registrars.

If you use a registrar and they don’t provide an API for customers, you should probably contact them and request them politely to consider doing so.

Preserve Historical Whois Data in Watch My Domains SED / Cloud

May 9, 2018May 9, 2018 Softnik Support

Watch My Domains SED will normally overwrite the previous whois data in the database with the new one when a new lookup is performed. However, it is possible to preserve the old data. To do this add the following to the config.php file.

$config_data['enable_data_history'] = "whois";

Make sure that you have the latest build.

After you do this, the whois data will be logged along with the time-stamp to the history data table in the database. Both registrar and registry whois are saved. You can then use the Details tab in the lower pane to access the old whois records.

New Major Versions of Domain Management Tools for Windows

February 26, 2018February 26, 2018 Softnik Support

We have released new major versions of Watch My Domains ISP (v6) and Domain Punch Pro (v4). The most important addition is the support for select registrar APIs. You can now import your domains registered at GoDaddy, ResellerClub or Dynadot with a single click. We will be adding support for more registrars.

If you purchased the previous version within the last few months you can get a free upgrade, otherwise you can purchase an upgrade at a special price. Please see the product pages for more details.

Watch My Domains ISP: What’s New

Domain Punch Pro: What’s New

Registrar API Support in Domain Punch Pro & Watch My Domains

February 16, 2018February 16, 2018 Softnik Support

We are adding native support for obtaining data from select registrars (using API) to Domain Punch Pro and Watch My Domains for Windows. We have currently added support for GoDaddy, ResellerClub and Dynadot and we will be adding more registrars soon.

New versions of Watch My Domains Pro v5 and Domain Punch Pro v4 with native registrar API support will be available for download within the next 5-7 working days.

Watch My Domains Pro v5

September 11, 2017September 11, 2017 Softnik Support

We have released the next major version upgrade to Watch My Domains Pro.

What’s New in v5

Upgrade to v5

Watch My Domains Pro v5

API Whois Script for GoDaddy Domains

September 7, 2017September 7, 2017 Softnik Support

It has become very difficult to obtain registrar data for domains registered at GoDaddy because most of the important information is hidden if you do more than a few port 43 whois lookups using whois.godaddy.com.

We have released a simple API based script for obtaining the data for your own domains registered at GoDaddy. You can use this along with any of our domain management software tools.

Please Note: This will work only for your own domains registered at GoDaddy. You can’t use it to find data for domains that belong to other people.

Please see knowledge base article: GoDaddy Whois API

Thick Whois Transition for COM/NET Domains

July 28, 2017July 31, 2017 Softnik Support

The COM and NET registry is in the process of transitioning into thick whois format and the registrar whois server token has changed in the registry whois. While this may or may not be related to the transition it has caused the secondary whois lookups to not occur in all our domain name management software tools. You can easily fix this with a simple configuration change.

~~We will be updating all the software products on Monday (July 31, 2017) after which this manual configuration will not be required.~~ We have updated most of our software products.

Windows Desktop Software

Right click on any COM domain and select “Whois Setup > Basic Whois Settings”. Scroll down to the entry for “Whois Server Token” and enter

Registrar WHOIS Server:

as the token. Press ‘Close’. Redo the lookup. Please don’t change the alphabet case, enter exactly as above.

Watch My Domains SED

Click on the “Whois Setup” button and type in COM into the TLD box and click click “Go”. Select the “Extraction” tab and add the following extraction data for the whois.crsnic.net whois server

[*]=>*
Registrar WHOIS Server:=>whois_server

Click the “Submit Changes” button to save.

Please don’t change the alphabet case, enter exactly as above. See here for details about extraction tokens.

Watch My Domains Mac

Click on any COM domain in your domain list and select “Edit >> Registry Whois Setup” from the application menu. Click on the “Parse Tab;e” tab and add the following extraction entry into the parse table for whois.crsnic.net

Registrar WHOIS Server:=>whois_server

Please don’t change the alphabet case, enter exactly as above. See here for details about parse table and extraction tokens.