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:
       <https://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.