Installing the command-line executable

Assuming you have Rust/Cargo installed, run this command in a terminal:

cargo install domaincheck

It will make the domaincheck command available in your PATH if you've allowed the PATH to be modified when installing Rust. cargo uninstall domaincheck uninstalls.

Back to the crate overview.

Readme

domaincheck v0.4.109

Check domainname availability on CLI using RDAP (with WHOIS fallback)

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
🚀 Optimized Concurrency - Lightning-fast parallel processing with intelligent rate limiting and TLD-based optimization
💻 Interactive Terminal UI - Navigate and explore domains in a beautiful terminal interface
📋 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
After: https://github.com/saidutt46/domain-check

Install static single-binary

wget https://github.com/pepa65/domaincheck/releases/download/0.4.7/domaincheck
sudo mv domaincheck /usr/local/bin
sudo chown root:root /usr/local/bin/domaincheck
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/domaincheck

Install with cargo

If not installed yet, install a Rust toolchain, see https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install

Direct from crates.io

cargo install domaincheck

Direct from repo

cargo install --git https://github.com/pepa65/domaincheck

Static build (avoiding GLIBC incompatibilities)

git clone https://github.com/pepa65/domaincheck
cd domaincheck
rustup target add x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
cargo rel  # Alias defined in .cargo/config.toml

The binary will be at target/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl/release/domaincheck

Install with cargo-binstall

Even without a full Rust toolchain, rust binaries can be installed with the static binary cargo-binstall:

# Install cargo-binstall for Linux x86_64
# (Other versions are available at https://crates.io/crates/cargo-binstall)
wget github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/releases/latest/download/cargo-binstall-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tgz
tar xf cargo-binstall-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tgz
sudo chown root:root cargo-binstall
sudo mv cargo-binstall /usr/local/bin/

Only a linux-x86_64 (musl) binary available: cargo-binstall domaincheck

It will be installed in ~/.cargo/bin/ which will need to be added to PATH!

Quick Start

Check domainname availability (TLD defaults to .com):

domaincheck example

Check a domain across multiple TLDs:

domaincheck example -t com org net io app

Get more detailed information about a domain:

domaincheck example.com -i

Check multiple domains from a file:

domaincheck --file domains.txt

Usage

domaincheck 0.4.109
Check domainname availability on CLI using RDAP (with WHOIS fallback)
Usage:
  domaincheck [OPTIONS] [DOMAIN]
Arguments:
  [DOMAIN]  Domainname to check (without TLD for multiple TLD checking)

Options:
  -t, --tld <TLD>...               Check availability with these TLDs (space separated)
  -f, --file <FILE>                Input file with domains to check (one per line)
  -j, --json                       Output results in JSON format
  -u, --ui                         Launch interactive terminal UI dashboard
  -c, --concurrency <CONCURRENCY>  Max concurrent domain checks (max: 100) [default: 10]
  -n, --no-whois                   Disable automatic WHOIS fallback
  -v, --verbose                    Be extra verbose
  -d, --debug                      Show detailed debug information and error messages
  -h, --help                       Print help
  -V, --version                    Print version

Examples

Basic domain check

domaincheck example

Output:

🔴 example.com TAKEN

Check with multiple TLDs

domaincheck myawesome -t com net org io

Output:

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

Show detailed domain information

domaincheck google.com -i -p

Output:

🔍 Checking: google with TLDs: com
🔴 google.com TAKEN  1997-09-15T04:00:00Z..2028-09-14T04:00:00Z @"MarkMonitor Inc." serverDeleteProhibited, serverTransferProhibited, serverUpdateProhibited

Bulk domain checking from file

File domains.txt contains:

example.com
xyz123domain
startup.io
# This is a comment
test-site.org

domaincheck --file domains.txt

Output:

Starting bulk domain check with concurrency: 10
Results will stream as they complete:

🟢 xyz123domain.com AVAILABLE (No info available for unregistered domains)
🔴 example.com TAKEN  1995-08-14T04:00:00Z..2025-08-13T04:00:00Z @"RESERVED-Internet Assigned Numbers Authority" client delete prohibited, client transfer prohibited, client update prohibited
🔴 test-site.org TAKEN (No info available)
🔴 startup.io TAKEN (No info available)

✅ 4 domains processed: 🟢 1 available, 🔴 3 taken, ⚠️ 0 unknown

Bulk checking with high concurrency

domaincheck --file many-domains.txt --concurrency 50

Bulk checking with TLD specification

domaincheck --file base-domains.txt --tld com org io

Interactive UI mode

domaincheck startup -t com io xyz dev -u

Debug mode for troubleshooting

domaincheck example.pizza -d

Output:

🔍 Checking: example with TLDs: pizza
🔍 No known RDAP endpoint for .pizza, trying bootstrap registry...
🟢 example.pizza still AVAILABLE (No info available for unregistered domains)

JSON output for integration

domaincheck example -j

Output:

[
  {
    "domain": "example.com",
    "available": false,
    "info": {
      "registrar": "RESERVED-Internet Assigned Numbers Authority",
      "creation_date": "1995-08-14T04:00:00Z",
      "expiration_date": "2025-08-13T04:00:00Z",
      "status": [
        "client delete prohibited",
        "client transfer prohibited",
        "client update prohibited"
      ]
    }
  }
]

Piping results to other tools

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

domaincheck example.com -ji |jq '.[] | .info.expiration_date'

Integration

The JSON output can be easily integrated with other tools:

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

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

How It Works

Attempts to check domain via RDAP using known registry endpoints
If TLD isn't in the known list, uses IANA bootstrap to discover the endpoint
Automatically falls back to WHOIS lookup if RDAP is unavailable or unsuccessful
Extracts detailed information when requested and possible
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
Small binary size for fast startup and low resource usage

Supported TLDs

domaincheck 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

Feature	domain-check	whois-cli	dns-lookup
RDAP Protocol	✅	❌	❌
Bootstrap Registry	✅	❌	❌
Auto WHOIS Fallback	✅	✅	❌
Detailed Info	✅	❌	❌
Multiple TLDs	✅	❌	✅
Bulk File Checking	✅	❌	❌
Configurable Concurrency	✅	❌	❌
Interactive UI	✅	❌	❌
JSON Output	✅	❌	✅
Concurrency Control	✅	❌	❌
Speed	Fast ⚡	Medium	Medium

Contributing

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

Fork the repository.
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature).
Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature').
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature).
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.
The various registry operators for providing public RDAP endpoints.