Ted M Coopman wrote:
I was wondering if anyone knew how to ID the server or general server location (either by city, state, region, or nation) of a particular website? Server names can sometimes be found via whois, but I am looking for a way to find server locations without trying to contact admins.
You could try Netcraft: http://uptime.netcraft.com/ and CoolWhois (which is a useful extension for Firefox) http://www.coolwhois.com/ Antonio
All, In the site report of a specific url it lists the country. Sometimes this does not correspond with the nameserver nor the stated "location" for the website. For example, de.indymedia.org (Germany) has a Nameserver "ns2.riseup.net" which is owned by a Seattle organization and is flagged as US. But, liege.indymedia.org (Belgium) also has the Nameserver "ns2.riseup.net" which is owned by a Seattle organization but is flagged Belgium. What does this mean? Is the server location indicated by the flagging/nationality? Or is the location indicated by the nameserver/owneing org? -TED Ted M. Coopman Department of Communication University of Washington On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Antonio Roversi wrote:
Ted M Coopman wrote:
I was wondering if anyone knew how to ID the server or general server location (either by city, state, region, or nation) of a particular website? Server names can sometimes be found via whois, but I am looking for a way to find server locations without trying to contact admins.
You could try Netcraft:
and CoolWhois (which is a useful extension for Firefox)
Antonio _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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As earlier responses noted, locating servers is a shaky business, and even once you have, it's not clear why it matters in many cases. Until recently, my personal website had a server in Hong Kong (IP location) managed by a web host in Sofia, the name was registered to a Seattle address (whois record), by a Parisian registrar. The only piece of locational data in all that which was correct (Buffalo, at the time) was the ICBM tags on some of the pages. So, be sure you know what it is you are trying to locate, and if the server is really it. There are commercial databases of IP address geolocation. These are somewhat reliable, some of the time :). You might, for example, play with: http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm There is an effort at developing a free/open IP location database: not quite as complete (~50% correct!), but worth supporting. In fact, if AIR-L readers go and hit this database and check to make sure it correctly locates your IP address, it would take only a few seconds, and help to develop a great public resource: http://www.hostip.info - Alex -- // // This email is // [X] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais // Social Architect // http://alex.halavais.net //
I agree with alex on this. if you are trying to find out the real location of a server, there is no way to get that information from the internet and be sure that the information is correct. you can do a traceroute and usually find indications of location by looking at where the geographical identifiers end, but that doesn't always yield correct info either. for instance there are vt.edu servers in blacksburg, and nova, but i suspect that there might be at least one elsewhere in the world, but www.vt.edu is in blacksburg. however, many smaller colleges do not run their own web services, so i think it was haverford is actually running from the drexel system and swarthmore had some partnership with cornell for a few years, i'm pretty sure. this example just goes to show that you have several layers of identity and location and they don't easily map. if you want to know where indymedia servers are, just ask them. self-reporting might be more reliable. On Jun 10, 2006, at 8:03 PM, Alex Halavais wrote:
As earlier responses noted, locating servers is a shaky business, and even once you have, it's not clear why it matters in many cases. Until recently, my personal website had a server in Hong Kong (IP location) managed by a web host in Sofia, the name was registered to a Seattle address (whois record), by a Parisian registrar. The only piece of locational data in all that which was correct (Buffalo, at the time) was the ICBM tags on some of the pages. So, be sure you know what it is you are trying to locate, and if the server is really it.
There are commercial databases of IP address geolocation. These are somewhat reliable, some of the time :). You might, for example, play with:
http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm
There is an effort at developing a free/open IP location database: not quite as complete (~50% correct!), but worth supporting. In fact, if AIR-L readers go and hit this database and check to make sure it correctly locates your IP address, it would take only a few seconds, and help to develop a great public resource:
- Alex
-- // // This email is // [X] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais // Social Architect // http://alex.halavais.net // _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Thanks everyone. My initial interest was to see if the Indymedia network was overwhelming running out of US servers. It really is tangential to what I'm investigating at this stage, but if the info was there I would use it. Two things I found on the Netcraft site I can use is the date the website appeared (this seems to be at least semi-acccurate as I checked a few sites I know the roll-out dates of and it was accurate) and the nameserver. So I may not know where the it is, but I do know the server it runs off of. -TED Ted M. Coopman Department of Communication University of Washington On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Alex Halavais wrote:
As earlier responses noted, locating servers is a shaky business, and even once you have, it's not clear why it matters in many cases. Until recently, my personal website had a server in Hong Kong (IP location) managed by a web host in Sofia, the name was registered to a Seattle address (whois record), by a Parisian registrar. The only piece of locational data in all that which was correct (Buffalo, at the time) was the ICBM tags on some of the pages. So, be sure you know what it is you are trying to locate, and if the server is really it.
There are commercial databases of IP address geolocation. These are somewhat reliable, some of the time :). You might, for example, play with:
http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm
There is an effort at developing a free/open IP location database: not quite as complete (~50% correct!), but worth supporting. In fact, if AIR-L readers go and hit this database and check to make sure it correctly locates your IP address, it would take only a few seconds, and help to develop a great public resource:
- Alex
-- // // This email is // [X] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais // Social Architect // http://alex.halavais.net // _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Knowing a server's location could be important from a legal perspective. Jurisdiction for a lawsuit is based at least in part on connection of the place where the basis for the lawsuit occurred to the place of the court in which a litigant is seeking to file suit. So, for example, in a case involving defamation on a website that was hosted on a server in state X, state X becomes a legally viable option for filing suit, even if the company running the site is headquartered in state Y. Donna Cavallini -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Alex Halavais Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 5:03 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] netcraft question As earlier responses noted, locating servers is a shaky business, and even once you have, it's not clear why it matters in many cases. Until recently, my personal website had a server in Hong Kong (IP location) managed by a web host in Sofia, the name was registered to a Seattle address (whois record), by a Parisian registrar. The only piece of locational data in all that which was correct (Buffalo, at the time) was the ICBM tags on some of the pages. So, be sure you know what it is you are trying to locate, and if the server is really it. There are commercial databases of IP address geolocation. These are somewhat reliable, some of the time :). You might, for example, play with: http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm There is an effort at developing a free/open IP location database: not quite as complete (~50% correct!), but worth supporting. In fact, if AIR-L readers go and hit this database and check to make sure it correctly locates your IP address, it would take only a few seconds, and help to develop a great public resource: http://www.hostip.info - Alex -- // // This email is // [X] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais // Social Architect // http://alex.halavais.net // _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
participants (5)
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Alex Halavais -
Antonio Roversi -
Donna Cavallini -
Jeremy Hunsinger -
Ted M Coopman