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 higher.