[sf-lug] Domain Registrations

[Rick Moen]

Also:

> Quoting Grant Bowman (grantbow at ubuntu.com):
> 
> > One of the many topics discussed tonight at the Ubuntu Hour [1] and
> > Noisebridge Linux Discussion [2] was a domain that was registered but
> > expired. the ICANN reports a 30 day "Redemption Grace Period" where
> > you must renew with your current registrar. Late fees are allowed.
> 
> Hi, Grant!  I can answer that.
> 
> As I say in the footnote to
> http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/preventing-expiration.html

The _main_ point of that article was to give readers a tool (the Perl
script called 'domain-check', runable as a cronjob, that helps you 
avoid the oops-my-domain-expired-and-I-never-noticed situation in the
first place -- and also help you help your friends, and help volunteer
groups and companies you like, by automatically watching over their
domains for them.

As shown in the downloadable example files, it's dead-simple to run
domain-check as a weekly cronjob on any 'Nix server that runs Perl.  
Even Macintoy OS X, I wouldn't doubt
(http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1999775/cron-jobs-under-mac-os-10-6-snow-leopard).

Every Sunday, domain-check sends me a report about which of a list of
about a hundred domains owned by friends (etc.) are nearing expiration
-- so I can make sure they don't fall through the cracks.  Among other
things, this saved SVLUG's ass a few years ago:  That was back when
Heather Stern was nominal custodian of SVLUG's domains, and, against my
very strong advice to the contrary, she'd set all four of the domain
contacts (Registrant, Billing, Administrative, and Technical) for
svlug.org to have alias mailboxes inside her starshine.org domain --
whose mail aliases then got muffed up, such that _nobody_ got the
various 'Your domain's getting close to expiration' warnings from
joker.com.  Because I was seeing domain-check's _separate_ warnings, I
was able to step in one day before expiration with my own credit card
and prevent that expiration.

Ever since I wrote the above-cited article, back in 2007, I've been
suggesting that others join me in using domain-check to help prevent our
own and others' domains from accidentaly expiring, any more.  I've been
puzzled to never hear even one other person mention joining me in doing
that.