custom Whois server

[zitu4life]

Hello there

I was trying add new WHOIS but not successful. What I have done so far:

Adding a custom whois.json file to cpanel...

folow WHMCS docs on https://docs.whmcs.com/WHOIS_Servers#Customising_WHOIS_Servers

Editing my new json file for example

[
    {
        "extensions": ".myextension",
        "uri": "socket://whois.myextension.net",
        "available": "No match for"
    }
   ]

But did not realize yet from where I will find uri information

"uri": "socket://whois.myextension.net",

on IANA?

but it is not so clear for me, for example if I want to add a TDL .cv how my json file should be?

[kingsleymensah]

which whois (extension ) do you want to add?.....You need to find the  main registrar for that extension. for instance, if you  need a cctld like .gh extension you will go to the main registrar which is http://nic.gh/ then perform a whois search of a domain with that extension(.gh) and you might find the whois url for the at extension just like the image i just uploaded. If you dont find it in the results, kindly contact them and they will provide

 

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by kingsleymensah

[kingsleymensah]

Hey , sorry i didnt see the last line of your post where you mentioned .cv extension. Well, i did a little digging on the .cv extension. 

Kindly try 

"uri": "socket://whois.dns.cv"

[zitu4life]

Many Thanks @kingsleymensah It starting getting clear now the way it works!. So I mean...I got this error bellow... could be related to main domain registrar .cv that could not allow whois search or my hosting provider.

There was a problem connecting to the domain registry. Please check port 43 is open in your servers firewall.

Error: 110 - Connection timed out

 

opsss!! I found I guess same issue reported 3 years ago. could be same issue?

 

[kingsleymensah]

10 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

opsss!! I found I guess same issue reported 3 years ago. could be same issue?

Yep!... i think it is the same issue. Your hosting provider has limited port 43 whois access. Sorry about that.

[zitu4life]

I will submit a ticket to hosting provider to ask to open that port and see if problem is only related to it or could be problem also with domain registrar it self.

Another question. Currently we can only sold domain that has WHMCS module compatibly, like ENON, GO DADDY, RESELER CLUB, etc...if we want to start sold a domain that are not listed on WHMCS available modules to start sold immediately, we have to go our selves directly and contact MAIN REGISTRAR ask if they have a reseller program?

So if they do not have a reseller program mean we will never sold been sold that domain on our hosting websites (stores)?

For example: Main registrar could say, I do not want any reseller, every body should by direct from me? 😕

Option 2: We could start sold if we setup who is in our WHMCS and then even if MAIN REGISTRAR not allow reseller, we could be buying in MAIN REGISTRAR for final price and sold even higher...but for this option we need to broke automation...when client order a domain we will put it pending and meaning time contact main registrar and register it and then sold to final client?...crazy ideas 🤔🤔 

Many thanks in advance!

Edited August 27, 2019 by zitu4life

[kingsleymensah]

10 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

Another question. Currently we can only sold domain that has WHMCS module compatibly, like ENON, GO DADDY, RESELER CLUB, etc...if we want to start sold a domain that are not listed on WHMCS available modules to start sold immediately, we have to go our selves directly and contact MAIN REGISTRAR ask if they have a reseller program?

Oh no, some domain registrars provide a plugin you can use... i use namesilo for instance. you signup on their site or contact the provider and ask them if they have a plugin for WHMCS to resell domain. Some have, some doesn't have.

[zitu4life]

12 minutes ago, kingsleymensah said:

some doesn't have.

When they do not have, it ends there? No way to resell that extension?

[kingsleymensah]

If

4 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

When they do not have, it ends there? No way to resell that extension?

If they dont have then you have to buy manually from the registrar

 

 

[brian!]

15 hours ago, zitu4life said:

it is not so clear for me, for example if I want to add a TDL .cv how my json file should be?

generally speaking, if you're going to do this manually (i've written scripts that do this for me!) for a ccTLD, then the steps would be...

1. go to the TLD's specific page and see if it lists a whois server - usually it if exists, it will be there... in the case of .cv it isn't there.
2. in the absence of a whois link, go to the TLD's registrar page - again, they will nearly always be listed on their IANA page.
3. on the registrar's site, you need to look for either a faq page that gives the port 43 whois server details or a web whois form that doesn't use captcha, sessions or splits the TLD from the search term.

to cut a long story short, I don't believe that .cv has a publicly available port 43 whois, nor do I think WHMCS can handle results from the site's web whois form... if you could find an alternative whois form on another site that WHMCS could handle, then you may be in business, but I don't expect there will be many such forms out there.

it's not unusual for small countries, such as Cape Verde, not to have a whois server that WHMCS can handle... if your Portuguese is up to the task, you could try asking the registry if they have a port 43 whois server... maybe they do, and access to it is only by permission.

[zitu4life]

1 hour ago, brian! said:

if you could find an alternative whois form on another site that WHMCS could handle

Thank for all clarification @brian!...so I found this site domain M AR C A R I A .COM  that can search if domain with .cv extension. this could be an alternative? How i could find information that i need to use this alternative.

If i search in that domain WHOIS they are available to know if wanted domain are available.

So if MARCARIA domain can search WHOIS, perhaps could be an alternative...also Perhaps talking directly with MAIN DOMAIN REGISTRAR, I even do not know if this main REGISTRAR has DOMAIN RESELLER PLAN, but if it does not have how MARCARIA can sold it if for huge price??

[zitu4life]

Another options i am thinking and do not know if it is possible could be have a script in WHMCS when a clients search for a domain .cv extension, WHMCS will automatically has in the background an internal forward of search that could be performing search in MAIN DOMAIN REGISTAR website, and if that domain exists in MAIN DOMAIN REGISTRAR, it will prontly an option say available domain in WHMCS.

But also would be fine to display any message to client saying this order will need a manual processing...

so in the meaning time i will contact MAIN REGISTRAR and make this order, and all setup process in WHMCS will do manually...That idea is possible??? such script could exists?

Edited August 28, 2019 by zitu4life

[kingsleymensah]

27 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

so in the meaning time i will contact MAIN REGISTRAR and make this order, and all setup process in WHMCS will do manually...That idea is possible??? such script could exists

If you can get the whois for cv to work then you can set email notification(navigate to settings>>products>>domain registrar).

activate and configure email notifications from the options.

Now when your customers search and available they can place order with you normally just like other extentions then WHMCS will send you email notification without customer knowing . Then you login to WHMCS admin dashboard, find client details used to place the order then quickly go to the .cv registrar and use same details to place order manually and set nameserver as well.

Done!!

 

[brian!]

48 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

this could be an alternative? How i could find information that i need to use this alternative.

it's not an alternative that WHMCS could use.

48 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

So if MARCARIA domain can search WHOIS, perhaps could be an alternative

i'm not a betting man, but almost certainly this isn't a whois search in the sense that you're thinking of, e.g it's not a live query against a whois server... I suspect it's a query against a zones file database - in other words, Marcaria have a database of all registered domains (updated on a frequent basis), and all this form is doing (possibly for only the minor countries) is checking the search terms against the zone files database... i.e is 'brian.cv' in the zone files database ? No - therefore it's "available" for registration. 🙂

so it will be quick, but not necessarily accurate, e.g if they are using zone files, then it won't know about registrations in the last x hours/days.

for example, it's of less use to use a zone files search for .com, as there will be numerous .com domains being registered every minute, but looking at the zone files for .cv, there are only 531 registered .cv domain names in total, with just 5 .cv domains registered in the last day...

24 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

Another options i am thinking and do not know if it is possible could be have a script in WHMCS when a clients search for a domain .cv extension, WHMCS will automatically has in the background an internal forward of search that could be performing search in MAIN DOMAIN REGISTAR, and if that domain exists in MAIN DOMAIN REGISTRAR, it will prontly an option say available domain in WHMCS.

I don't know who you mean by MAIN DOMAIN REGISTRAR, but I doubt any major registrar (OpenSRS, eNom, Logicboxes) would offer .cv domains for registration - if eNom offered them, then NameSpinning would be an option in WHMCS, and if they don't, it would fall back to whois - but as there isn't a whois server, that would fail.

24 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

But also would be fine to display any message to client saying this order will need a manual processing...

certainly WHMCS would need to go through the motions of checking whois (or at least believing that it's checking whois - you could link the whois,json to check a local php script of yours for .cv)... or even put a dummy link in there that will always pass a positive result (even if that .cv domain is actually already registered)...

    {
        "extensions": ".cv",
        "uri": "socket://whois.internic.net",
        "available": "No match for"
    }

with regards to displaying a message, the non-hook would would be to use an additional domain field for .cv (possibly a required checkbox), put your text in there (perhaps saying that the domain might already be registered) and they'd be forced to check the tickbox before they can proceed.

24 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

so in the meaning time i will contact MAIN REGISTRAR and make this order, and all setup process in WHMCS will do manually...That idea is possible???

yes - but you do see the potential issue? I come to your site and order a registration of google.cv (WHMCS tells me it's available); you take payment from me; you go to registry to see if it's available - find out that it's already registered and will now have to refund my payment and potentially disappoint a client. 😲

[zitu4life]

2 hours ago, kingsleymensah said:

If you can get the whois for cv to work then you can set email notification(navigate to settings>>products>>domain registrar).

activate and configure email notifications from the options.

Apreciate that!!!!

2 hours ago, brian! said:

yes - but you do see the potential issue? I come to your site and order a registration of google.cv (WHMCS tells me it's available); you take payment from me; you go to registry to see if it's available - find out that it's already registered and will now have to refund my payment and potentially disappoint a client. 😲

Actually Brian, that is why I have asked if there is a way that I can forward my WHMCS domain page to WHOIS page for the registrar, so in that way when I client search on my WHMCS it was like he were searching in registrar, so if that domain exists, a positive feedback and real-time scan will occur...For example...

this is my WHMCS page.... 

WHEN I click search, will be a script at my WHMCS background that will not search on my current WHMCS but will perform this search in the backgroud in the REGISTRAR 

So this script would provide me a real reply, not a fake one, this script will work when he detects that a client are searching for domain .cv and will check if on native\allowed registrar has that domain available provide real reply. 

Would be possible a such script to do that? this script will have a url of another website...

hope I have explained well now! it is like my WHMCS will forward search to another website in the background and provide a real reply.

[brian!]

15 hours ago, zitu4life said:

Actually Brian, that is why I have asked if there is a way that I can forward my WHMCS domain page to WHOIS page for the registrar, so in that way when I client search on my WHMCS it was like he were searching in registrar, so if that domain exists, a positive feedback and real-time scan will occur...

three points on this - firstly, never redirect a user away from your site (even in a hidden way) unless you are sure you can get them back; secondly, don't use someone else's resources without their permission, e.g another site's search page (as there maybe whois lookup limits for a particular TLD); and thirdly, WHMCS can do what you want already *if* a site has a compatible form, e.g no captcha, session or splitting of sld/tld.

15 hours ago, zitu4life said:

WHEN I click search, will be a script at my WHMCS background that will not search on my current WHMCS but will perform this search in the background in the REGISTRAR 

see third point above... there's no guarantee that the registrar site will output the result in a simple way that could be returned/interpreted by WHMCS.

15 hours ago, zitu4life said:

So this script would provide me a real reply, not a fake one, this script will work when he detects that a client are searching for domain .cv and will check if on native\allowed registrar has that domain available provide real reply.  hope I have explained well now!

yes, but it's the last bit that's awkward - getting the reply.

I do have a possible solution for this that I can get working outside of WHMCS, but seems to be hitting an issue when I bring it into WHMCS... *sighs*

[zitu4life]

On 8/28/2019 at 10:49 AM, brian! said:

if your Portuguese is up to the task, you could try asking the registry if they have a port 43 whois server... maybe they do, and access to it is only by permission.

Actually my Portuguese is better than my English, I have contacted that registrar and the point is that their system do not allow any WHOIS outside from their website...system has several limitation, They think in future would be possible, but when...so a way is looking any solution around...

So, I have to do it manually, but my idea was not forward client for another website 😃, only search in the background in registrar website, so client would never leave my website and never know registrar website. I was thing something like those spam robots can go to website and send automated emails on contact form.

registrar website do not has any captcha their .cv registrar, If such solutions could work I would hire someone for doing that.

So when a client looks for that domain, my website would acts like robots an search on .cv registrar and provide a real information. Of course i am ware that if registrar website changed a script would also need changes, but like i said is it just a workaround to wait for registrar to upgrade their platform that could be done in 18 months 😣

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by zitu4life

[brian!]

8 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

registrar website do not has any captcha their .cv registrar, If such solutions could work I would hire someone for doing that.

I don't think you can inject a domain name into that form externally.

10 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

So when a client looks for that domain, my website would acts like robots an search on .cv registrar and provide a real information. Of course i am ware that if registrar website changed a script would also need changes, but like i said is it just a workaround to wait for registrar to upgrade their platform that could be done in 18 months

the direction i'm thinking of is a dns check - it can tell that google.cv is registered and brian.cv is available.... it's just a case of trying to get the working script talking with WHMCS... at the moment, they're not talking!

[zitu4life]

9 minutes ago, brian! said:

I don't think you can inject a domain name into that form externally.

the direction i'm thinking of is a dns check - it can tell that google.cv is registered and brian.cv is available.... it's just a case of trying to get the working script talking with WHMCS... at the moment, they're not talking!

When you say DNS check is like a ping to wanted domain ping google.cv

and if you got a reply we know that domain already exists and if domain is unreachable we can not ensure 100% but we know has a >90% chances they are available to buy?

Now I have nothing, so Any idea compared to nothing is welcome 😖!!!

[brian!]

2 minutes ago, zitu4life said:

When you say DNS check is like a ping to wanted domain ping google.cv

sort of - it just uses dns_get_record - if the domain is hosted, then it returns an array; if it's not hosted, there's no array... outside of WHMCS, it works fine. and it outputs a message (domain is available / registered).. just can't get it to work with whois.json

[obee]

hello i need help please.

I am unable to get the Namibia and Botswana registry to work. it was working previously, but im wondering if the WHMCS update has anything to do with this?

 

here is my whois.json text for the two registries:

 

 {
        "extensions": ".com.na,.na,.co.na,.org.na,.edu.na",
        "uri": "socket://whois.na-nic.com.na",
        "available": "No Object Found"
    },
    {
        "extensions": ".bw,.co.bw,.edu.bw,.org.bw,.ac.bw,.net.bw,.gov.bw,.shop.bw,.agric.bw,.me.bw",
        "uri": "socket://whois.nic.net.bw",
        "available": "No Object Found"
    },

the error message i get now running this in WHMCS is "There was a problem connecting to the domain registry. Please check port 43 is open in your servers firewall."

I will appreciate your help please

[RadWebHosting]

On 12/11/2023 at 11:18 PM, obee said:

the error message i get now running this in WHMCS is "There was a problem connecting to the domain registry. Please check port 43 is open in your servers firewall."

I will appreciate your help please

Depending upon your system, you could do:

firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=43/udp
firewall-cmd --reload

or

iptables -I OUTPUT -p udp --dport 43 -j ACCEPT