1 .\" Copyright (c) 1985, 1990, 1993
2 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
4 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
7 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12 .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
13 .\" must display the following acknowledgement:
14 .\" This product includes software developed by the University of
15 .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
16 .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
17 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
18 .\" without specific prior written permission.
20 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
21 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
22 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
23 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
24 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
25 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
26 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
27 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
28 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
29 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
32 .\" From: @(#)whois.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
40 .Nd "Internet domain name and network number directory service"
48 looks up records in the databases maintained by several
49 Network Information Centers
52 The options are as follows:
53 .Bl -tag -width indent
55 Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers
58 It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world covered neither by
62 Contact (handle) information should be looked up by appending
66 .Dl "$ whois -a foo3-ARIN"
69 Use the US Department of Defense
71 It contains points of contact for subdomains of
74 Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of
75 contact for subdomains of
78 Use the specified host instead of the default variant.
79 Either a host name or an IP address may be specified.
83 construct the name of a whois server to use from the top-level domain
85 of the supplied (single) argument, and appending
86 .Qq Li .whois-servers.net .
87 This effectively allows a suitable whois server to be selected
88 automatically for a large number of TLDs.
91 subdomain found, fallback to
95 Use the Network Solutions Registry for Internet Numbers
96 .Pq Pa whois.networksolutions.com
98 It contains network numbers and domain contact information for most of
99 .Pa .COM , .NET , .ORG
105 The registration of these domains is now done by a number of
106 independent and competing registrars and this database holds no information
107 on the domains registered by organizations other than Network Solutions, Inc.
111 .Pq Pa whois.internic.net
112 is no longer handled by Network Solutions, Inc.
114 .Pa http://www.internic.net/ .
116 Contact (handle) information should be looked up by prefixing
118 to the NIC handle in the querry:
120 .Dl "$ whois -i 'handle foo3'"
123 Use the Route Arbiter Database
126 It contains route policy specifications for a large
127 number of operators' networks.
129 Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center
132 It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia,
133 New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.
138 will not attempt to lookup the name in the authoritative whois
139 server (if one is listed) nor will it contact InterNic if a lookup
141 This flag has no effect when combined with any other flag.
143 Use the R\(aaeseaux IP Europ\(aaeens
146 It contains network numbers and domain contact information
149 Use the Russia Network Information Center
152 It contains network numbers and domain contact information
156 Use the IPv6 Resource Center
159 It contains network names and addresses for the IPv6 network.
162 The operands specified to
164 are concatenated together (separated by white-space) and presented to
169 The default action, unless directed otherwise with a special
171 is to do a very broad search, looking for matches to
173 in all types of records and most fields (name, nicknames, hostname, net
174 address, etc.) in the database.
175 For more information as to what
177 operands have special meaning, and how to guide the search, use