whois(1)



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

NAME
       whois - client for the whois directory service

SYNOPSIS
       whois  [  { -h | --host } HOST ] [ { -p | --port } PORT ] [ -abBcdGHIK-
       lLmMrRx ]  [  -g  SOURCE:FIRST-LAST  ]  [  -i  ATTR[,ATTR]...  ]  [  -s
       SOURCE[,SOURCE]... ] [ -T TYPE[,TYPE]... ] [ --verbose ] 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 object. 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 authoritative for that request. This works for  IP
               addresses,  AS  numbers and domains.  BEWARE: this implies that
               the IANA server will receive your complete query.

       --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  up-
               date  serial number. It is useful to obtain Near Real Time Mir-
               roring 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 objects, which is always returned. Another ex-
               ception 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 nameserver or registrar key-
       words must be used to show other kinds of records.

       When querying whois.arin.net for IPv4 or IPv6 networks, the  CIDR  net-
       mask length will be automatically removed from the query string.

       When querying whois.nic.ad.jp for AS numbers, the program will automat-
       ically convert the request 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 -- sepa-
       rator (which marks the beginning of the query string).

       If the /etc/whois.conf configuration file exists, it will be  consulted
       to  find  a  server  before 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 Encod-
       ing.

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 speci-
              fied 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/documentation/ripe-data-
       base-query-reference-manual>

BUGS
       The  program  may  have buffer overflows in the command line parser: be
       sure to not pass untrusted 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 de-
       veloped at RIPE by Ambrose Magee and others on the base of the original
       BSD client.

AUTHOR
       Whois  and this man page were written by Marco d'Itri <md@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)

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