Provided by: whois_5.5.18_amd64 bug

NAME

       whois - client for the whois directory service

SYNOPSIS

       whois  [  {  -h  |  --host  }  HOST  ]  [  {  -p  |  --port } PORT ] [ -abBcdGHIKlLmMrRx ]
       [  -g  SOURCE:FIRST-LAST  ]  [  -i  ATTR[,ATTR]...  ]  [  -s  SOURCE[,SOURCE]...  ]  [  -T
       TYPE[,TYPE]... ] [ --verbose ] [ --no-recursion ] 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 that some registries like to show you.

       -p PORT,
               --port=PORT Connect to PORT.

       -I      First  query  whois.iana.org  and  then  follow  its  referral to the whois server
               authoritative for that request. This  works  for  IP  addresses,  AS  numbers  and
               domains.   BEWARE:  this  implies  that the IANA server will receive your complete
               query.

       --no-recursion
               Disable recursion from registry to registrar servers.

       --verbose
               Be verbose.

       --help  Display online help.

       --version
               Display the program version.

       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 objects 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 is useful to obtain Near Real Time Mirroring stream.

       -G      Disable grouping of associated objects.

       -i ATTR[,ATTR]...
               Inverse-search  objects having associated attributes.  ATTR is the attribute name,
               while the positional OBJECT argument is the attribute value.

       -K      Return primary key attributes only. An exception is the members attribute  of  set
               objects,  which  is  always  returned. Another exception are all attributes of the
               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 information about the server.   KEYWORD  can  be  version  for  the  server
               version,  sources  for  the  list  of  database  sources  or types for the list of
               supported object types.

       -r      Disable recursive lookups 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 SOURCE.  Sources are
               delimited by comma, and the order is significant.  Use the -q sources parameter to
               obtain a 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

       When  querying the Verisign gTLDs (e.g. .com, .net...) thin registry servers for a domain,
       the program will automatically prepend the domain keyword to  only  show  domain  records.
       The nameserver or registrar keywords must be used to show other kinds of records.

       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 using non-standard  query  parameters
       then  the  command  line options which are not to be interpreted by the client must 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.

SEE ALSO

       whois.conf(5).

       RFC 3912: WHOIS Protocol Specification.

       RIPE              Database              Query              Reference               Manual:
       <http://www.ripe.net/data-tools/support/documentation/ripe-database-query-reference-manual>

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 dynamic 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.

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 later.