adv_cmds/whois/whois.1

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  28 .\"     From: @(#)whois.1       8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
  29 .\" $FreeBSD$
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  31 .Dd April 25, 2016
  32 .Dt WHOIS 1
  33 .Os
  34 .Sh NAME
  35 .Nm whois
  36 .Nd "Internet domain name and network number directory service"
  37 .Sh SYNOPSIS
  38 .Nm
  39 .Op Fl aAbfgiIklmPQrRS
  40 .Op Fl c Ar TLD | Fl h Ar host
  41 .Op Fl p Ar port
  42 .Op Fl -
  43 .Ar name ...
  44 .Sh DESCRIPTION
  45 The
  46 .Nm
  47 utility looks up records in the databases maintained by several
  48 Network Information Centers
  49 .Pq Tn NICs .
  50 .Pp
  51 By default
  52 .Nm
  53 starts by querying the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) whois server,
  54 and follows referrals to whois servers
  55 that have more specific details about the query
  56 .Ar name .
  57 The IANA whois server knows about
  58 IP address and AS numbers
  59 as well as domain names.
  60 .Pp
  61 There are a few special cases where referrals do not work, so
  62 .Nm
  63 goes directly to the appropriate server.
  64 These include point-of-contact handles for ARIN,
  65 .Pa nic.at ,
  66 NORID, and RIPE,
  67 and domain names under
  68 .Pa ac.uk .
  69 .Pp
  70 The options are as follows:
  71 .Bl -tag -width indent
  72 .It Fl a
  73 Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers
  74 .Pq Tn ARIN
  75 database.
  76 It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world covered neither by
  77 .Tn APNIC , AfriNIC , LACNIC ,
  78 nor by
  79 .Tn RIPE .
  80 The query syntax is documented at
  81 .Pa https://www.arin.net/resources/whoisrws/whois_api.html#nicname
  82 .It Fl A
  83 Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center
  84 .Pq Tn APNIC
  85 database.
  86 It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia,
  87 New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.
  88 Get query syntax documentation using
  89 .Ic whois -A help
  90 .It Fl b
  91 Use the Network Abuse Clearinghouse database.
  92 It contains addresses to which network abuse should be reported,
  93 indexed by domain name.
  94 .It Fl c Ar TLD
  95 This is the equivalent of using the
  96 .Fl h
  97 option with an argument of
  98 .Qq Ar TLD Ns Li .whois-servers.net .
  99 This can be helpful for locating country-class TLD whois servers.
 100 .It Fl f
 101 Use the African Network Information Centre
 102 .Pq Tn AfriNIC
 103 database.
 104 It contains network numbers used in Africa and the islands of the
 105 western Indian Ocean.
 106 Get query syntax documentation using
 107 .Ic whois -f help
 108 .It Fl g
 109 Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of
 110 contact for subdomains of
 111 .Pa .GOV .
 112 .It Fl h Ar host
 113 Use the specified host instead of the default.
 114 Either a host name or an IP address may be specified.
 115 .It Fl i
 116 Use the traditional Network Information Center (InterNIC)
 117 .Pq Pa whois.internic.net
 118 database.
 119 This now contains only registrations for domain names under
 120 .Pa .COM ,
 121 .Pa .NET ,
 122 .Pa .EDU .
 123 You can specify the type of object to search for like
 124 .Ic whois -i ' Ns Ar type Ar name Ns Ic '
 125 where
 126 .Ar type
 127 can be
 128 .Nm domain , nameserver , registrar .
 129 The
 130 .Ar name
 131 can contain
 132 .Li *
 133 wildcards.
 134 .It Fl I
 135 Use the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
 136 .Pq Tn IANA
 137 database.
 138 .It Fl k
 139 Use the National Internet Development Agency of Korea's
 140 .Pq Tn KRNIC
 141 database.
 142 It contains network numbers and domain contact information
 143 for Korea.
 144 .It Fl l
 145 Use the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry
 146 .Pq Tn LACNIC
 147 database.
 148 It contains network numbers used in much of Latin America and the
 149 Caribbean.
 150 .It Fl m
 151 Use the Route Arbiter Database
 152 .Pq Tn RADB
 153 database.
 154 It contains route policy specifications for a large
 155 number of operators' networks.
 156 .It Fl p Ar port
 157 Connect to the whois server on
 158 .Ar port .
 159 If this option is not specified,
 160 .Nm
 161 defaults to port 43.
 162 .It Fl P
 163 Use the PeeringDB database of AS numbers.
 164 It contains details about presence at internet peering points
 165 for many network operators.
 166 .It Fl Q
 167 Do a quick lookup;
 168 .Nm
 169 will not attempt to follow referrals to other whois servers.
 170 This is the default if a server is explicitly specified
 171 using one of the other options or in an environment variable.
 172 See also the
 173 .Fl R
 174 option.
 175 .It Fl r
 176 Use the R\(aaeseaux IP Europ\(aaeens
 177 .Pq Tn RIPE
 178 database.
 179 It contains network numbers and domain contact information
 180 for Europe.
 181 Get query syntax documentation using
 182 .Ic whois -r help
 183 .It Fl R
 184 Do a recursive lookup;
 185 .Nm
 186 will attempt to follow referrals to other whois servers.
 187 This is the default if no server is explicitly specified.
 188 See also the
 189 .Fl Q
 190 option.
 191 .It Fl S
 192 By default
 193 .Nm
 194 adjusts simple queries (without spaces) to produce more useful output
 195 from certain whois servers,
 196 and it suppresses some uninformative output.
 197 With the
 198 .Fl S
 199 option,
 200 .Nm
 201 sends the query and prints the output verbatim.
 202 .El
 203 .Pp
 204 The operands specified to
 205 .Nm
 206 are treated independently and may be used
 207 as queries on different whois servers.
 208 .Sh ENVIRONMENT
 209 .Bl -tag -width WHOIS_SERVER
 210 .It Ev WHOIS_SERVER
 211 The primary default whois server.
 212 If this is unset,
 213 .Nm
 214 uses the
 215 .Ev RA_SERVER
 216 environment variable.
 217 .It Ev RA_SERVER
 218 The secondary default whois server.
 219 If this is unset,
 220 .Nm
 221 will use
 222 .Pa whois.iana.org .
 223 .El
 224 .Sh EXIT STATUS
 225 .Ex -std
 226 .Sh EXAMPLES
 227 To obtain contact information about an
 228 administrator located in the Russian
 229 .Tn TLD
 230 domain
 231 .Qq Li RU ,
 232 use the
 233 .Fl c
 234 option as shown in the following example, where
 235 .Ar CONTACT-ID
 236 is substituted with the actual contact identifier.
 237 .Pp
 238 .Dl Ic whois -c RU CONTACT-ID
 239 .Pp
 240 (Note: This example is specific to the
 241 .Tn TLD
 242 .Qq Li RU ,
 243 but other
 244 .Tn TLDs
 245 can be queried by using a similar syntax.)
 246 .Pp
 247 The following example demonstrates how to query
 248 a whois server using a non-standard port, where
 249 .Dq Li query-data
 250 is the query to be sent to
 251 .Dq Li whois.example.com
 252 on port
 253 .Dq Li rwhois
 254 (written numerically as 4321).
 255 .Pp
 256 .Dl Ic whois -h whois.example.com -p rwhois query-data
 257 .Pp
 258 Some whois servers support complex queries
 259 with dash-letter options.
 260 You can use the
 261 .Fl -
 262 option to separate
 263 .Nm
 264 command options from whois server query options.
 265 A query containing spaces must be quoted as one
 266 argument to the
 267 .Nm
 268 command.
 269 The following example asks the RIPE whois server
 270 to return a brief description of its
 271 .Dq Li domain
 272 object type:
 273 .Pp
 274 .Dl Ic whois -r -- '-t domain'
 275 .Sh SEE ALSO
 276 .Rs
 277 .%A Ken Harrenstien
 278 .%A Vic White
 279 .%T NICNAME/WHOIS
 280 .%D 1 March 1982
 281 .%O RFC 812
 282 .Re
 283 .Sh HISTORY
 284 The
 285 .Nm
 286 command appeared in
 287 .Bx 4.3 .