Domain Watchdog

Domain Watchdog is a standalone web application that collects open access information about domain names, helping users track the history and changes associated with domain names.

Why use it?

• Historical Tracking: Know the history of a domain name, from its inception to its release into the public domain.
• Detailed Monitoring: Follow the evolution of a domain name and the entities that manage it in detail.
• Reverse Directory: Discover domain names associated with an entity registered with a registrar.

Although the RDAP and WHOIS protocols allow you to obtain precise information about a domain, it is not possible to perform a reverse search to discover a list of domain names associated with an entity. Additionally, accessing a detailed history of events (ownership changes, renewals, etc.) is not feasible with these protocols.

General Description of Operation

The latest version of the WHOIS protocol was standardized in 2004 by RFC 3912.¹ This protocol allows anyone to retrieve key information concerning a domain name, an IP address, or an entity registered with a registry.

ICANN launched a global vote in 2023 to propose replacing the WHOIS protocol with RDAP.² As a result, registries and registrars will no longer be required to support WHOIS from 2025 (WHOIS Sunset Date).²

Domain Watchdog uses the RDAP protocol, which will soon be the new standard for retrieving information concerning domain names. The data is organized in a SQL database to minimize space by ensuring an entity is not repeated.

Installation

To deploy a Domain Watchdog instance, please refer to the Symfony documentation on How to deploy a Symfony application.

Prerequisites

• PHP 8.0 or higher
• Symfony 5.0 or higher
• A SQL-compatible database (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL)

Steps

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/maelgangloff/domain-watchdog.git

1. Navigate to the project directory:

cd domain-watchdog

1. Install dependencies:

composer install

1. Set up your environment variables:

cp .env .env.local

1. Run database migrations:

php bin/console doctrine:migrations:migrate

1. Start the Symfony server:

symfony server:start

Note

Useful documentation

• RFC 7482 : Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) Query Format
• RFC 7483 : JSON Responses for the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)
• RFC 7484 : Finding the Authoritative Registration Data (RDAP) Service

---

1. RFC 3912 : WHOIS Protocol Specification. (2004). IETF Datatracker. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3912 ↩︎

2. 2023 Global Amendments to the Base gTLD Registry Agreement (RA), Specification 13, and 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) - ICANN. (s. d.). https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/global-amendment-2023-en ↩︎