grabbing external information

what kinds of information can I grab about an external server or web site from a php page?

You should be able to get headers from pretty much any open service using the socket_connect function:

http://us4.php.net/socket_connect

thanks! can you show any small examples?

For a whois server connection try:

<?php

$fp = fsockopen ("whois.networksolutions.com", 43, $errno, $errstr, 30);

if (!$fp) {
echo "$errstr ($errno)<br>\n";
} else {
fputs ($fp, "devarticles.com\r\n");
while (!feof($fp)) {
echo fgets ($fp,128);
}
fclose ($fp);
}

?>

Use this to get a web server's information:

<?php
function get_server_software($domain)
{
$fp = fsockopen($domain, 80, $errno, $errstr, 1);

if (!$fp) {
return("");
} else {

fputs($fp, "HEAD / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: " . $domain . "\r\n\r\n");

while (!feof($fp)) {
if (preg_match("/\bServer:/", $server = fgets($fp, 256))) {
fclose($fp);
return(substr($server, 8, -2));
}
}

fclose($fp);
}
}

print get_server_software("www.devarticles.com");
?>