[thelist] Basic Traffic tracking question

[Seth Bienek]

> Webtrends has the ability to translate these numbers into domain
> names.  It
> is called something similar to "Reverse DNS lookup".

Just wanted to add that doing a reverse DNS lookup is not in and of itself
resource intensive, but doing lookups against every IP in your log file is
going to slow down your reporting considerably.

For one-at-a-time lookups, I have used Sam Spade for some time.  Not overly
fancy, but it gets the job done and the price is right: gratis.  It's also
web-based, which means it's only a bookmark link away for me.. :)  The
"address digger" is the tool you'll likely want to try first, but there are
many other cool tools on that page..  The "traceroute" tool further down the
page for example is extremely easy to use and fun to play with too.

http://www.samspade.org/t/

BTW, the lookup on the IP address you gave returned this:

Official name: 1Cust166.tnt76.chi5.da.uu.net

Addresses: 63.38.132.166

Registrant:
UUNET Technologies, Inc. (UU-DOM)
   3060 Williams Drive Ste 601
   Fairfax, VA 22031
   USA


...Which means it's most likely a dial-up account, though it could be a
business IP.  If you are having problems with people trying exploits on your
site, you can usually supply the ISP (in this case, UUNET) with the IP
address/official name, and your server log's time/date stamp (make sure you
adjust for time zones, etc.) and they will "look into the matter".. (note
the quotes, used to express sarcasm)

Take Care,

Seth

------------------------------
Seth Bienek
Solutions Development Manager
Stonebridge Technologies, Inc.
972.455.7294 tel
972.404.9754 fax
ICQ #7673959
------------------------------