1 .TH WHOIS 1 "Oct 2, 2009"
   2 .SH NAME
   3 \fBwhois\fP
   4 \- Internet domain name and network number directory service
   5 .SH SYNOPSIS
   6 .br
   7 \fBwhois\fP
   8 [\fB\-aAbfgiIklmQr\fP]
   9 [\fB\-c\fP \fIcountry-code\fP | \fIFl\fP h \fIhost\fP]
  10 [\fB\-p\fP \fIport\fP]
  11 \fIname\fP...
  12 .SH DESCRIPTION
  13 The
  14 \fBwhois\fP
  15 utility looks up records in the databases maintained by several
  16 Network Information Centers (NICs).
  17 
  18 The options are as follows:
  19 .TP
  20 \fB\-a\fP
  21 Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) database.
  22 It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world covered neither by
  23 APNIC, AfriNIC, LACNIC, nor by RIPE.
  24 
  25 (Hint: All point of contact handles in the ARIN whois database end with -ARIN.)
  26 
  27 .TP
  28 \fB\-A\fP
  29 Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) database.
  30 It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia,
  31 New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.
  32 .TP
  33 \fB\-b\fP
  34 Use the Network Abuse Clearinghouse database.
  35 It contains addresses to which network abuse should be reported,
  36 indexed by domain name.
  37 .TP
  38 \fB\-c\fP \fIcountry-code\fP
  39 This is the equivalent of using the
  40 \fB\-h\fP
  41 option with an argument of \fIcountry-code\fP.whois-servers.net.
  42 .TP
  43 \fB\-f\fP
  44 Use the African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) database.
  45 It contains network numbers used in Africa and the islands of the
  46 western Indian Ocean.
  47 .TP
  48 \fB\-g\fP
  49 Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of
  50 contact for subdomains of
  51 \fI\&.GOV\fP.
  52 .TP
  53 \fB\-h\fP \fIhost\fP
  54 Use the specified host instead of the default variant.
  55 Either a host name or an IP address may be specified.
  56 
  57 By default
  58 \fBwhois\fP
  59 constructs the name of a whois server to use from the top-level domain (TLD)
  60 of the supplied (single) argument, and appending .whois-servers.net .
  61 This effectively allows a suitable whois server to be selected
  62 automatically for a large number of TLDs.
  63 
  64 In the event that an IP
  65 address is specified, the whois server will default to the American
  66 Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN).
  67 If a query to ARIN references APNIC, AfriNIC, LACNIC, or RIPE,
  68 that server will be queried also, provided that the
  69 \fB\-Q\fP
  70 option is not specified.
  71 
  72 If the query is not a domain name or IP address,
  73 \fBwhois\fP
  74 will fall back to
  75 \fIwhois.crsnic.net\fP.
  76 .TP
  77 \fB\-i\fP
  78 Use the Network Solutions Registry for Internet Numbers
  79 (\fIwhois.networksolutions.com\fP)
  80 database.
  81 It contains network numbers and domain contact information for most of
  82 \fI\&.COM\fP,.NET,.ORG
  83 and
  84 \fI\&.EDU\fP
  85 domains.
  86 
  87 .B NOTE !
  88 The registration of these domains is now done by a number of
  89 independent and competing registrars and this database holds no information
  90 on the domains registered by organizations other than Network Solutions, Inc.
  91 Also, note that the InterNIC database
  92 (\fIwhois.internic.net\fP)
  93 is no longer handled by Network Solutions, Inc.
  94 For details, see
  95 \fIhttp://www.internic.net/\fP.
  96 
  97 (Hint: Contact information, identified by the term
  98 .IR handle ,
  99 can be looked up by prefixing "handle" to the NIC
 100 handle in the query.)
 101 .TP
 102 \fB\-I\fP
 103 Use the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) database.
 104 It contains network information for top-level domains.
 105 .TP
 106 \fB\-k\fP
 107 Use the National Internet Development Agency of Korea's (KRNIC)
 108 database.
 109 It contains network numbers and domain contact information
 110 for Korea.
 111 .TP
 112 \fB\-l\fP
 113 Use the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry
 114 (Tn LACNIC)
 115 database.
 116 It contains network numbers used in much of Latin America and the
 117 Caribbean.
 118 .TP
 119 \fB\-m\fP
 120 Use the Route Arbiter Database (RADB) database.
 121 It contains route policy specifications for a large
 122 number of operators' networks.
 123 .TP
 124 \fB\-p\fP \fIport\fP
 125 Connect to the whois server on
 126 \fIport\fP.
 127 If this option is not specified,
 128 \fBwhois\fP
 129 defaults to port 43.
 130 .TP
 131 \fB\-Q\fP
 132 Do a quick lookup.
 133 This means that
 134 \fBwhois\fP
 135 will not attempt to lookup the name in the authoritative whois
 136 server (if one is listed).
 137 This option has no effect when combined with any other options.
 138 .TP
 139 \fB\-r\fP
 140 Use the R\(aaeseaux IP Europ\(aaeens (RIPE) database.
 141 It contains network numbers and domain contact information
 142 for Europe.
 143 
 144 The operands specified to
 145 \fBwhois\fP
 146 are treated independently and may be used
 147 as queries on different whois servers.
 148 .SH EXIT STATUS
 149 The \fBwhois\fP utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
 150 .SH EXAMPLES
 151 Most types of data, such as domain names and IP addresses, can be used as
 152 arguments to
 153 \fBwhois\fP
 154 without any options, and
 155 \fBwhois\fP
 156 will choose the correct whois server to query.
 157 Some exceptions, where
 158 \fBwhois\fP
 159 will not be able to handle data correctly, are detailed below.
 160 
 161 To obtain contact information about an
 162 administrator located in the Russian TLD domain RU,
 163 use the
 164 \fB\-c\fP
 165 option as shown in the following example, where
 166 \fICONTACT-ID\fP
 167 is substituted with the actual contact identifier.
 168 
 169 whois -c RU CONTACT-ID
 170 
 171 (Note: This example is specific to the TLD RU,
 172 but other TLDs can be queried by using a similar syntax.)
 173 
 174 The following example demonstrates how to query
 175 a whois server using a non-standard port, where
 176 ``query-data''
 177 is the query to be sent to
 178 ``whois.example.com''
 179 on port
 180 ``rwhois''
 181 (written numerically as 4321).
 182 
 183 whois -h whois.example.com -p rwhois query-data
 184 .SH SEE ALSO
 185 
 186 Vic White and Ken Harrenstien, \fINICNAME/WHOIS\fP, 1 March 1982, RFC 812.
 187 .SH HISTORY
 188 The
 189 \fBwhois\fP
 190 command appeared in
 191 4.3BSD.