My original question :-
Given a specific network number I want to find out who owns it (or more
specifically who it has been assigned to). I have used all the regular dns
tool (nslookup,dig, whois etc). It would appear that the network number I
am looking for has been assigned but has no dns servers associated with it
and hence I get no hostname resolution or authority information, but can
ping hosts.
Well I got a fair number of replies however as suspected there really is no
magic oracle to give you this sort of information. Basically you need to
make use of the tools available to get as far down the DNS chain as
possible ending possible with an enquiry at the ISP. The first thing to try
is to use the various DNS tools as follows :-
nslookup (come as part of the bind distribution
dig
generally these will only be usefull if the address you are looking for is
registered with in the DNS (no always the case). In my case the address's
were allocated and routed by doing a nslookup produced an unresolved
response.
whois http://ds.internic.net/wp/nwhois.html
http://www.ripe.net/db/whois.html
http://www.ripe.net/nicdb.html
http://www.parked.com/whois.htm
telnet://rs.internic.net (whois 193.128.218 = derwent
also usefull for name searched e.g. derwent
http://www.ripe.net/db/dbwais.html
The above may or may not provide you with information you are after, blocks
of address are assigned from the central authorities e.g. ripe & nic to
naming registries e.g. ISP's who will then allocate address's to various
customers. In my situation I was looking for details on a network address
which I had been told was assigned to us e.g. derwent but in actual fact it
belonged to our parent company Thompson publishing who then allocated it to
our US offices.
If the above tools don't come up with anything you can use the tool
traceroute which shoul give you an indication of which ISP or last point of
contact is passed through before reaching the address in question so for
example :
traceroute www.derwent.co.uk
will hit a pipex gateway who are one of our ISP's I could then enquire with
pipex (whether they would provide you details such as IP assignemnets I
don't know).
Its all a bit like trying to find which customer received a particular
product of a manufactured batch. The maufacture (e.g. internic) sells to a
wholesaler/retailer (ISP) who then sells to the end customer. Obviously the
manufacturer dosn't necessarily know who its end customers, it depends on
whether it sells direct or whether the retailer reports back who it sold
to.
Given a little time and effort and using the above methods you should be
able to find the info you want
Many Thanks to all those people who replied to my original query.
**************************************************************************
* *
* Stuart Burch Derwent Information Publishing *
* (System Administrator/Developer) 14 Great Queens Street *
* London *
* Group Business Development WC2B 5DF. *
* *
* Email: sburch@derwent.co.uk Tel: 0171-344 2800 x 3001 *
* *
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