Following on from my last article on getting the correct IP address from your user, its time to take it a little further with some whois lookups.
Click here for a demo of IPLookup
A whois lookup *can* tell you lots of information about the users IP address. It can tell you the owner of the IP, the country, a short description about the owner or organisation using it. If its owned by a company, it can even give you the address.
So what? Well unless you’re doing some stats, it really hasn’t got more use then just being cool. You’ll be able to tell where people are, sometimes to their doorstep.
My code below is a complete VB.net class. You should be able to drag and drop it into your projects. A sample on how to trigger it:
Dim ipl As New IPLookup("81.15.12.4")
Response.Write("Your ISP is " & ipl.ISP)Of course this is a very simplified example. I will expand the code at a later date to include a bit of caching to stop the server doing lookup after lookup. Note this is released under a Non-Commercial Share-Alike Creative Commons License. If you need it under a different license, just contact me.
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Net
Imports System.Net.Sockets
Imports System.Text
Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions
Public Class IPLookup
# Region " Public Property-Vars and properties "
Private _IP As String
Public Property IP() As String
Get
Return _IP
End Get
Set(ByVal value As String)
_IP = value
ParseAndLookup()
End Set
End Property
Private _ISP As String
Public ReadOnly Property ISP() As String
Get
Return _ISP
End Get
End Property
Private _ISPDescription As String
Public ReadOnly Property ISPDescription() As String
Get
Return _ISPDescription
End Get
End Property
Private _Country As String
Public ReadOnly Property Country() As String
Get
Return _Country
End Get
End Property
Private _Service As String
Public ReadOnly Property Service() As String
Get
Return _Service
End Get
End Property
Private _ServiceText As String
Public ReadOnly Property ServiceText() As String
Get
Return _ServiceText
End Get
End Property
# End Region
# Region " Private Class Variables "
' IP segments
Private _IPSeg(4) As Integer
' Sites to do the lookup
Private sites() As String = {"whois.apnic.net", _
"whois.ripe.net", _
"whois.arin.net"}
# End Region
Public Sub New(ByVal thisIP As String)
_IP = thisIP
ParseAndLookup()
End Sub
Private Sub ParseAndLookup()
' Precondition: If IP is invalid, set error and exit
If Not ParseIP() Then
SetError()
_ISP = "Broke at parse"
Exit Sub
End If
' Defined here to keep in scope later on
Dim tempStore As String = String.Empty
Dim strDomain As String = _IP & vbCrLf
Dim arrDomain As Byte() = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(strDomain)
Dim i As Integer ' dim here for scope
For i = 0 To _IPSeg.Length
' Make a TCPClient and connect
Dim tcpC As New TcpClient(sites(i), 43)
Dim tcpStream As Stream = tcpC.GetStream
' Write the IP into the stream
tcpStream.Write(arrDomain, 0, strDomain.Length)
' Read the return stream into a string
Dim objSR As New StreamReader(tcpStream, Encoding.ASCII)
tempStore = objSR.ReadToEnd
' Close the stream
tcpC.Close()
' See if we have a winner yet
Select Case i
Case 0 ' Apnic
If Not (tempStore.Contains("RIPE") Or _
tempStore.Contains("arin")) Then
Exit For
End If
Case 1 ' Ripe
If Not (tempStore.Contains("iana") Or _
tempStore.Contains("arin")) Then
Exit For
End If
Case 2 ' Arin
If Not (tempStore.Contains("RIPE") Or _
tempStore.Contains("apnic")) Then
Exit For
End If
End Select
Next
' Store the service used into private var
_Service = sites(i)
' Store the raw text
_ServiceText = tempStore
' Get the data from the result
Dim pat As String = "(?:netname:\s+(?<nname>.*)\s+" & _
"(?:descr:\s+(?<ndesc>.*)\s+)+" & _
"country:\s+(?<ncoun>.*)\s+)|" & _
"(?:OrgName:\s+(?<nname>.*)\s+" & _
"OrgID:\s+(?<ndesc>.*)\s+.*" & _
"country:\s+(?<ncoun>.*)\s+)"
Dim match As Match = Regex.Match(tempStore, pat)
' Midcondition: explode if no match
If Not match.Success Then
SetError()
_ISP = "Broke at regex"
Exit Sub
End If
With match
_ISP = .Groups("nname").Value
_ISPDescription = .Groups("ndesc").Value
_Country = .Groups("ncoun").Value
End With
' Fin.
End Sub
' Sub for churning the String-IP into Integer segments
Private Function ParseIP() As Boolean
' Get a list of matches based on the given IP
Dim _matches As MatchCollection = Regex.Matches(_IP, "(\d{1,3})")
' Midcondition: Check there are at least 4 maches
If _matches.Count < 4 Then Return False
' Iterate the matches and assign
Dim count As Integer = 0
For Each _match As Match In _matches
If count > 3 Then Exit For
_IPSeg(count) = Integer.Parse(_match.Value)
count += 1
Next
' Postcondition: Check the segments to make sure they're under 256
For Each seg As Integer In _IPSeg
If seg > 255 Then Return False
Next
' Reassign ip from segments
_IP = String.Format("{0}.{1}.{2}.{3}", _
_IPSeg(0), _IPSeg(1), _IPSeg(2), _IPSeg(3))
Return True
End Function
Private Sub SetError()
_ISP = "Error"
_ISPDescription = "Invalid IP"
_Country = "Unknown"
End Sub
End Class