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whois(1)

NAME

   whois - client for the whois directory service

SYNOPSIS

   whois  [  {  -h  |  --host  }  HOST  ]  [  {  -p  |  --port  }  PORT  ]
   [ -abBcdGHKlLmMrRx ] [ -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 some  registries  like  to
           show you.

   -p, --port PORT
           Connect to PORT.

   --verbose
           Be verbose.

   --help  Display online help.

   --version
           Display client version information.

   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 object 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's useful  to  obtain  Near  Real  Time
           Mirroring stream.

   -G      Disable grouping of associated objects.

   -i ATTR[,ATTR]...
           Search  objects having associated attributes. ATTR is attribute
           name.  Attribute value is positional OBJECT argument.

   -K      Return  primary  key  attributes  only.  Exception  is  members
           attribute  of  set  object  which  is  always returned. Another
           exceptions are all attributes of 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  list  of  keywords  supported by server. KEYWORD can be
           version  for  server  version,  sources  for  list  of   source
           databases, or types for object types.

   -r      Disable recursive look-up 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 SOURCES.
           Sources  are  delimited  by comma and the order is significant.
           Use -q sources option to obtain 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

   Please  remember  that  whois.networksolutions.com by default will only
   search in the domains database. If you want to search for  NIC  handles
   you have to prepend a ! character. When you do this, the default server
   becomes whois.networksolutions.com.

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

   When   querying  whois.nic.ad.jp  for  AS  numbers,  the  program  will
   automatically 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 querying a non-standard server, command line options which are not
   to  be  interpreted by the client should always 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  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
   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.

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
   dynamics strings library.

HISTORY

   This program closely tracks the user  interface  of  the  whois  client
   developed  at  RIPE  by  Ambrose  Magee  and  others on the base of the
   original BSD client.  I also added support for the protocol  extensions
   developed by David Kessens of QWest for the 6bone server.

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.

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