[Imc-tech] simple question and thanks

[Zachary C. Miller]

peterm at shout.net wrote:
> The second thing is small--I'm trying to write the connection string for a
> Microsoft Access page, and I'm having difficulty figuring out where
> exactly my database is located on the web.  I remember seeing someone
> (probably Zach) execute a command that revealed the details of a URL, but
> I forgot what it is.  For instance, if www.petermiller.org were hosted at
> groogroo, but I were coming in from the outside and didn't know is was at
> groogroo, what command would I be able to use to find that out?

I'm not sure I understand your question but let me tell you about a
few commands that may or may not help you. I can't imagine any of
these commands helping you write a connection string but they will
give you information about where things are hosted as you asked
about. You should just be able to use the hostname for the connection
string, whatever that hostname may be.

First the "host" command:

 % host www.petermiller.org
 www.petermiller.org     CNAME   petermiller.org
 petermiller.org         A       216.21.229.209

This reveals that "www.petermiller.org" is a CNAME (alias) for
"petermiller.org" and that "petermiller.org" has an IP address of
216.21.229.209.

You can also do a "reverse lookup" with the "host" command:

 % host 216.21.229.209
 216.21.229.209 does not exist, try again

In this case there is no reverse record registered for the IP address
in question. That generally indicates a misconfiguration by the ISP. 

You can use the whois command to find out information about a domain
name (the output of this is very verbose so I'm editting it down to
the interesting bits):

 % whois petermiller.org 
 Domain Name:PETERMILLER.ORG
 Created On:30-Jul-2001 00:48:07 UTC
 Last Updated On:19-Oct-2003 06:19:47 UTC
 Expiration Date:30-Jul-2004 00:48:03 UTC
 Registrant Name:Peter Miller
 Admin Name:Peter Miller
 Billing Name:Register.com,Inc Finance
 Tech Name:Domain Registrar
 Tech Organization:Register.Com
 Name Server:DNS41.REGISTER.COM
 Name Server:DNS42.REGISTER.COM

So now we see that petermiller.org is registered with register.com. A
quick visit to http://www.petermiller.org reveals that the domain is
parked (not pointing to anything yet). That explains why there is no
reverse lookup. 

You can also use the whois command to get information about the IP address:

 % whois 216.21.229.209
 OrgName:    Register.com, Inc
 NetRange:   216.21.224.0 - 216.21.239.255
 CIDR:       216.21.224.0/20
 NameServer: DNS1.REGISTER.COM
 NameServer: DNS2.REGISTER.COM
 NameServer: DNS3.REGISTER.COM
 NameServer: DNS4.REGISTER.COM

Here's what all those commands would tell you about a site hosted at
groogroo:

 % host www.ucimc.org
 www.ucimc.org           A       64.5.70.195

 % host 64.5.70.195
 Name: imsahp.cu.groogroo.com
 Address: 64.5.70.195

 % whois ucimc.org
 Domain Name:UCIMC.ORG
 Created On:04-Jul-2001 07:33:26 UTC
 Last Updated On:31-Oct-2003 13:50:35 UTC
 Expiration Date:04-Jul-2004 07:33:26 UTC
 Registrant Name:Zachary Miller
 Admin Name:Zachary Miller
 Billing Name:Zachary Miller
 Tech Name:Zachary Miller
 Name Server:NS.CU.GROOGROO.COM
 Name Server:NS2.CU.GROOGROO.COM

 % whois 64.5.70.195
 Sol Tec, Inc. SOLTEC2-NET (NET-64-5-64-0-1)
                                   64.5.64.0 - 64.5.127.255
 Illini Manor Apartments SOLTEC-IMANOR-256 (NET-64-5-70-0-1)
                                   64.5.70.0 - 64.5.70.255

-- 
Zachary C. Miller - @= - http://wolfgang.groogroo.com/
IMSA 1995 - UIUC 2000 - Just Another Leftist Muppet - Ya Basta!
 Social Justice, Community, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Feminism,
 Sustainability, Responsibility, Diversity, Democracy, Ecology