Are WHOIS Lookups available to users in WHMCS?

[ScottN]

Is it possible for users to come to my WHMCS site and do a WHOIS Lookup, to view WHOIS data... either for their own domain, or for domains registered elsewhere?

 

- Scott

[brian!]

Scott,

 

short answer would be to use the bulk register option of domainchecker.php -

 

http://demo.whmcs.com/domainchecker.php?search=bulk

 

if you enter whmcs.com into the box, and check it's availability (it's taken!), you should see a "Whois" button in the results... click that and the user can see the whois info.

 

long answer would be that you could modify the normal domainchecker to do it - but whether it's a good idea to is another matter as you might run into whois lookup limits with certain registries.

[ScottN]

Hi Brian! Hey, thanks for that tip... I see the link you mentioned, so it DOES seem like it's possible to do this from within WHMCS. I'm coming from a different billing system which has WHOIS available out of the box, and I kind of liked having it. Once the dust settles from our migration to WHMCS, I will definitely look into your idea of modifying domain checker.

 

Thanks again!!

 

- Scott

[WHMCS John]

Hi,

Those whois link is displayed on the Five template on the domain results page. However it wasn't included in the Six template as it isn't seen as beneficial towards generating sales.

 

Admins can perform whois lookups at any time via the Utilities > Whois Lookup page in the admin area

[netx]

@WHMCS John: I have to strongly disagree with your reasoning and the WHMCS standing behind the following statement:

wasn't included in the Six template as it isn't seen as beneficial towards generating sales.

While the WHMCS might be only focusing into the core billing & support features, I do think and suggest, it’s worth highly in my opinion for the WHMCS to review and understand more about following and offering additional feature tools that are actually widely available and used across the domain/hosting industry. In this particular case, the WHOIS Lookup page is indeed THE true standard feature in the Domain registrar industry, offered always by major Domain registrars and domain/hosting related portal services. It does actually feel kind of strange and incomplete if WHOIS Lookup is not offered and not available within a domain registration website (which I’ve not come across yet) and that’s why this is a MUST feature available within my own domain registration portal that's powered by the WHMCS. This is very indeed handy and helpful tool for a user just to look-up quickly a WHOIS domain info without need to login or to check for a domain availability, which falls into of “single-click” and “time-saving” category benefit for end-users aka current or potential clients to help them to keep to stay on your website. If such industry standard feature as this “WHOIS Lookup” is not available then there’s always a higher risk and chance of a user (read: potential client) to go somewhere else who does offer such quick WHOIS Lookup which further could mean losing that user could equal to a loss of generating potential sales. In conclusion, to stay competitive with other Domain registrar sites and furthermore with other Billing/Support Domain-Hosting software likewise, it would be for the WHMCS own benefit and its users/clients to indeed want to have and offer such out-of-box WHOIS Lookup page open to end-users that’s a true domain registrar industry standard feature, especially if this something that’s already available within the WHMCS Admin area. And truly why would the WHMCS want to limit themselves from offering less features than already has available but currently only available to an Admin and why not extend it to the end-user to their extra added benefit? That's actually surprising that your major WHMCS' domain registrar partners such the Enom have not picked up on this yet (?!) since they do offer such WHOIS Lookup unless perhaps it's in their business for the WHMCS not to include this feature... perhaps due to high traffic & control reasons? Please advise on this.

[endfm]

@WHMCS John: I have to strongly disagree with your reasoning and the WHMCS standing behind the following statement: While the WHMCS might be only focusing into the core billing & support features, I do think and suggest, it’s worth highly in my opinion for the WHMCS to review and understand more about following and offering additional feature tools that are actually widely available and used across the domain/hosting industry. In this particular case, the WHOIS Lookup page is indeed THE true standard feature in the Domain registrar industry, offered always by major Domain registrars and domain/hosting related portal services. It does actually feel kind of strange and incomplete if WHOIS Lookup is not offered and not available within a domain registration website (which I’ve not come across yet) and that’s why this is a MUST feature available within my own domain registration portal that's powered by the WHMCS. This is very indeed handy and helpful tool for a user just to look-up quickly a WHOIS domain info without need to login or to check for a domain availability, which falls into of “single-click” and “time-saving” category benefit for end-users aka current or potential clients to help them to keep to stay on your website. If such industry standard feature as this “WHOIS Lookup” is not available then there’s always a higher risk and chance of a user (read: potential client) to go somewhere else who does offer such quick WHOIS Lookup which further could mean losing that user could equal to a loss of generating potential sales. In conclusion, to stay competitive with other Domain registrar sites and furthermore with other Billing/Support Domain-Hosting software likewise, it would be for the WHMCS own benefit and its users/clients to indeed want to have and offer such out-of-box WHOIS Lookup page open to end-users that’s a true domain registrar industry standard feature, especially if this something that’s already available within the WHMCS Admin area. And truly why would the WHMCS want to limit themselves from offering less features than already has available but currently only available to an Admin and why not extend it to the end-user to their extra added benefit? That's actually surprising that your major WHMCS' domain registrar partners such the Enom have not picked up on this yet (?!) since they do offer such WHOIS Lookup unless perhaps it's in their business for the WHMCS not to include this feature... perhaps due to high traffic & control reasons? Please advise on this.

 

I've often thought that, You can get a domain checker from your domain registrar though which will check against their registry

 

I've noticed whmcs WHOIS functionality doesn't work due to a restriction with WHMCS and the way they allow certain functions to operate.

 

But why I'm really not to sure, an explanation would be great!