Whois

Quite the variety of information can be obtained through what seem like simple command line utilities. Not to be considered useless, these might require some effort, but in most cases deliver a better result than an application with a shiny visual design. For instance, Whois can display info on a specific domain or IP address in a matter of seconds.

Since it’s merely a command line utility, there’s no installation involved, and can be carried with ease on a USB flash drive. However, the Command Prompt instance to use the utility is best run with administrator privileges, so there aren’t any unexpected issues when attempting to gather data from the web.

Targets can either be domain names, like a full website address, or the IP address to find out more details about it. The syntax doesn’t require much effort, with whois domainname [whois.server] being an example. In this case, domainname needs to be replaced by the URL, or IP. The server is optional, with the default configuration supporting COM, NET, and EDU domains.

A large list of related details is instantly generated. In case not everything is visible, increasing the Command Prompt buffer does the trick. The -v switch can be used to print out information. Syntax doesn’t differ much, with whois [-v] domainname [whois.server] getting the job done.