CheckAvailability

[So, who am I ?]

Hello

I'm adding a new registrar and have problem with checking domain availability and transferring domain, cuz registrar doesn't have a proper whois and as they said they don't know how up time it will be in the future, so I need to work the way around it.

 

WHMCS documentation says:

Quote

In WHMCS 7.1 and later, domain registrar modules can take control of Domain Availability checks and lookups.

CheckAvailability
The purpose of this function is to check if a domain is available for registration or transfer.

 

my WHMCS version is: 7.1.1

I thought to use CheckAvailability to send requests to registrar service without using whois so I tried it but it doesn't work at all, the system doesn''t even go to the method.

 

is there any way I can check domain availability without whois ? and does it matter what Order Form Template I use ?

[brian!]

20 minutes ago, So, who am I ? said:

I thought to use CheckAvailability to send requests to registrar service without using whois so I tried it but it doesn't work at all, the system doesn''t even go to the method.

I think this is more for use of checking availability via API - so basically how the Lookup Providers work as opposed to using whois... now for it to work, the registrar in question will need to have an API method of checking availability... it's not something that WHMCS can do by itself... if your registrar can't provide an API method of checking availability, then this won't work...

26 minutes ago, So, who am I ? said:

is there any way I can check domain availability without whois ?

using a lookup provider (though they would need to sell that .tld), or writing a registar module... and then you're dependent on the registrar having a method to interact in that way... without whois or an API solution, I can't think of any way to do it... they'd be no authoritative way to confirm registration.

28 minutes ago, So, who am I ? said:

and does it matter what Order Form Template I use ?

it would be the module that would do the work, and the template is just for the interaction... i'd certainly recommend doing it first in standard_cart as that would be the most upto date... if it works in there, then you could try Modern or any custom template.

[So, who am I ?]

yes, there's a registrar API that has checkDomain method, problem is that when I check domain from client side it doesn't go to that WHCMS CheckAvailability method and since it doens't go there I can't use registrar API inside it.

 

I tried to log it using:

logActivity('CheckAvailability method', 0);

but nothing is logging in logs.

[brian!]

7 minutes ago, So, who am I ? said:

yes, there's a registrar API that has checkDomain method, problem is that when I check domain from client side it doesn't go to that WHCMS CheckAvailability method and since it doesn't go there I can't use registrar API inside it.

but how would WHMCS know to use your custom method?

I think you might need to make it a lookup provider, and then enable it from domain pricing - but in practice, you could only do that if your registrar was able to lookup all the TLDs you are selling... as you can't assign a lookup provider to specific TLDs (oh wouldn't that be nice!).... and i'm not even sure if WHMCS have documented how to make lookup providers, because I don't recall seeing any third-party addons that add them to domain pricing.

[So, who am I ?]

WHMCS has CheckAvailability method right ?

if I could go to that method then I could pass domain to registrar's method and get response from it and return that response with CheckAvailability  method.

 

 

[brian!]

3 minutes ago, So, who am I ? said:

if I could go to that method then I could pass domain to registrar's method and get response from it and return that response with CheckAvailability  method.

which is the definition of a lookup provider.

all i'm saying is that WHMCS 7 is designed to either use whois, or a lookup provider, for ALL TLDs - you can't mix and match, e.g this module for .ge, but whois for .com - you have to put all your eggs in one basket.

[So, who am I ?]

6 hours ago, brian! said:

which is the definition of a lookup provider.

all i'm saying is that WHMCS 7 is designed to either use whois, or a lookup provider, for ALL TLDs - you can't mix and match, e.g this module for .ge, but whois for .com - you have to put all your eggs in one basket.

but not sure how to do that, I mean how to tell WHMCS to use lookup provider instead of whois, that's somewhere in settings, I guess ? 

I use enom for .com domain and since enom is built in registrar, I guess it will work just fine if I start using lookup provider and will just have to make changes for custom registrars, right ?

Edited March 29, 2018 by So, who am I ?

[brian!]

14 hours ago, So, who am I ? said:

but not sure how to do that, I mean how to tell WHMCS to use lookup provider instead of whois, that's somewhere in settings, I guess ? 

it's on the domain pricing page, but as I said, I don't know if anyone has ever made a custom lookup provider outside of WHMCS, or whether that page is hardcoded to only work with the providers specified by WHMCS.

14 hours ago, So, who am I ? said:

I use enom for .com domain and since enom is built in registrar, I guess it will work just fine if I start using lookup provider and will just have to make changes for custom registrars, right ?

it will work fine for any TLDs that enom sell... it will fail if enom don't sell .ge domains (which I assume they don't)...

[So, who am I ?]

Quote

it will work fine for any TLDs that enom sell... it will fail if enom don't sell .ge domains (which I assume they don't)...

Yeah I wrote only .com but meant all the tlds enom sells

 

Anyway, I found a solution and created custom whois that calls registrar's method to get domain's availability and it works fine!

 

Anyway, thanks for you time, brian!

Edited March 30, 2018 by So, who am I ?

[brian!]

16 minutes ago, So, who am I ? said:

Anyway, I found a solution and created custom whois that calls registrar's method to get domain's availability and it works fine!

which I would hope you will share with others!

[So, who am I ?]

 

sure   it's just there's still some work going on in the background, I still have to print domain info properly in WHMCS whois lookup and so on, well there might be some unreturned information in upcoming days cuz as I said above there's still work going on for method that whois calls, but here's the working whois that you can write in your whois.json file if you need .ge domain registration

 

{
        "extensions": ".ge,.com.ge,.net.ge,.org.ge,.edu.ge,.pvt.ge",
        "uri": "https://whois.ns.ge:443/index.php?domain=",
        "available": "NO OBJECT FOUND!"
}

 

Edited March 30, 2018 by So, who am I ?

[brian!]

21 hours ago, So, who am I ? said:

sure   it's just there's still some work going on in the background, I still have to print domain info properly in WHMCS whois lookup and so on

that's ok if it fails after a number of days, it can just be frustrating for others when threads end with the OP saying the situation has been resolved... but then don't mention what that solution is!

[So, who am I ?]

yeah I know, it's annoying, I just thought to post it, when all work is done 

[brian!]

I should also add that there is a third way, or more accurately, another way to use whois in WHMCS.

so by default, when you use a whois server in WHMCS, it's usually the registry's own whois server, but there's nothing to stop you from writing a script, that perhaps uses an API method to query the registry and responds with an accurate answer... then in your whois settings (whois.json), instead of the URL being a whois server, you use your script and WHMCS responds if the listed string (available or whatever) is returned by the script.

[So, who am I ?]

oh wait, you mean to do what I did, but just write the actual code in whois.json file ? I never thought that whois.json would wok with the actual API code in it

[brian!]

2 hours ago, So, who am I ? said:

oh wait, you mean to do what I did, but just write the actual code in whois.json file ? I never thought that whois.json would wok with the actual API code in it

no, don't write any code in whois.json, just use something like the code below to call an external script...

{
        "extensions": ".ge,.com.ge,.net.ge,.org.ge,.edu.ge,.pvt.ge",
        "uri": "https://link.to.your.script/index.php?domain=",
        "available": "NO OBJECT FOUND!"
}

so the WHMCS whois takes the domain, e.g domain.com, passes it to your script... the script does whatever it needs to do, e.g check availability... output the result of the check... if it matches with that availability string in the whois, then it will be treated as available by WHMCS.

[Positive and Grateful]

I am an OSRS reseller and I don't want to offer premium domains.

However when I use the Standard Whois lookup provider it displays premium domains as availalbe, but it doesn't even display the actual pricing for them (it displays the pricing I've entered for regular/new domains). So even if I was to offer premium domains, the proper pricing would not be displayed. 

Which lookup provider do I use? Should I sign up for another reseller and use theirs as a lookup, even though I would like to use OSRS for my registrations? Is that possible? I assume the lookup and the registration processes are separate (since it's 2 different settings)?

Is there no lookup provider module for OSRS? OR

On 4/2/2018 at 8:00 AM, brian! said:

no, don't write any code in whois.json, just use something like the code below to call an external script...

{
        "extensions": ".ge,.com.ge,.net.ge,.org.ge,.edu.ge,.pvt.ge",
        "uri": "https://link.to.your.script/index.php?domain=",
        "available": "NO OBJECT FOUND!"
}

Does OSRS have a PHP file that I can send the requests to, as in your last post. Like this:

 

[brian!]

11 hours ago, Positive and Grateful said:

I am an OSRS reseller and I don't want to offer premium domains.

when you say OSRS, I assume that you're talking about OpenSRS ?

11 hours ago, Positive and Grateful said:

However when I use the Standard Whois lookup provider it displays premium domains as available, but it doesn't even display the actual pricing for them (it displays the pricing I've entered for regular/new domains). So even if I was to offer premium domains, the proper pricing would not be displayed. 

you effectively cannot offer premium domains when using standard whois because, as you have discovered, whois can only tell you if a domain is available or not, it cannot know if it is premium, and if so, it's price.

if you have to use Standard Whois, then one way to avoid premium domains would be to not offer any TLDs that sells premium domains to a significant degree... .club springs to mind as one, but there are others.

11 hours ago, Positive and Grateful said:

Which lookup provider do I use? Should I sign up for another reseller and use theirs as a lookup, even though I would like to use OSRS for my registrations? Is that possible? I assume the lookup and the registration processes are separate (since it's 2 different settings)?

for the most part, using a lookup provider for lookups and a different registrar for registration/management would work fine - however, there is a big problem with that idea... a lookup provider will only search for TLDs that it sells, and while there may be a significant overlap between what both it and OpenSRS sells, there will be differences... so let's take Resell.biz as an example, they don't offer many gTLDs and ccTLDs that OpenSRS do - so any searches for those domains will say they are unavailable and therefore the customer won't be able to register them.

12 hours ago, Positive and Grateful said:

Is there no lookup provider module for OSRS?

not built into WHMCS.

12 hours ago, Positive and Grateful said:

Does OSRS have a PHP file that I can send the requests to, as in your last post.

there is the free OpenSRS Domains Pro module, written by OpenSRS themselves, but as it hasn't been updated for a year, it's unlikely to be totally compatible with v7.5 (if you are using that) and therefore I wouldn't recommend using it.. at least until it's been updated by them.

the only other addon I am aware of that includes an OpenSRS Lookup option is ModuleGarden's Extended Domain Orders module - but that's going to cost you $100 every year.

[Positive and Grateful]

Dude, you are awesome.  Although you did not give me a perfect solution (some good options though), I appreciate the time you took in responding. I will look at using an alternate lookup provider for now until OpenSRS updates their module. 

One more related question: I'm having a hard time with the whois.json file since I am offering a lot of domains. I've read some of your other posts about it and testing the various whois servers. I'm not familiar with how the system is structured, so my question is, if I am using a lookup provider why would I need to update those files? Shouldn't those whois settings be updated by the lookup provider module? Isn't that what it is there for? Do I still need to update the whois.json file?

[brian!]

15 hours ago, Positive and Grateful said:

if I am using a lookup provider why would I need to update those files?

you don't - they're redundant if using a lookup provider.

15 hours ago, Positive and Grateful said:

Shouldn't those whois settings be updated by the lookup provider module?

the lookup provider functions don't touch that file - the lookups are provided using a different, faster method.

15 hours ago, Positive and Grateful said:

Do I still need to update the whois.json file?

only if you have nothing better to do with your life!

if you're using a lookup provider, then you won't need to keep these whois server settings updated as you won't be using them...

in an ideal world, WHMCS would work similarly to how that ModuleGarden addon supposedly works by cascading down the lookup options - so if a searched-for TLD isn't provided by OpenSRS, it tries eNom, then another lookup provider and then as a last resort, tries standard whois... or even better if you had the option to assign a lookup provider per TLD instead of generally.... but lookup providers were introduced 18 months ago in v7.1 and we're still waiting for features like that to be added.