domain-check

A fast, robust CLI tool for checking domain availability using RDAP protocol with automatic WHOIS fallback and detailed domain information.

Features

• ✅ RDAP Protocol Support - Uses the modern Registration Data Access Protocol
• 🔄 IANA Bootstrap Registry - Dynamically discovers RDAP endpoints for any TLD
• 🌐 Automatic WHOIS Fallback - Gracefully falls back to WHOIS when RDAP isn't available
• 🔍 Detailed Information - Shows registrar, creation dates, expiration, and status
• 🎯 Multiple TLD Support - Check domains across various TLDs in one command
• 📋 Bulk Domain Checking - Process hundreds of domains from a text file
• 💻 Interactive Terminal UI - Navigate and explore domains in a beautiful terminal interface
• 🚀 Optimized Concurrency - Fast parallel processing with rate limiting and error handling
• 📋 JSON Output - Machine-readable output for integration with other tools
• 🎨 Color-coded Results - Clear visual indicators for domain status
• 🐛 Debug Mode - Detailed logging for troubleshooting
• ⚡ Lightweight & Fast

Installation

From crates.io

cargo install domain-check

From source

git clone https://github.com/saidutt46/domain-check.git
cd domain-check
cargo install --path .

Quick Start

Check if a domain is available:

domain-check example

Check a domain across multiple TLDs:

domain-check example -t com org net io app

Get detailed information about a domain:

domain-check example.com -i

Check multiple domains from a file:

domain-check --file domains.txt

Usage

USAGE:
  domain-check [OPTIONS] [DOMAIN]

ARGS:
  [DOMAIN]  Domain name to check (without TLD for multiple TLD checking)

OPTIONS:
  -t, --tld <TLD>...       Check availability with these TLDs
  -f, --file <FILE>        Input file with domains to check (one per line)
  -c, --concurrency <N>    Max concurrent domain checks (default: 10, max: 100)
      --force              Override the 500 domain limit for bulk operations
  -i, --info               Show detailed domain information when available
  -b, --bootstrap          Use IANA bootstrap to find RDAP endpoints for unknown TLDs
  -w, --whois              Fallback to WHOIS when RDAP is unavailable (deprecated, enabled by default)
      --no-whois           Disable automatic WHOIS fallback
  -u, --ui                 Launch interactive terminal UI dashboard
  -j, --json               Output results in JSON format
  -p, --pretty             Enable colorful, formatted output
  -d, --debug              Show detailed debug information and error messages
  -h, --help               Print help information
  -V, --version            Print version information

Examples

Basic domain check

domain-check example

Output:

🔴 example.com is TAKEN

Check with multiple TLDs

domain-check myawesome -t com net org io

Output:

🔴 myawesome.com is TAKEN
🟢 myawesome.net is AVAILABLE
🟢 myawesome.org is AVAILABLE
🔴 myawesome.io is TAKEN

Show detailed domain information

domain-check google.com -i -p

Output:

🔍 Checking domain availability for: google
🔍 With TLDs: com
ℹ️ Detailed info will be shown for taken domains

🔴 google.com is TAKEN Registrar: MarkMonitor Inc. | Created: 1997-09-15T04:00:00Z | Expires: 2028-09-14T04:00:00Z | Status: serverDeleteProhibited, serverTransferProhibited, serverUpdateProhibited

Bulk domain checking from file

domain-check --file domains.txt

Where domains.txt contains:

example.com
mydomain
startup.io
# This is a comment
test-site.org

Output:

Checking 4 domains from file...
Using concurrency: 10 - Please wait...

🔴 example.com is TAKEN
🟢 mydomain.com is AVAILABLE
🔴 startup.io is TAKEN
🟢 test-site.org is AVAILABLE

✅ 4 domains processed: 🟢 2 available, 🔴 2 taken, ⚠️ 0 unknown

Bulk checking with high concurrency

domain-check --file many-domains.txt --concurrency 50

Bulk checking with TLD specification

domain-check --file base-domains.txt --tld com org io

Interactive UI mode

domain-check startup -t com io xyz dev -u

Checking unknown TLDs with bootstrap

domain-check example.pizza -b

Output:

🔴 example.pizza is TAKEN

Debug mode for troubleshooting

domain-check example.pizza -b -d

Output:

🔍 No known RDAP endpoint for .pizza, trying bootstrap registry...
🔍 Finding RDAP endpoint for TLD: pizza
🔍 Found endpoint: https://rdap.donuts.co/domain/
🔴 example.pizza is TAKEN

JSON output for integration

domain-check example -j

Advanced Usage

Bulk checking with domain files

Create a text file with one domain per line:

mydomain.com
product-name
startup.io
brand-new-idea
# Comment lines are ignored
my-app.dev

Then check all domains in a single command:

domain-check --file domains.txt --concurrency 20

For base domains without TLDs, you can specify which TLDs to check:

domain-check --file base-domains.txt --tld com net org io app

Checking available TLDs for a base name

domain-check mybusiness -t com net org io app dev xyz me co

Checking rare TLDs with automatic fallback

domain-check rare-tld.something -b

The tool will automatically try RDAP first, then fall back to WHOIS if RDAP fails.

Piping results to other tools

domain-check mydomain -t com net org -j | jq '.[] | select(.available==true) | .domain'

Integration

The JSON output can be easily integrated with other tools:

# Find all available domains and save to a file
domain-check business -t com net org io xyz -j | jq '.[] | select(.available==true) | .domain' -r > available_domains.txt

# Find all available domains and save to a file
domain-check --file domains.txt -j | jq '.[] | select(.available==true) | .domain' -r > available_domains.txt

How It Works

1. Attempts to check domain via RDAP using known registry endpoints
2. If TLD isn't in the known list, uses IANA bootstrap to discover the endpoint
3. Automatically falls back to WHOIS lookup if RDAP is unavailable or unsuccessful
4. Extracts detailed information when possible and requested
5. Uses intelligent concurrency control with rate limiting to prevent overloading servers

Performance

• Concurrent processing of multiple domains (up to 5 at once by default)
• Rate limiting to prevent overloading RDAP endpoints
• Automatic timeout handling to prevent hanging requests
• Tiny binary size for fast startup and low resource usage

Supported TLDs

domain-check includes built-in support for many popular TLDs including:

com, net, org, io, app, dev, ai, co, xyz, me, info, biz, us, uk, eu, tech, blog, page, zone, shop, de, ca, au, fr, es, it, nl, jp, tv, cc, and others.

Additional TLDs can be checked using the bootstrap (-b) option.

Comparison with other tools

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under either of:

• Apache License, Version 2.0, (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Acknowledgments

• IANA for providing the RDAP bootstrap registry
• Rustsec for inspiration on the dual MIT/Apache licensing approach
• Various registry operators for providing public RDAP endpoints