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From: @(#)whois.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
$FreeBSD: head/usr.bin/whois/whois.1 55285 1999-12-31 12:20:17Z ru $
.Dd November 17, 1999 .Dt WHOIS 1 .Os BSD 4.3 .Sh NAME .Nm whois .Nd Internet domain name and network number directory service .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm whois .Op Fl adgimpQrR6 .Op Fl h Ar host .Ar name ... .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm Whois looks up records in the databases maintained by several Network Information Centers
q Tn NICs .
p The options are as follows: l -tag -width Ds t Fl a Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers
q Tn ARIN database. It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world covered neither by .Tn APNIC nor by .Tn RIPE . t Fl d Use the US Department of Defense database. It contains points of contact for subdomains of .Tn .MIL . t Fl g Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of contact for subdomains of .Tn .GOV . t Fl h Ar host Use the specified host instead of the default variant. Either a host name or an IP address may be specified.
p By default .Nm construct the name of a whois server to use from the top-level domain
q Tn TLD of the supplied (single) argument, and appending ".whois-servers.net". This effectively allows a suitable whois server to be selected automatically for a large number of TLDs. If no required whois-servers.net subdomain found, fallback to whois.crsnic.net provided. t Fl i Use the Network Solutions Registry for Internet Numbers
q Tn whois.networksolutions.com database. It contains network numbers and domain contact information for most of .Tn .COM , .Tn .NET , .Tn .ORG and .Tn .EDU domains. NOTE! 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 database
q Tn whois.internic.net is no longer handled by Network Solutions, Inc. For details, see: http://www.internic.net/. t Fl m Use the Route Arbiter Database
q Tn RADB database. It contains route policy specifications for a large number of operators' networks. t Fl p Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center
q Tn APNIC database. It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands. t Fl Q Do a quick lookup. This means that .Nm will not attempt to lookup the name in the authoritative whois server (if one is listed) nor will it contact InterNic if a lookup fails. This flag has no effect when combined with any other flag. t Fl r Use the R\(aaeseaux IP Europ\(aaeens
q Tn RIPE database. It contains network numbers and domain contact information for Europe. t Fl R Use the Russia Network Information Center
q Tn RIPN database. It contains network numbers and domain contact information for subdomains of .Tn .RU . t Fl 6 Use the IPv6 Resource Center
q Tn 6bone database. It contains network names and addresses for the IPv6 network. .El
p The operands specified to .Nm are concatenated together (separated by white-space) and presented to the .Nm server.
p The default action, unless directed otherwise with a special .Ar name , is to do a very broad search, looking for matches to .Ar name in all types of records and most fields (name, nicknames, hostname, net address, etc.) in the database. For more information as to what .Ar name operands have special meaning, and how to guide the search, use the special name .Dq Ar help . .Sh SEE ALSO .Rs .%A Ken Harrenstien .%A Vic White .%T NICNAME/WHOIS .%D 1 March 1982 .%O RFC 812 .Re .Sh HISTORY The .Nm command appeared in x 4.3 .