What Python way would you suggest to check whois database records?

Question

I\'m trying to get a webservice up and running that actually requires to check whois databases. What I\'m doing right now is ugly and I\'d like to avoid it as much as I can:

Answer 1

here is a ready-to-use solution that works for me; written for Python 3.1 (when backporting to Py2.x, take special care of the bytes / Unicode text distinctions). your single point of access is the method DRWHO.whois(), which expects a domain name to be passed in; it will then try to resolve the name using the provider configured as DRWHO.whois_providers[ '*' ] (a more complete solution could differentiate providers according to the top level domain). DRWHO.whois() will return a dictionary with a single entry text, which contains the response text sent back by the WHOIS server. Again, a more complete solution would then try and parse the text (which must be done separately for each provider, as there is no standard format) and return a more structured format (e.g., set a flag available which specifies whether or not the domain looks available). have fun!

##########################################################################
import asyncore as                                   _sys_asyncore
from asyncore import loop as                         _sys_asyncore_loop
import socket as                                     _sys_socket



##########################################################################
class _Whois_request( _sys_asyncore.dispatcher_with_send, object ):
  # simple whois requester
  # original code by Frederik Lundh

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  whoisPort = 43

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def __init__(self, consumer, host, provider ):
    _sys_asyncore.dispatcher_with_send.__init__(self)
    self.consumer = consumer
    self.query    = host
    self.create_socket( _sys_socket.AF_INET, _sys_socket.SOCK_STREAM )
    self.connect( ( provider, self.whoisPort, ) )

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def handle_connect(self):
    self.send( bytes( '%s\r\n' % ( self.query, ), 'utf-8' ) )

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def handle_expt(self):
    self.close() # connection failed, shutdown
    self.consumer.abort()

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def handle_read(self):
    # get data from server
    self.consumer.feed( self.recv( 2048 ) )

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def handle_close(self):
    self.close()
    self.consumer.close()


##########################################################################
class _Whois_consumer( object ):
  # original code by Frederik Lundh

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def __init__( self, host, provider, result ):
    self.texts_as_bytes = []
    self.host           = host
    self.provider       = provider
    self.result         = result

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def feed( self, text ):
    self.texts_as_bytes.append( text.strip() )

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def abort(self):
    del self.texts_as_bytes[:]
    self.finalize()

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def close(self):
    self.finalize()

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def finalize( self ):
    # join bytestrings and decode them (witha a guessed encoding):
    text_as_bytes         = b'\n'.join( self.texts_as_bytes )
    self.result[ 'text' ] = text_as_bytes.decode( 'utf-8' )


##########################################################################
class DRWHO:

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  whois_providers = {
    '~isa':   'DRWHO/whois-providers',
    '*':      'whois.opensrs.net', }

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def whois( self, domain ):
    R         = {}
    provider  = self._get_whois_provider( '*' )
    self._fetch_whois( provider, domain, R )
    return R

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def _get_whois_provider( self, top_level_domain ):
    providers = self.whois_providers
    R         = providers.get( top_level_domain, None )
    if R is None:
      R = providers[ '*' ]
    return R

  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  def _fetch_whois( self, provider, domain, pod ):
    #.....................................................................
    consumer  = _Whois_consumer(           domain, provider, pod )
    request   = _Whois_request(  consumer, domain, provider )
    #.....................................................................
    _sys_asyncore_loop() # loops until requests have been processed


#=========================================================================
DRWHO = DRWHO()


domain    = 'example.com'
whois     = DRWHO.whois( domain )
print( whois[ 'text' ] )