Whois¶
Request Limit¶
Requests to the whois server are restricted to 10 per second per IP address.
Query Format¶
The query consists of a single domain name/name server ending in “nz”. No wildcards are permitted and the query string is used literally to match a domain name/name server in the register.
The domain name/name server in the query must be a well formed name. A trailing full stop (.) indicating an absolute domain name should not be present. If it is present the query will be rejected.
The server accepts queries in UTF-8 or in ASCII. If the query is in UTF-8 then it may include the Unicode characters for the macronised vowels (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū) natively, otherwise IDN domains must be queried for in Punycode.
The query string must not begin with a hyphen (-) (domain names may not begin with a hyphen anyway). Query strings beginning with a hyphen are reserved for future expansion, to allow passing “command line” flags to the whois server. Currently no flags are defined or permitted.
Query strings that do not match the input format will be rejected with an error response: error code and associated human readable error message, as described below.
Response Format¶
The response consists of a series of UTF-8 encoded lines, terminated by CR LF pairs. There are two types of lines in the response format:
Field-value lines containing a response field on a single line. These are described below
Comment lines identified by an initial percentage symbol (%). The comment lines are intended for human consumption and need not be decoded by a program interacting with the whois server. However they should be displayed to the user initiating the query.
Fields¶
The following is a list of all possible field-value fields.
There is no provision for fields to be wrapped onto a second line; all data associated with a given field will be on the same line. The maximum likely length of a field varies from field to field, but no fields will be longer than 1024 characters.
Domain response fields
For a domain name query, the domain values for name, status, creation date, original creation date, updated date and registrar will always be present. All other domain values that are not displayed are either due to .nz policy rules or it means they contain no data.
Full domain details may be available via the domain search tool on the DNCL website
Field |
Details |
Note |
|---|---|---|
Domain Name |
The domain name as stored in the register. Generally this will be the same as the domain name which was queried (from the query string). In the case of queries for IDNs, it will be the encoded domain name stored in the register, formatted according to RFC 3492. |
|
Registrar URL |
Main registrar website as defined in the registrar website field on the registrar settings page. |
|
Updated Date |
The date and time on which the registration was last modified, formatted according to RFC 3339. This field may be omitted if no modifications have been made since the domain was first registered. |
|
Creation Date |
The date and time at which the domain was entered into the register, formatted according to RFC 3339. |
|
Original Created |
The date and time on which the domain first appeared in the registry, formatted according to RFC 3339. |
|
Registry Expiry Date |
The date and time on which the current payment for the domain registration ends, formatted according to RFC 3339. |
|
Registrar |
Free format name of the registrar. |
|
Domain Status |
Statuses are as per the ICANN standard, EPP Status Codes | What Do They Mean, and Why Should I Know? - ICANN |
|
Registrant Name |
Free format name of the registrant. |
|
Registrant Organization |
Free format organization name. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Registrant Street |
Free format line(s) of the postal or physical address of the registrant. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Registrant City |
Free format name of city or other locality for the postal or physical address of the registrant. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Registrant State/Province |
Free format name of the province or region or state for the postal or physical address of the registrant. This field will be omitted if the postal or physical address does not list a province/region/state. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Registrant Postal Code |
Free format postal code for the postal or physical address of the registrant. This field will be omitted if the postal or physical address does not include a postal code. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Registrant Country |
Two letter country code of the postal or physical address of the registrant, followed by the country name in parenthesis as referenced in ISO3166. |
|
Registrant Phone |
Contact phone number for the registrant. The phone number is formatted with a leading plus sign (+), followed by the country code, followed by a space, followed (if given) by an area code, followed by a space, followed by a free format E.164 style phone number. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Registrant Phone Ext |
Contact phone extension number for the registrant. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Registrant Email |
Contact email address for the registrant. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Admin Name |
Free format name of the admin contact. |
|
Admin Organization |
Free format organization name. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Admin Street |
Free format line(s) of the postal or physical address of the admin contact. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Admin City |
Free format name of city or other locality for the postal or physical address of the admin contact. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Admin State/Province |
Free format name of the province or region or state for the postal or physical address of the admin contact. This field will be omitted if the postal or physical address does not list a province/region/state. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Admin Postal Code |
Free format postal code for the postal or physical address of the admin contact. This field will be omitted if the postal or physical address does not include a postal code. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Admin Country |
Two letter country code of the postal or physical address of the admin contact, followed by the country name in parenthesis as referenced in ISO3166. |
|
Admin Phone |
Contact phone number for the admin contact. The phone number is formatted with a leading plus sign (+), followed by the country code, followed by a space, followed (if given) by an area code, followed by a space, followed by a free format E.164 style phone number. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Admin Phone Ext |
Contact phone extension number for the admin contact. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Admin Email |
Contact email address for the admin contact. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Tech Name |
Free format name of the technical contact. |
|
Tech Organization |
Free format organization name. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Tech Street |
Free format line(s) of the postal or physical address of the technical contact. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Tech City |
Free format name of city or other locality for the postal or physical address of the technical contact. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Tech State/Province |
Free format name of the province or region or state for the postal or physical address of the technical contact. This field will be omitted if the postal or physical address does not list a province/region/state. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Tech Postal Code |
Free format postal code for the postal or physical address of the technical contact. This field will be omitted if the postal or physical address does not include a postal code. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Tech Country |
Two letter country code of the postal or physical address of the technical contact, followed by the country name in parenthesis as referenced in ISO3166. |
|
Tech Phone |
Contact phone number for the technical contact. The phone number is formatted with a leading plus sign (+), followed by the country code, followed by a space, followed (if given) by an area code, followed by a space, followed by a free format E.164 style phone number. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Tech Phone Ext |
Contact phone extension number for the technical contact. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Tech Email |
Contact email address for the technical contact. |
Will not be returned if Privacy is enabled for this domain. |
Name Server |
Host name of the name server recorded in the register for delegation of the domain. |
Maximum number of name server entries returned is 13. |
DNSSEC |
A value of signedDelegation indicates the domain name contains DNSSEC DS Record information - Delegation of Signing (DS) records that include information about a signed zone file. |
Name server response fields
For a name server query, the values for name saver and registrar will always be present. All other domain values that are not displayed means they contain no data.
Field |
Details |
|---|---|
Server Name |
The host name of the name server held in the register. |
IP Address |
The IP address of the name server held in the register. |
Registrar |
Free format name of the registrar. |
Registrar URL |
Main registrar website as defined in the registrar website field on the registrar settings page. |
Status codes and Error codes
The following table lists the error codes and messages that Whois generates to notify you of any problems or errors with your query.
Error Code |
Error Message |
|---|---|
01042 |
Domain name is invalid. |
01044 |
The domain name requested has usage restrictions applied to it. Please see your Registrar for more details. |
10110 |
The domain name provided must end with .nz |
10111 |
A part of a domain name provided is either too long or too short. Each part of domain names registered with the registry must be between 1 and 63 characters in length. |
10112 |
The domain name provided contains invalid characters. Domain names may only contain supported character code points, letters, numbers, and hyphens. |
10113 |
The domain name provided contains a hyphen in an invalid position. Domain names may not begin or end with a hyphen. |