I Built a Web Tools Site (And It Got a Little Out of Hand)

I have a bad habit of building tools instead of just Googling things.

It usually starts the same way — I need to check a DNS record, IP Address or a subnet, or verify that a redirect chain is actually doing what I think it's doing. I end up bouncing between five different sketchy websites, half of which are covered in ads and the other half of which I don't fully trust with whatever I just pasted in. So I build my own. And then I build another one. And then suddenly it's a whole site.

That's basically how webtools.chrisbmn.com happened.

What's on it

Right now there are 30+ tools spread across six categories:

• Network — IP lookup, DNS lookup, reverse DNS, port checker, HTTP headers, redirect chain tracer, subnet calculator, ASN lookup, CDN cache tester, and a "what's my IP" page for when you just need to know fast.
• Domain — WHOIS, SSL certificate checker, email deliverability (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and a full DMARC report analyzer that parses the XML aggregate reports your mail provider sends you.
• Security — Password generator, hash generator (MD5 through SHA-512), JWT decoder, and an SMTP TLS report analyzer for parsing those RFC 8460 JSON reports.
• Developer — Base64, JSON formatter/validator, URL encode/decode, regex tester, UUID generator, text diff, and a Paste tool for sharing snippets.
• Utilities — Unix timestamp converter, CIDR/IP range builder, cron expression builder, and a website screenshot tool.
• Reference — User agent parser and a full HTTP status code reference.

A few I actually use regularly

The password generator gets more use than I expected — turns out having a solid one a tab away beats fumbling for a separate app every time. The WHOIS lookup is another one I keep coming back to more than I thought I would, usually when I'm poking at an unfamiliar domain and want the registration details without leaving the browser. And the DMARC report analyzer came out of personal frustration — those aggregate XML files are not fun to read raw.

The most recent addition is an SMTP TLS Report analyzer for the RFC 8460 JSON reports that providers like Google send when you've got MTA-STS set up. Paste the JSON in, get a clean breakdown of session success/failure counts, failure types with plain-English explanations, and actionable recommendations. Because nobody wants to manually parse that.

Why not just use existing tools

Honestly? A mix of reasons. Some tools I use frequently enough that I want them fast and without ads. Some I wanted to work a specific way. Some I built because I wanted to understand the underlying protocol better — there's no faster way to learn how DMARC reports are structured than to write a parser for them. And some I just built for fun.

Everything runs server-side in PHP. No tracking, no third-party analytics on the tool pages, nothing getting logged. What you paste in stays between you and the server.

It's still growing

I add tools when something annoys me enough. If there's something missing that you'd find useful, let me know in the comments — no promises, but I'm always looking for an excuse to build something.

→ webtools.chrisbmn.com