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WHOIS(1)                                  Debian GNU/Linux                                  WHOIS(1)



NAME
       whois - client for the whois directory service

SYNOPSIS
       whois  [  {  -h  |  --host  }  HOST  ]  [  {  -p  |  --port  }  PORT  ] [ -abBcdGHIKlLmMrRx ]
       [  -g  SOURCE:FIRST-LAST  ]  [  -i  ATTR[,ATTR]...  ]  [  -s  SOURCE[,SOURCE]...   ]   [   -T
       TYPE[,TYPE]... ] [ --verbose ] [ --no-recursion ] OBJECT

       whois -q KEYWORD

       whois -t TYPE

       whois -v TYPE

       whois --help

       whois --version


DESCRIPTION
       whois searches for an object in a RFC 3912 database.

       This version of the whois client tries to guess the right server to ask for the specified ob‐
       ject. If no guess can be made it will connect to whois.networksolutions.com for  NIC  handles
       or whois.arin.net for IPv4 addresses and network names.

OPTIONS
       -h HOST, --host=HOST
               Connect to HOST.

       -H      Do not display the legal disclaimers that some registries like to show you.

       -p PORT, --port=PORT
               Connect to PORT.

       -I      First  query whois.iana.org and then follow its referral to the whois server authori‐
               tative for that request. This works for IP addresses, AS numbers  and  domains.   BE‐‐
               WARE: this implies that the IANA server will receive your complete query.

       --no-recursion
               Disable recursion from registry to registrar servers.

       --verbose
               Be verbose.

       --help  Display online help.

       --version
               Display the program version.

       Other options are flags understood by whois.ripe.net and some other RIPE-like servers:

       -a      Also search all the mirrored databases.

       -b      Return brief IP address ranges with abuse contact.

       -B      Disable objects filtering. (Show the e-mail addresses.)

       -c      Return the smallest IP address range with a reference to an irt object.

       -d      Return the reverse DNS delegation object too.

       -g SOURCE:FIRST-LAST
               Search  updates  from SOURCE database between FIRST and LAST update serial number. It
               is useful to obtain Near Real Time Mirroring stream.

       -G      Disable grouping of associated objects.

       -i ATTR[,ATTR]...
               Inverse-search objects having associated attributes.  ATTR  is  the  attribute  name,
               while the positional OBJECT argument is the attribute value.

       -K      Return  primary key attributes only. An exception is the members attribute of set ob‐
               jects, which is always returned. Another exception are all attributes of the  objects
               organisation, person and role, that are never returned.

       -l      Return the one level less specific object.

       -L      Return all levels of less specific objects.

       -m      Return all one level more specific objects.

       -M      Return all levels of more specific objects.

       -q KEYWORD
               Return  information about the server.  KEYWORD can be version for the server version,
               sources for the list of database sources or types for the list  of  supported  object
               types.

       -r      Disable recursive lookups for contact information.

       -R      Disable  following  referrals and force showing the object from the local copy in the
               server.

       -s SOURCE[,SOURCE]...
               Request the server to search for objects mirrored from SOURCE.  Sources are delimited
               by  comma,  and  the  order is significant.  Use the -q sources parameter to obtain a
               list of valid sources.

       -t TYPE Return the template for a object of TYPE.

       -T TYPE[,TYPE]...
               Restrict the search to objects of TYPE.  Multiple types are separated by a comma.

       -v TYPE Return the verbose template for a object of TYPE.

       -x      Search for only exact match on network address prefix.

NOTES
       When querying the Verisign gTLDs (e.g. .com, .net...) thin registry servers for a domain, the
       program will automatically prepend the domain keyword to only show domain records.  The name‐
       server or registrar keywords must be used to show other kinds of records.

       When querying whois.arin.net for IPv4 or IPv6 networks, the CIDR netmask length will be auto‐
       matically removed from the query string.

       When  querying whois.nic.ad.jp for AS numbers, the program will automatically convert the re‐
       quest in the appropriate format, inserting a space after the string AS.

       When querying whois.denic.de for domain names and no other flags  have  been  specified,  the
       program will automatically add the flag -T dn.

       When querying whois.dk-hostmaster.dk for domain names and no other flags have been specified,
       the program will automatically add the flag --show-handles.

       RIPE-specific command line options are ignored when querying non-RIPE servers.  This  may  or
       may not be the behaviour intended by the user.  When using non-standard query parameters then
       the command line options which are not to be interpreted by the client  must  follow  the  --
       separator (which marks the beginning of the query string).

       If  the  /etc/whois.conf configuration file exists, it will be consulted to find a server be‐
       fore applying the normal rules. Each line of the file should contain a regular expression  to
       be matched against the query text and the whois server to use, separated by white space.  IDN
       domains must use the ACE format.

       The whois protocol does not specify an encoding for characters which cannot be represented by
       ASCII  and  implementations  vary wildly.  If the program knows that a specific server uses a
       certain encoding, if needed it will transcode the server output to the encoding specified  by
       the current system locale.

       Command  line  arguments  will always be interpreted accordingly to the current system locale
       and converted to the IDN ASCII Compatible Encoding.

FILES
       /etc/whois.conf

ENVIRONMENT
       LANG   When querying whois.nic.ad.jp and whois.jprs.jp English text is requested  unless  the
              LANG or LC_MESSAGES environment variables specify a Japanese locale.

       WHOIS_OPTIONS
              A  list  of  options  which will be evaluated before the ones specified on the command
              line.

       WHOIS_SERVER
              This server will be queried if the program cannot guess where some kind of objects are
              located. If the variable does not exist then whois.arin.net will be queried.

SEE ALSO
       whois.conf(5).

       RFC 3912: WHOIS Protocol Specification.

       RIPE  Database  Query  Reference  Manual:  <http://www.ripe.net/data-tools/support/documenta‐
       tion/ripe-database-query-reference-manual>

BUGS
       The program may have buffer overflows in the command line parser: be sure  to  not  pass  un‐
       trusted data to it.  It should be rewritten to use a dynamic strings library.

HISTORY
       This  program  closely tracks the user interface of the whois client developed at RIPE by Am‐
       brose Magee and others on the base of the original BSD client.

AUTHOR
       Whois and this man page were written by Marco d'Itri <md AT linux.it> and are licensed under the
       terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or higher.




Marco d'Itri                                 2019-12-30                                     WHOIS(1)