.TH WHOIS 1 "15 November 1999" "Marco d'Itri" "Debian GNU/Linux"
.SH NAME
whois \- client for the whois directory service
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B whois
[
.BR \-h
.I HOST
] [
.BR \-p
.I PORT
] [
.BR -aCFLMmrRSV
] [
.BR \-g
.I SOURCE:FIRST-LAST
] [
.BR \-i
.I ATTR
] [
.BR \-S
.I SOURCE
] [
.BR \-T
.I TYPE
]
.I object

.B whois
[
.I -t
|
.I -v
|
.I -i
]
.I template
.PP
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B whois
searches for an object in a
.I RFC-812
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.internic.net for domains, whois.arin.net for IPv4 addresses
and whois.6bone.net for IPv6 addresses.
.PP
.SH OPTIONS
.TP 8
.B \-h HOST
Connect to HOST.
.TP 8
.B \-p PORT
Connect to PORT.
.TP 8
.B \-C
First query
.I www.crsnic.net
to find the registrar for a GTLD subdomain. This option overrides
.I \-h.
.TP 8
.B \-V
Be verbose.
.TP 8
Other options are flags understood by RIPE-like servers.
.SH FEATURES
When querying
.I whois.arin.net
for AS numbers, the program will automatically convert the request in
the appropriate format, inserting a space after the string "AS".
.P
When querying
.I whois.nic.ad.jp
english text is requested unless the
.I LANG
environment variable specifies a Japanese locale.
.P
RIPE-specific options are ignored when querying non-RIPE servers.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.I RFC 812:
NICNAME/WHOIS
.PP
.I RIPE-157, RIPE-189:
RIPE NCC Database Documentation
.PP
Detailed help on available flags can be found in
.I RIPE-157
or in the help file, which can be obtained with the command:
.IP
.B whois -h whois.ripe.net HELP
.SH 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.
I also added support for the protocol extensions developed by David
Kessens of QWest for the 6bone server.
.SH AUTHOR
.B Whois
and this man page were written by Marco d'Itri <md@linux.it>
and are licensed under the GPL.