WHOIS(1) BSD General Commands Manual WHOIS(1)
NAME
whois -- Internet domain name and network number directory service
SYNOPSIS
whois [-aAbdgiIlmQrR6] [-c country-code | -h host] [-p port] name ...
DESCRIPTION
The whois utility looks up records in the databases maintained by several Network Information Centers
(NICs).
The options are as follows:
-6 Use the IPv6 Resource Center (6bone) database. It contains network names and addresses for the
IPv6 network.
-A Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) database. It contains network numbers
used in East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.
-a Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) database. It contains network numbers
used in those parts of the world covered neither by APNIC nor by RIPE.
(Hint: All point of contact handles in the ARIN whois database end with "-ARIN".)
-b Use the Network Abuse Clearinghouse database. It contains addresses to which network abuse
should be reported, indexed by domain name.
-c country-code
This is the equivalent of using the -h option with an argument of
"country-code.whois-servers.net".
-d Use the US Department of Defense database. It contains points of contact for subdomains of
.MIL.
-g Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of contact for sub-domains subdomains
domains of .GOV.
-h host
Use the specified host instead of the default variant. Either a host name or an IP address may
be specified.
By default whois constructs the name of a whois server to use from the top-level domain (TLD)
of the supplied (single) argument, and appending ".whois-servers.net". This effectively allows
a suitable whois server to be selected automatically for a large number of TLDs.
In the event that an IP address is specified, the whois server will default to the American
Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). If a query to ARIN references APNIC, LACNIC, or RIPE,
that server will be queried also, provided that the -Q option is not specified.
If the query is not a domain name or IP address, whois will fall back to whois.crsnic.net.
-I Use the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) database. It contains network information
for top-level domains.
-i Use the Network Solutions Registry for Internet Numbers (whois.networksolutions.com) database.
It contains network numbers and domain contact information for most of .COM, .NET, .ORG and
.EDU domains.
NOTE! The registration of these domains is now done by a number of independent and competing
registrars. This database holds no information on domains registered by organizations other
than Network Solutions, Inc. Also, note that the InterNIC database (whois.internic.net) is no
longer handled by Network Solutions, Inc. For details, see http://www.internic.net/
(Hint: Contact information, identified by the term handle, can be looked up by prefixing
"handle " to the NIC handle in the query.)
-l Use the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry (LACNIC) database. It con-
tains network numbers used in much of Latin America and the Caribbean.
-m Use the Route Arbiter Database (RADB) database. It contains route policy specifications for a
large number of operators' networks.
-p port
Connect to the whois server on port. If this option is not specified, whois defaults to port
43.
-Q Do a quick lookup. This means that whois will not attempt to lookup the name in the authorita-
tive whois server (if one is listed). This option has no effect when combined with any other
options.
-R Use the Russia Network Information Center (RIPN) database. It contains network numbers and
domain contact information for subdomains of .RU. This option is deprecated; use the -c option
with an argument of "RU" instead.
-r Use the R'eseaux IP Europ'eens (RIPE) database. It contains network numbers and domain contact
information for Europe.
The operands specified to whois are treated independently and may be used as queries on different whois
servers.
EXAMPLES
Most types of data, such as domain names and IP addresses, can be used as arguments to whois without
any options, and whois will choose the correct whois server to query. Some exceptions, where whois
will not be able to handle data correctly, are detailed below.
To obtain contact information about an administrator located in the Russian TLD domain "RU", use the -c
option as shown in the following example, where CONTACT-ID is substituted with the actual contact iden-
tifier.
whois -c RU CONTACT-ID
(Note: This example is specific to the TLD "RU", but other TLDs can be queried by using a similar syn-
tax.)
The following example demonstrates how to obtain information about an IPv6 address or hostname using
the -6 option, which directs the query to 6bone.
whois -6 IPv6-IP-Address
The following example demonstrates how to query a whois server using a non-standard port, where
``query-data'' is the query to be sent to ``whois.example.com'' on port ``rwhois'' (written numerically
as 4321).
whois -h whois.example.com -p rwhois query-data
SEE ALSO
Ken Harrenstien and Vic White, NICNAME/WHOIS, 1 March 1982, RFC 812.
HISTORY
The whois command appeared in 4.3BSD.
BSD June 14, 2004 BSD
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