path: root/usr.bin/whois/whois.1

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.\"     @(#)whois.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 6/20/94
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.Dd $Mdocdate: March 24 2024 $
.Dt WHOIS 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm whois
.Nd Internet domain name and network number directory service
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm whois
.Op Fl AadgIilmPQRrS
.Oo
.Fl c Ar country-code | Fl h Ar host
.Oc
.Op Fl p Ar port
.Ar name ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility looks up records in the databases maintained by several
Network Information Centers
.Pq Tn NICs .
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl A
Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center
.Pq Tn APNIC
database.
It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia,
New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.
.It Fl a
Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers
.Pq Tn ARIN
database.
It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world
covered neither by
.Tn AfriNIC ,
.Tn APNIC ,
.Tn LACNIC ,
nor by
.Tn RIPE .
.Pp
(Hint: All point of contact handles in the
.Tn ARIN
whois database end with
.Qq Li -ARIN . )
.It Fl c Ar country-code
This is the equivalent of using the
.Fl h
option with an argument of
.Qq Ar country-code Ns Li .whois-servers.net .
.It Fl d
Use the US Department of Defense database.
It contains points of contact for subdomains of
.Tn \&.MIL .
.It Fl g
Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of
contact for subdomains of
.Tn \&.GOV .
.It Fl h Ar host
Use the specified host instead of the default NIC
(whois.crsnic.net).
Either a host name or an IP address may be specified.
.Pp
By default
.Nm
constructs the name of a whois server to use from the top-level domain
.Pq Tn TLD
of the supplied (single) argument.
For newer generic domains (gTLDs), a lookup for whois.nic.tld is attempted.
For other TLDs, or if this lookup fails,
.Qq Li .whois-servers.net
is appended to the TLD.
This effectively allows a suitable whois server to be selected
automatically for a large number of
.Tn TLDs .
.Pp
In the event that an IP
address is specified, the whois server will default to the American
Registry for Internet Numbers
.Pq Tn ARIN .
If a query to
.Tn ARIN
references
.Tn APNIC , LACNIC ,
or
.Tn RIPE ,
that server will be queried also, provided that the
.Fl Q
option is not specified.
.Pp
If the query is not a domain name or IP address,
.Nm
will fall back to
.Pa whois.crsnic.net .
.It Fl I
Use the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
.Pq whois.iana.org
root zone database.
It contains information about top-level domains.
.It Fl i
Use the traditional Network Information Center (InterNIC)
.Pq Tn whois.internic.net
database.
This now contains only registrations for domain names under
.Tn \&.COM ,
.Tn \&.NET ,
.Tn \&.ORG
and
.Tn \&.EDU .
You can optionally specify the type of object to search for:
.D1 Ic whois -i ' Ns Ar type Ar name Ns Ic '
where
.Ar type
is one of
.Em domain , nameserver , registrar .
The
.Ar name
may also contain
.Li *
wildcards.
.It Fl l
Use the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry
.Pq Tn LACNIC
database.
It contains network numbers used in much of Latin America and the
Caribbean.
.It Fl m
Use the Route Arbiter Database
.Pq Tn RADB
database.
It contains route policy specifications for a large
number of operators' networks.
.It Fl P
Use the PeeringDB database of AS numbers.
It contains details about presence at internet peering points
for many network operators.
.It Fl p Ar port
Connect to the whois server on
.Ar port .
If this option is not specified,
.Nm
defaults to the
.Dq whois
port listed in
.Pa /etc/services
(port 43).
.It Fl Q
Do a quick lookup.
This means that
.Nm
will not attempt to lookup the name in the authoritative whois
server (if one is listed) nor will it contact InterNic if a lookup
fails.
This flag has no effect when combined with any other flag.
.It Fl R
Use the Russia Network Information Center
.Pq Tn RIPN
database.
It contains network numbers and domain contact information
for subdomains of
.Tn \&.RU .
This option is deprecated; use the
.Fl c
option with an argument of
.Qq Li RU
instead.
.It Fl r
Use the Reseaux IP Europeens
.Pq Tn RIPE
database.
It contains network numbers and domain contact information for Europe.
.It Fl S
By default
.Nm
adjusts simple queries (without spaces) to produce more useful output
from certain whois servers, and it suppresses some uninformative output.
With the
.Fl S
option,
.Nm
sends the query and prints the output verbatim.
.El
.Pp
The default action, unless directed otherwise with a special
.Ar name ,
is to do a very broad search, looking for matches to
.Ar name
in all types of records and most fields (name, nicknames, hostname, net
address, etc.) in the database.
For more information as to what
.Ar name
operands have special meaning, and how to guide the search, use
the special name
.Dq help .
.Sh EXAMPLES
Most types of data, such as domain names and
.Tn IP
addresses, can be used as arguments to
.Nm
without any options, and
.Nm
will choose the correct whois server to query.
Some exceptions, where
.Nm
will not be able to handle data correctly, are detailed below.
.Pp
To obtain contact information about an
administrator located in the Russian
.Tn TLD
domain
.Qq Li RU ,
use the
.Fl c
option as shown in the following example, where
.Ar CONTACT-ID
is substituted with the actual contact identifier.
.Pp
.Dl "whois -c RU CONTACT-ID"
.Pp
(Note: This example is specific to the
.Tn TLD
.Qq Li RU ,
but other
.Tn TLDs
can be queried by using a similar syntax.)
.Pp
The following example demonstrates how to query
a whois server using a non-standard port, where
.Dq Li query-data
is the query to be sent to
.Dq Li whois.example.com
on port
.Dq Li rwhois
(written numerically as 4321).
.Pp
.Dl "whois -h whois.example.com -p rwhois query-data"
.Sh STANDARDS
.Rs
.%A K. Harrenstien
.%A M. Stahl
.%A E. Feinler
.%D October 1985
.%R RFC 954
.%T NICNAME/WHOIS
.Re
.Pp
.Rs
.%A L. Daigle
.%D September 2004
.%R RFC 3912
.%T WHOIS Protocol Specification
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command appeared in
.Bx 4.1c .