WHOIS(1)                  BSD General Commands Manual                 WHOIS(1)

[1mNAME[0m
     [1mwhois [22m-- Internet domain name and network number directory service

[1mSYNOPSIS[0m
     [1mwhois [22m[[1m-aAbfgiIklmQrR[22m] [[1m-c [4m[22mcountry-code[24m | [1m-h [4m[22mhost[24m] [[1m-p [4m[22mport[24m] [4mname[24m [4m...[0m

[1mDESCRIPTION[0m
     The [1mwhois [22mutility looks up records in the databases maintained by several
     Network Information Centers (NICs).

     The options are as follows:

     [1m-a      [22mUse the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) database.
             It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world cov-
             ered neither by APNIC, AfriNIC, LACNIC, nor by RIPE.

             (Hint: All point of contact handles in the ARIN whois database
             end with "-ARIN".)

     [1m-A      [22mUse the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) database.
             It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia, New
             Zealand, and the Pacific islands.

     [1m-b      [22mUse the Network Abuse Clearinghouse database.  It contains
             addresses to which network abuse should be reported, indexed by
             domain name.

     [1m-c [4m[22mcountry-code[0m
             This is the equivalent of using the [1m-h [22moption with an argument of
             "[4mcountry-code[24m.whois-servers.net".

     [1m-f      [22mUse the African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) database.
             It contains network numbers used in Africa and the islands of the
             western Indian Ocean.

     [1m-g      [22mUse the US non-military federal government database, which con-
             tains points of contact for subdomains of [4m.GOV[24m.

     [1m-h [4m[22mhost[0m
             Use the specified host instead of the default variant.  Either a
             host name or an IP address may be specified.

             By default [1mwhois [22mconstructs the name of a whois server to use
             from the top-level domain (TLD) of the supplied (single) argu-
             ment, and appending ".whois-servers.net".  This effectively
             allows a suitable whois server to be selected automatically for a
             large number of TLDs.

             In the event that an IP address is specified, the whois server
             will default to the American Registry for Internet Numbers
             (ARIN).  If a query to ARIN references APNIC, AfriNIC, LACNIC, or
             RIPE, that server will be queried also, provided that the [1m-Q[0m
             option is not specified.

             If the query is not a domain name or IP address, [1mwhois [22mwill fall
             back to [4mwhois.crsnic.net[24m.

     [1m-i      [22mUse the Network Solutions Registry for Internet Numbers
             ([4mwhois.networksolutions.com[24m) database.  It contains network num-
             bers and domain contact information for most of [4m.COM[24m, [4m.NET[24m, [4m.ORG[0m
             and [4m.EDU[24m domains.

             [1mNOTE[22m!  The registration of these domains is now done by a number
             of independent and competing registrars and this database holds
             no information on the domains registered by organizations other
             than Network Solutions, Inc.  Also, note that the InterNIC data-
             base ([4mwhois.internic.net[24m) is no longer handled by Network Solu-
             tions, Inc.  For details, see [4mhttp://www.internic.net/[24m.

             (Hint: Contact information, identified by the term [4mhandle[24m, can be
             looked up by prefixing "handle " to the NIC handle in the query.)

     [1m-I      [22mUse the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) database.  It
             contains network information for top-level domains.

     [1m-k      [22mUse the National Internet Development Agency of Korea's (KRNIC)
             database.  It contains network numbers and domain contact infor-
             mation for Korea.

     [1m-l      [22mUse the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry
             (LACNIC) database.  It contains network numbers used in much of
             Latin America and the Caribbean.

     [1m-m      [22mUse the Route Arbiter Database (RADB) database.  It contains
             route policy specifications for a large number of operators' net-
             works.

     [1m-p [4m[22mport[0m
             Connect to the whois server on [4mport[24m.  If this option is not spec-
             ified, [1mwhois [22mdefaults to port 43.

     [1m-Q      [22mDo a quick lookup.  This means that [1mwhois [22mwill not attempt to
             lookup the name in the authoritative whois server (if one is
             listed).  This option has no effect when combined with any other
             options.

     [1m-r      [22mUse the R'eseaux IP Europ'eens (RIPE) database.  It contains net-
             work numbers and domain contact information for Europe.

     [1m-R      [22mUse the Russia Network Information Center (RIPN) database.  It
             contains network numbers and domain contact information for sub-
             domains of [4m.RU[24m.  This option is deprecated; use the [1m-c [22moption
             with an argument of "RU" instead.

     The operands specified to [1mwhois [22mare treated independently and may be used
     as queries on different whois servers.

[1mEXIT STATUS[0m
     The [1mwhois [22mutility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

[1mEXAMPLES[0m
     Most types of data, such as domain names and IP addresses, can be used as
     arguments to [1mwhois [22mwithout any options, and [1mwhois [22mwill choose the correct
     whois server to query.  Some exceptions, where [1mwhois [22mwill not be able to
     handle data correctly, are detailed below.

     To obtain contact information about an administrator located in the Rus-
     sian TLD domain "RU", use the [1m-c [22moption as shown in the following exam-
     ple, where [4mCONTACT-ID[24m is substituted with the actual contact identifier.

           whois -c RU CONTACT-ID

     (Note: This example is specific to the TLD "RU", but other TLDs can be
     queried by using a similar syntax.)

     The following example demonstrates how to query a whois server using a
     non-standard port, where ``query-data'' is the query to be sent to
     ``whois.example.com'' on port ``rwhois'' (written numerically as 4321).

           whois -h whois.example.com -p rwhois query-data

[1mSEE ALSO[0m
     Ken Harrenstien and Vic White, [4mNICNAME/WHOIS[24m, 1 March 1982, RFC 812.

[1mHISTORY[0m
     The [1mwhois [22mcommand appeared in 4.3BSD.

BSD                             October 2, 2009                            BSD
