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 October 2, 2009 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 aAbfgiIklmQrR 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 50The options are as follows: 51.Bl -tag -width indent 52.It Fl a 53Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers 54.Pq Tn ARIN 55database. 56It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world covered neither by 57.Tn APNIC , AfriNIC , LACNIC , 58nor by 59.Tn RIPE . 60.Pp 61(Hint: All point of contact handles in the 62.Tn ARIN 63whois database end with 64.Qq Li -ARIN . ) 65.Pp 66.It Fl A 67Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center 68.Pq Tn APNIC 69database. 70It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia, 71New Zealand, and the Pacific islands. 72.It Fl b 73Use the Network Abuse Clearinghouse database. 74It contains addresses to which network abuse should be reported, 75indexed by domain name. 76.It Fl c Ar country-code 77This is the equivalent of using the 78.Fl h 79option with an argument of 80.Qq Ar country-code Ns Li .whois-servers.net . 81.It Fl f 82Use the African Network Information Centre 83.Pq Tn AfriNIC 84database. 85It contains network numbers used in Africa and the islands of the 86western Indian Ocean. 87.It Fl g 88Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of 89contact for subdomains of 90.Pa .GOV . 91.It Fl h Ar host 92Use the specified host instead of the default variant. 93Either a host name or an IP address may be specified. 94.Pp 95By default 96.Nm 97constructs the name of a whois server to use from the top-level domain 98.Pq Tn TLD 99of the supplied (single) argument, and appending 100.Qq Li .whois-servers.net . 101This effectively allows a suitable whois server to be selected 102automatically for a large number of 103.Tn TLDs . 104.Pp 105In the event that an IP 106address is specified, the whois server will default to the American 107Registry for Internet Numbers 108.Pq Tn ARIN . 109If a query to 110.Tn ARIN 111references 112.Tn APNIC , AfriNIC , LACNIC , 113or 114.Tn RIPE , 115that server will be queried also, provided that the 116.Fl Q 117option is not specified. 118.Pp 119If the query is not a domain name or IP address, 120.Nm 121will fall back to 122.Pa whois.crsnic.net . 123.It Fl i 124Use the Network Solutions Registry for Internet Numbers 125.Pq Pa whois.networksolutions.com 126database. 127It contains network numbers and domain contact information for most of 128.Pa .COM , .NET , .ORG 129and 130.Pa .EDU 131domains. 132.Pp 133.Sy NOTE ! 134The registration of these domains is now done by a number of 135independent and competing registrars and this database holds no information 136on the domains registered by organizations other than Network Solutions, Inc. 137Also, note that the 138.Tn InterNIC 139database 140.Pq Pa whois.internic.net 141is no longer handled by Network Solutions, Inc. 142For details, see 143.Pa http://www.internic.net/ . 144.Pp 145(Hint: Contact information, identified by the term 146.Em handle , 147can be looked up by prefixing 148.Qq Li "handle " 149to the 150.Tn NIC 151handle in the query.) 152.It Fl I 153Use the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority 154.Pq Tn IANA 155database. 156It contains network information for top-level domains. 157.It Fl k 158Use the National Internet Development Agency of Korea's 159.Pq Tn KRNIC 160database. 161It contains network numbers and domain contact information 162for Korea. 163.It Fl l 164Use the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry 165.Pq Tn LACNIC 166database. 167It contains network numbers used in much of Latin America and the 168Caribbean. 169.It Fl m 170Use the Route Arbiter Database 171.Pq Tn RADB 172database. 173It contains route policy specifications for a large 174number of operators' networks. 175.It Fl p Ar port 176Connect to the whois server on 177.Ar port . 178If this option is not specified, 179.Nm 180defaults to port 43. 181.It Fl Q 182Do a quick lookup. 183This means that 184.Nm 185will not attempt to lookup the name in the authoritative whois 186server (if one is listed). 187This option has no effect when combined with any other options. 188.It Fl r 189Use the R\(aaeseaux IP Europ\(aaeens 190.Pq Tn RIPE 191database. 192It contains network numbers and domain contact information 193for Europe. 194.It Fl R 195Use the Russia Network Information Center 196.Pq Tn RIPN 197database. 198It contains network numbers and domain contact information 199for subdomains of 200.Pa .RU . 201This option is deprecated; use the 202.Fl c 203option with an argument of 204.Qq Li RU 205instead. 206.El 207.Pp 208The operands specified to 209.Nm 210are treated independently and may be used 211as queries on different whois servers. 212.Sh EXIT STATUS 213.Ex -std 214.Sh EXAMPLES 215Most types of data, such as domain names and 216.Tn IP 217addresses, can be used as arguments to 218.Nm 219without any options, and 220.Nm 221will choose the correct whois server to query. 222Some exceptions, where 223.Nm 224will not be able to handle data correctly, are detailed below. 225.Pp 226To obtain contact information about an 227administrator located in the Russian 228.Tn TLD 229domain 230.Qq Li RU , 231use the 232.Fl c 233option as shown in the following example, where 234.Ar CONTACT-ID 235is substituted with the actual contact identifier. 236.Pp 237.Dl "whois -c RU CONTACT-ID" 238.Pp 239(Note: This example is specific to the 240.Tn TLD 241.Qq Li RU , 242but other 243.Tn TLDs 244can be queried by using a similar syntax.) 245.Pp 246The following example demonstrates how to query 247a whois server using a non-standard port, where 248.Dq Li query-data 249is the query to be sent to 250.Dq Li whois.example.com 251on port 252.Dq Li rwhois 253(written numerically as 4321). 254.Pp 255.Dl "whois -h whois.example.com -p rwhois query-data" 256.Sh SEE ALSO 257.Rs 258.%A Ken Harrenstien 259.%A Vic White 260.%T NICNAME/WHOIS 261.%D 1 March 1982 262.%O RFC 812 263.Re 264.Sh HISTORY 265The 266.Nm 267command appeared in 268.Bx 4.3 . 269