[kwlug-disc] (forw) d-check script to keep an eye on pending domain expirations

[Rick Moen]

Forwarding (in part) to further call attention to d-check.

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2022 17:47:52 -0800
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: kev at fosstodon.org
Subject: d-check script to keep an eye on pending domain expirations
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

Hi, Kev.  I'm a guy in the industry who finally got around to
activating a Mastodon account (@unixmercenary at infosec.exchange),
and happened to notice https://hub.fosstodon.org/our-domain-expired/ .
Ouch.  I'm sure that wasn't fun.

Just offering something I and friends use to make sure we're never
blindsided by expirations:  a nice little Perl script (d-check) 
suitable for running as /etc/cron.weekly/domains, to report to 
a group of e-mail recipients which of a simple list of domains 
(referenced as, e.g., /usr/local/etc/d-check-domains) are 
within a specified number of days of operation.

My friend Jesse Monroy wrote d-check as a plug-in replacement for the
previous effort, Ben Okopnik's domain-check, which Ben orphaned in 2008.
Both scripts were prompted by my 2007 _Linux Gazette_ article about
averting the expiration problem, archived here on my Web site:
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/preventing-expiration.html
(I was one of the editors of that magazine.)

Jesse's code is published from https://github.com/jessemonroy650/d-check , 
and I mirror it as part of http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/network/ 
with a example cron job and a test-load list of domains.


If you'll also permit a bit of additional advice, I personally elect to
keep all domains of ongoing interest extended at all times to at least
two/three or more years away from expiration, and to never, never trust
autorenew.

There are doubtless ccTLDs and GTLDs whose WHOIS data d-check cannot 
yet parse, especially since there are so many new ones.  I hope 
Jesse will pay attention to bugs filed against d-check on GitHub and 
add regexs to handle more and fix ones that got broken by WHOIS output
changes, but of course can't promise that.

I get a report from d-check every Sunday, and have thereby been able to 
help backstop a lot of friends and also organisations I support, by
gently nudging them and saying "Hey, you're on top of that expiration in
a week, right?" or "Uh-oh, your domain expired four days ago but you can
save that if you act soon."  And it would be great to see it more widely
used, in the spirit of helping others.

-- 
Cheers,                                        <BombScare> i beat the internet
Rick Moen                                      <BombScare> the end guy is hard
rick at linuxmafia.com                                           -- seen on IRC
McQ! (4x80)

----- End forwarded message -----