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Information
for Beginners
It's important to understand
the difference between IP addresses, hostnames, and domains.
An IP
address is a unique
number that identifies a computer on the Internet, for example
205.181.112.65. You may want to obtain information about an IP
address to find out who is the real sender of an e-mail message, or
who is attacking your computer.
A hostname
is just an easy-to-remember
name corresponding to an IP address. For example,
www.tamos.com
is the name for the IP address
209.68.11.237. A whois query for www.tamos.com
and 209.68.11.237
returns exactly the same
information.
Please note that multiple IP
addresses may be assigned to a hostname: for instance,
yahoo.com
has 2 different IP addresses
(206.190.60.37
and 68.180.206.184
respectively). If you would
like SmartWhois to query all IP Addresses assigned to a hostname,
enable the Query all IP addresses
assigned to hostname option (Settings =>
Options
=> Network => Advanced).
Domains are different from
hostnames and IP addresses. A domain
is a network name registered to
someone. Domain queries provide information about the owner of a
domain name. For example, if you want to purchase the
cats.com
domain name to make a web site
about cats, you may want to contact the current owner of this
domain to discuss the deal. To obtain the information about the
domain name owner you need make a domain query.
SmartWhois is capable of
performing both IP address/hostname and domain name queries.
IP
Address / Hostname Queries
To obtain information about an
IP address or a hostname, just enter it in the input box and hit
the Enter key (in which case the application will attempt to guess
whether you entered an IP address / hostname or domain), or click
on the Query
arrow button and select
As IP
address / Hostname. You
can choose a recently queried IP address or host name from the
drop-down list. The examples of IP addresses are
204.71.203.160,
216.115.104.67,
195.14.130.100
(IPv4 addresses)
or
2001:a00e:0000:0260:97ff:fe40::efab (IPv6 address). The examples of hostnames
are quote.yahoo.com,
adsl-235-235-239.mco.bellsouth.net,
or www.ebay.com.
SmartWhois also supports IP addresses with wildcards, such
as 193.1.*.*
or 193.1.217.*
. In this case the program will
scan the specified range of addresses and display all entries
found.
Domain
Queries
If you want to query a domain
registration database, enter a domain name and hit the Enter key
(in which case the application will attempt to guess whether you
entered an IP address / hostname or domain), or click on the
Query
arrow button and select
As
Domain. The examples of
valid domain names are yahoo.com,
volvo.se,
or ford.co.uk.
Don't use the "www" prefix in your domain queries; for
example www.micorsoft.com
is not a valid domain query
(albeit a valid hostname query).
Dual
Queries
Sometimes you may want to find
out the information on the IP address and domain name at the same
time. For example, you can enter wikipedia.org
and query this data as an IP
address / hostname (to find out where the server is located) and as
a domain (to find out who owns this domain). In this case, click on
the Query
arrow button and select
As IP /
Hostname and Domain.
Custom
Queries
If you need to
query a non-default whois server or make a special query,
click View
=>
Whois
Console from the menu, or
click Query
button and
select Custom
Query.
Clipboard
Queries
If you would like to query
information located on the clipboard, click Query =>
Clipboard and select the
preferred query type. This option is available in both main window
and tray icon menus. The following options are
available:
As IP
address – select this
option if you want to query the clipboard text as an IP
address.
As
Domain – select this
option if you want to query the clipboard text as a
domain.
When selecting any of the query
types above, SmartWhois will perform the respective query for the
first word found in the clipboard text.
As Text
Containing IP Addresses – if you select this option, all IP
addresses in the clipboard text will be processed regardless of
their arrangement.
As List of
IP Addresses / Hostnames – clipboard text will be processed as a
list of IP addresses or hostnames. The first word on every line
will be processed as IP address or hostname. This option is
suitable for processing log files.
As List of
Domains – this option is
similar to the one above, except that the clipboard text will be
processed as a list of domains.
In case the program window is
inactive, you will still be able to perform queries by using
hotkeys that can be assigned to any of the above-mentioned
commands. Please see the Configuring SmartWhois chapter for more information on using
hotkeys. Please note that hotkeys
are disabled by default.
Window
Queries
To query information located in
the active window, right-click the SmartWhois icon located in the
tray and select Query => Current
Window. Next, select the
desired query type.
The following options are
available:
As IP
address – select this
option if you want to query the contents of the active window as an
IP address.
As
Domain – select this
option if you want to query the contents of the active window as a
domain.
When selecting any of the query
types above, SmartWhois will perform the respective query for the
first word found in the window.
As Text
Containing IP Addresses – if you select this option, all IP
addresses in the window will be processed regardless of their
arrangement.
As List of
IP Addresses / Hostnames – window contents will be processed as a
list of IP addresses or hostnames. The first word on every line
will be processed as IP address or hostname. This option is
suitable for processing log files.
As List of
Domains – this option is
similar to the one above, except that the text will be processed as
a list of domains.
If you need to process just a
part of the text in the window, highlight it before performing the
query. In case the program window is inactive, you will still be
able to perform queries by using hotkeys that can be assigned to
any of the above-mentioned commands. Note: this option is
available for windows that support standard system text extraction
methods only. Please see
the Configuring
SmartWhois chapter for more information on using
hotkeys. Please note that hotkeys
are disabled by default.
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