T3h 1337 guide to basic networking
Every machine on the internet has an ip address. Far too often users in IRC ask "Whats the ip of www.x.com?" Every domain name (that's in use) resolves to an IP address. Domain names are only aliases for IP addresses because www.google.com is easier to remember than 74.125.47.99. The inverse is not neccesarily true--an ip may have no domain name. Also note that several different sites under different domains may share an IP.
The ShowIP Firefox extension displays a site's IP address in the Firefox statusbar, and the extension works on Windows and Linux. Read: If you aren't a macfag, just use it. * nix, OS X januszeal@sumomo ~ $ host www.google.com www.google.com is an alias for www.l.google.com. www.l.google.com has address 74.125.47.99 www.l.google.com has address 74.125.47.103 www.l.google.com has address 74.125.47.104 www.l.google.com has address 74.125.47.147 or chance@AMD64:~$ dig www.google.com
- <<>> DiG 9.5.0-P2 <<>> www.google.com
- www.google.com. IN A
Every site is being hosted on someone's server. Finding out which company hosts a site is a good way to find out what kind of bandwidth packages they have, etc.
* go here [<http://whois.domaintools.com/>](http://whois.domaintools.com/)
* Enter the domain name
* look for Registrar
On all *nix based systems it's pretty easy to find out any available details about a domain. That's what the command 'whois' is for. Every domain registrar runs a whois database for the domains it is hosting. Their database usually contains information about the owner of the domain, a technical and an administrative contact including addresses of them (admins doing semi-legal/illegal things may lie on these forms). Some registrars require that the administrative contact is a natural person, not an organization. Some domain owners subscribe to privacy services (such as Domains by Proxy) in which case you will have to try another way to get the information. Usage example: $ whois partyvan.info
Once you have an IP address, you can find out who is hosting a site. * go here http://www.ripe.net/db/whois.html * enter IP address * look for OrgName * ??? * PROFIT!