whois-domain-watcher

Simple http daemon that watches whois responses for domains. Every whois response is parsed and stored. It can be used for tracking what domains are expired or are about to be expired.

It's intended to be used with any cli http client like cURL on linux or Invoke-RestMethod on windows PowerShell. It also have browser UI.

Built in C# with AOT compilation for daemon, and solidjs compiled to single .html file for UI.

Features

• automatic resolution of responsible whois server for given TLD from whois.iana.org - e.g. for .PL it resolves to whois.dns.pl

• auto querying whois for watched domains

• generating list of watched domains sorted by available ones, then by expiration timestamp

• written with cURL/PowerShell in mind as preferred daemon control API

• simple single .html file UI written in solidjs (only 18KB)

• every whois response is stored in sqlite db which can be processed further

• whole app is built as AOT thanks by using Source Generators rather than reflection

• internal embeddable http server written from scratch for AOT purposes

Instruction

Docker

To build docker container use docker build https://github.com/malciin/whois-domain-watcher.git -t domain-watcher:1.0

Then run docker run --rm -it -p XYZ:80 domain-watcher:1.0 where XYZ is the port number.

Db is stored in /app/sqlite.db (its configurable via DbPath in settings) so you probably want to store it in docker volume.

Starting daemon

Type ./DomainsWatcher.Cli --port XYZ where XYZ is the port number.

If you don't want to always provide --port XYZ you can create settings.yaml file to configure it. Check settings.Reference.yaml for reference of what options you can configure.

Usage CLI

For sake of simplicity I've assume port to be 8051 and - if applicable - domain parameter is google.com.

PowerShell	cURL	Description
Invoke-RestMethod http://localhost:8051	curl localhost:8051	Gets watched domains statuses
Invoke-RestMethod http://localhost:8051/google.com	curl localhost:8051/google.com	Gets whois response for any domain. It does not change domain watch status
Invoke-RestMethod http://localhost:8051 -Method 'POST' -Body 'google.com'	curl -d "google.com" localhost:8051	Watches domain and returns its status
Invoke-RestMethod http://localhost:8051 -Method 'DELETE' -Body 'google.com'	curl -X DELETE -d "google.com" localhost:8051	Unwatches domain
Invoke-RestMethod http://localhost:8051/queue	curl localhost:8051/queue	Gets watched domains queue status - allows to check when each of the watched domains will be queried
Invoke-RestMethod http://localhost:8051/s/*.dev	curl localhost:8051/s/*.dev	Searching endpoint. Returns status of any watched domain by given filter. In that example it gets all watched domains for .dev tld. More info in Searching section

Examples:

# Example usage
m@linux:~$ curl localhost:8051
| Domain                  | Status    | Expiration | Queried    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| some-untaken-domain.com | Available |            | 1m 17s ago |
| youtube.com             | Taken     | 1mo 5d     | 1m 23s ago |
| google.net              | Taken     | 2mo 4d     | 1m 11s ago |
| twitch.tv               | Taken     | 5mo 4h     | 2d 23h ago |
| microsoft.com           | Taken     | 1y 3mo     | 1m 6s ago  |
| google.com              | Taken     | 4y 8mo     | 1m 28s ago |
m@linux:~$
m@linux:~$ curl localhost:8051/youtube.com
   Domain Name: YOUTUBE.COM
   Registry Domain ID: 142504053_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
   Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.markmonitor.com
   Registrar URL: http://www.markmonitor.com
   Updated Date: 2023-01-14T09:25:19Z
   Creation Date: 2005-02-15T05:13:12Z
   Registry Expiry Date: 2024-02-15T05:13:12Z
   # rest hidden since its not relevant
m@linux:~$
m@linux:~$ curl localhost:8055/queue
7 domains enqueued.

Query intervals:
    Domain taken                       7d
    Domain taken but expiration hidden 2d
    Domain free                        1d
    Missing parser                     7d
    Base errror retry delay            7d

| Domain                  | Next query | Last query |
-----------------------------------------------------
| some-untaken-domain.com | 23h 55m    | 4m 49s     |
| twitch.tv               | 4d 22m     | 2d 23h     |
| google.com              | 6d 23h     | 5m         |
| youtube.com             | 6d 23h     | 4m 55s     |
| google.net              | 6d 23h     | 4m 42s     |
| microsoft.com           | 6d 23h     | 4m 38s     |
m@linux:~$ 
m@linux:~$ curl -d "dot.net" localhost:8051
dot.net watched! Status: Taken for 1y 15d (2025-01-25 05:00)
m@linux:~$
m@linux:~$ curl localhost:8051/s/*.net
| Domain     | Status | Expiration | Queried     |
--------------------------------------------------
| google.net | Taken  | 2mo 4d     | 44m 27s ago |
| dot.net    | Taken  | 1y 15d     | 11s ago     |
m@linux:~$ 

Usage UI

There are simple browser UI built-in written in solidjs. Open http://localhost:8051 (or whatever port is your daemon listening on) in your browser to see it.

Searching

/s/{filter} endpoint supports searching through watched domains. Filters could be any letter/digit, * or +.

* means string of any length, + means exactly one character. If there are no * or + character in query, then it matches any string that contains query substring. E.g. filters:

Url	Result
localhost/s/*.dev	Domains that ends with .dev
localhost/s/*.++	Domains exactly with two letter tld (pl, eu, etc.)
localhost/s/*.+++	Domains exactly with three letter tld
localhost/s/google.*	Google domains
localhost/s/google*	Domains that begins with google string
localhost/s/*.***	Domains with three or more letters tld
localhost/s/+++.*	3 letters domains (without tld)
localhost/s/+++*.*	4+ letters domains (without tld)
localhost/s/gg	any domain with string gg in it