---
name: "whois"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "whois"
version: "5.6.6-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "openbsd", "macos"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/whois"
---

# whois(1)

client for the whois directory service

## 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)](/whois.conf/5.md).

*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.