1.\" Copyright (c) 1985, 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 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. 15.\" 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 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" From: @(#)whois.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 29.\" $FreeBSD$ 30.\" 31.Dd May 14, 2015 32.Dt WHOIS 1 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm whois 36.Nd "Internet domain name and network number directory service" 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Op Fl aAbfgiIklmPQr 40.Op Fl c Ar country-code | Fl h Ar host 41.Op Fl p Ar port 42.Ar name ... 43.Sh DESCRIPTION 44The 45.Nm 46utility looks up records in the databases maintained by several 47Network Information Centers 48.Pq Tn NICs . 49.Pp 50By default 51.Nm 52automatically discovers the name of a whois server to use 53from the top-level domain 54.Pq Tn TLD 55of the supplied (single) argument. 56It tries 57.Qq Va TLD Ns Li .whois-servers.net 58and 59.Qq Li whois.nic. Ns Va TLD 60and if neither host exists it falls back to its default server. 61.Pp 62If an IP address is specified, the whois server will default to 63the American Registry for Internet Numbers 64.Pq Tn ARIN . 65If a query to 66.Tn ARIN 67references 68.Tn APNIC , AfriNIC , LACNIC , 69or 70.Tn RIPE , 71that server will be queried also, provided that the 72.Fl Q 73option is not specified. 74.Pp 75If 76.Nm 77cannot automatically discover a server, 78it will fall back to 79the host specified in the 80.Ev WHOIS_SERVER 81or 82.Ev RA_SERVER 83environment variables, or if those are not set, it will use 84.Pa whois.crsnic.net . 85.Pp 86The options are as follows: 87.Bl -tag -width indent 88.It Fl a 89Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers 90.Pq Tn ARIN 91database. 92It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world covered neither by 93.Tn APNIC , AfriNIC , LACNIC , 94nor by 95.Tn RIPE . 96.Pp 97(Hint: All point of contact handles in the 98.Tn ARIN 99whois database end with 100.Qq Li -ARIN . ) 101.It Fl A 102Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center 103.Pq Tn APNIC 104database. 105It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia, 106New Zealand, and the Pacific islands. 107.It Fl b 108Use the Network Abuse Clearinghouse database. 109It contains addresses to which network abuse should be reported, 110indexed by domain name. 111.It Fl c Ar country-code 112This is the equivalent of using the 113.Fl h 114option with an argument of 115.Qq Ar country-code Ns Li .whois-servers.net . 116.It Fl f 117Use the African Network Information Centre 118.Pq Tn AfriNIC 119database. 120It contains network numbers used in Africa and the islands of the 121western Indian Ocean. 122.It Fl g 123Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of 124contact for subdomains of 125.Pa .GOV . 126.It Fl h Ar host 127Use the specified host instead of the default. 128Either a host name or an IP address may be specified. 129.It Fl i 130Use the obsolete Network Solutions Registry for Internet Numbers 131.Pq Pa whois.networksolutions.com 132database. 133.It Fl I 134Use the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority 135.Pq Tn IANA 136database. 137It contains network information for top-level domains. 138.It Fl k 139Use the National Internet Development Agency of Korea's 140.Pq Tn KRNIC 141database. 142It contains network numbers and domain contact information 143for Korea. 144.It Fl l 145Use the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry 146.Pq Tn LACNIC 147database. 148It contains network numbers used in much of Latin America and the 149Caribbean. 150.It Fl m 151Use the Route Arbiter Database 152.Pq Tn RADB 153database. 154It contains route policy specifications for a large 155number of operators' networks. 156.It Fl p Ar port 157Connect to the whois server on 158.Ar port . 159If this option is not specified, 160.Nm 161defaults to port 43. 162.It Fl P 163Use the PeeringDB database of AS numbers. 164It contains details about presence at internet peering points 165for many network operators. 166.It Fl Q 167Do a quick lookup. 168This means that 169.Nm 170will not attempt to lookup the name in the authoritative whois 171server (if one is listed). 172This option has no effect when combined with any other options. 173.It Fl r 174Use the R\(aaeseaux IP Europ\(aaeens 175.Pq Tn RIPE 176database. 177It contains network numbers and domain contact information 178for Europe. 179.El 180.Pp 181The operands specified to 182.Nm 183are treated independently and may be used 184as queries on different whois servers. 185.Sh ENVIRONMENT 186.Bl -tag 187.It Ev WHOIS_SERVER 188The primary default whois server. 189If this is unset, 190.Nm 191uses the 192.Ev RA_SERVER 193environment variable. 194.It Ev RA_SERVER 195The secondary default whois server. 196If this is unset, 197.Nm 198will use 199.Pa whois.crsnic.net . 200.El 201.Sh EXIT STATUS 202.Ex -std 203.Sh EXAMPLES 204Most types of data, such as domain names and 205.Tn IP 206addresses, can be used as arguments to 207.Nm 208without any options, and 209.Nm 210will choose the correct whois server to query. 211Some exceptions, where 212.Nm 213will not be able to handle data correctly, are detailed below. 214.Pp 215To obtain contact information about an 216administrator located in the Russian 217.Tn TLD 218domain 219.Qq Li RU , 220use the 221.Fl c 222option as shown in the following example, where 223.Ar CONTACT-ID 224is substituted with the actual contact identifier. 225.Pp 226.Dl "whois -c RU CONTACT-ID" 227.Pp 228(Note: This example is specific to the 229.Tn TLD 230.Qq Li RU , 231but other 232.Tn TLDs 233can be queried by using a similar syntax.) 234.Pp 235The following example demonstrates how to query 236a whois server using a non-standard port, where 237.Dq Li query-data 238is the query to be sent to 239.Dq Li whois.example.com 240on port 241.Dq Li rwhois 242(written numerically as 4321). 243.Pp 244.Dl "whois -h whois.example.com -p rwhois query-data" 245.Sh SEE ALSO 246.Rs 247.%A Ken Harrenstien 248.%A Vic White 249.%T NICNAME/WHOIS 250.%D 1 March 1982 251.%O RFC 812 252.Re 253.Sh HISTORY 254The 255.Nm 256command appeared in 257.Bx 4.3 . 258