---
name: "jwhois"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "jwhois"
version: "4.0-2.1"
release: "Debian 7 (Wheezy)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/jwhois"
---

# jwhois(1)

client for the whois service

## NAME

jwhois - client for the whois service

## SYNOPSIS

**jwhois** \[ *OPTIONS* \]... \[ *QUERY* \]

## DESCRIPTION

*jwhois* searches Whois servers for the object on the command line.

The host to query is taken from a global configuration file, a configuration file specified on the command line, or selected directly on the command line.

## OPTIONS

- **--version**

  display version, authors and licensing information.

- **--help**

  display a short help text.

- **-c FILE --config=FILE**

  uses FILE as a configuration file instead of the default.

- **-h HOST --host=HOST**

  overrides any hosts in the configuration file and queries HOST directly.

- **-p PORT --port=PORT**

  specifies a port number to use when querying a HOST.

- **-f --force-lookup**

  forces a query to be made to a host even if a current object is available from the cache.

- **-v --verbose**

  outputs verbose debugging information while running (use this before sending a bugreport to ensure that it's indeed a bug and not a  misconfiguration). You can increase the verbosity by giving several verbose commands to jwhois, such as -vv.

- **-n --no-redirect**

  disable features that redirect queries from one server to another.

- **-s --no-whoisservers**

  disable the built-in support for whois-servers.net.

- **-a --raw**

  send query verbatim to receiving hosts instead of rewriting them according to the configuration.

- **-i --display-redirections**

  display every step in a redirection (default is to display only the last answer).

- **-d --disable-cache**

  completely disable both reading and writing to cache.

- **-r --rwhois**

  force the query to use the rwhois protocol instead of HTTP or whois.

- **--rwhois-display=DISPLAY**

  asks receiving rwhois servers to display the results in the DISPLAY display instead of the default dump display.

- **--rwhois-limit=LIMIT**

  asks receiving rwhois servers to limit their responses to LIMIT matches.

### RIPE EXTENSIONS

To use the options specified in *RIPE Document 157*, you need to change the format of the query slightly. If you were to search for all entries in the RIPE database which lists the *admin-c*, *tech-c* or *zone-c* as *CO19-RIPE*, you could use the following command syntax:

**jwhois -h whois.ripe.net -- -i admin-c,tech-c,zone-c CO19-RIPE**

**--** is used to separate the RIPE options from the jwhois options.

## SEE ALSO

[whois(1)](/whois/1.md)