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 .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
13 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
14 .\" without specific prior written permission.
16 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
17 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
18 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
19 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
20 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
21 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
22 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
23 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
24 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
25 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
28 .\" From: @(#)whois.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
36 .Nd "Internet domain name and network number directory service"
40 .Op Fl c Ar country-code | Fl h Ar host
46 utility looks up records in the databases maintained by several
47 Network Information Centers
50 The options are as follows:
51 .Bl -tag -width indent
53 Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers
56 It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world covered neither by
57 .Tn APNIC , AfriNIC , LACNIC ,
61 (Hint: All point of contact handles in the
63 whois database end with
66 Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center
69 It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia,
70 New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.
72 Use the Network Abuse Clearinghouse database.
73 It contains addresses to which network abuse should be reported,
74 indexed by domain name.
75 .It Fl c Ar country-code
76 This is the equivalent of using the
78 option with an argument of
79 .Qq Ar country-code Ns Li .whois-servers.net .
81 Use the African Network Information Centre
84 It contains network numbers used in Africa and the islands of the
87 Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of
88 contact for subdomains of
91 Use the specified host instead of the default variant.
92 Either a host name or an IP address may be specified.
96 constructs the name of a whois server to use from the top-level domain
98 of the supplied (single) argument, and appending
99 .Qq Li .whois-servers.net .
100 This effectively allows a suitable whois server to be selected
101 automatically for a large number of
104 In the event that an IP
105 address is specified, the whois server will default to the American
106 Registry for Internet Numbers
111 .Tn APNIC , AfriNIC , LACNIC ,
114 that server will be queried also, provided that the
116 option is not specified.
118 If the query is not a domain name or IP address,
121 .Pa whois.crsnic.net .
123 Use the Network Solutions Registry for Internet Numbers
124 .Pq Pa whois.networksolutions.com
126 It contains network numbers and domain contact information for most of
127 .Pa .COM , .NET , .ORG
133 The registration of these domains is now done by a number of
134 independent and competing registrars and this database holds no information
135 on the domains registered by organizations other than Network Solutions, Inc.
139 .Pq Pa whois.internic.net
140 is no longer handled by Network Solutions, Inc.
142 .Pa http://www.internic.net/ .
144 (Hint: Contact information, identified by the term
146 can be looked up by prefixing
150 handle in the query.)
152 Use the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
155 It contains network information for top-level domains.
157 Use the National Internet Development Agency of Korea's
160 It contains network numbers and domain contact information
163 Use the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry
166 It contains network numbers used in much of Latin America and the
169 Use the Route Arbiter Database
172 It contains route policy specifications for a large
173 number of operators' networks.
175 Connect to the whois server on
177 If this option is not specified,
184 will not attempt to lookup the name in the authoritative whois
185 server (if one is listed).
186 This option has no effect when combined with any other options.
188 Use the R\(aaeseaux IP Europ\(aaeens
191 It contains network numbers and domain contact information
194 Use the Russia Network Information Center
197 It contains network numbers and domain contact information
200 This option is deprecated; use the
202 option with an argument of
207 The operands specified to
209 are treated independently and may be used
210 as queries on different whois servers.
214 Most types of data, such as domain names and
216 addresses, can be used as arguments to
218 without any options, and
220 will choose the correct whois server to query.
221 Some exceptions, where
223 will not be able to handle data correctly, are detailed below.
225 To obtain contact information about an
226 administrator located in the Russian
232 option as shown in the following example, where
234 is substituted with the actual contact identifier.
236 .Dl "whois -c RU CONTACT-ID"
238 (Note: This example is specific to the
243 can be queried by using a similar syntax.)
245 The following example demonstrates how to query
246 a whois server using a non-standard port, where
248 is the query to be sent to
249 .Dq Li whois.example.com
252 (written numerically as 4321).
254 .Dl "whois -h whois.example.com -p rwhois query-data"