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WHOIS(1)		       Debian GNU/Linux 		      WHOIS(1)



NAME
       whois - client for the whois directory service

SYNOPSIS
       whois   [   -h	HOST   ]   [   -p      PORT   ]   [  -aCFHlLMmrRSVx  ]
       [ -g SOURCE:FIRST-LAST ] [ -i ATTR ] [ -S SOURCE ] [ -T TYPE ] object

       whois [ -t ] [ -v ] template whois [ -q ] keyword


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 Connect to HOST.

       -H      Do  not	display  the legal disclaimers some registries like to
	       show you.

       -p PORT Connect to PORT.

       --verbose
	       Be verbose.

       --help  Display online help.

       Other options are flags understood by RIPE-like servers.

NOTES
       Please remember that whois.networksolutions.com by  default  will  only
       search  in  the domains database. If you want to search for NIC handles
       you have to prepend a ! character. When you do this, the default server
       becomes whois.networksolutions.com.

       When  querying whois.nic.mil for AS numbers, the program will automati
       cally convert the request in the appropriate format, inserting a  space
       after the string AS.

       If   the   program   is	 compiled  with  IDN  support,	when  querying
       whois.denic.de for domain names it will automatically add the flags  -T
       dn,ace  -C  US-ASCII  if no flags have been specified by the user.  The
       domain name will always be IDN-encoded.

       When querying whois.corenic.net, the program will automatically request
       machine-readable output.

       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 querying a non-standard server, command line options which are not
       to be interpreted by the client should always follow the  --  separator
       (which marks the beginning of the query string).

       If the /etc/whois.conf config 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.

       Command line arguments will always be interpreted  accordingly  to  the
       current	system locale and converted to the IDN ASCII Compatible Encod
       ing.

Files
       /etc/whois.conf

ENVIRONMENT
       LANG   When querying whois.nic.ad.jp and whois.jprs.jp english text  is
	      requested  unless  the  LANG  environment  variable  specifies a
	      Japanese locale.

       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.

       WHOIS_HIDE
	      If this variable is defined, legal disclaimers  will  be	hidden
	      even if the -H flag is not used.

SEE ALSO
       RFC 3912: WHOIS Protocol Specification

       RIPE-223: RIPE NCC Database Documentation

       Detailed  help  on  available  flags can be found in RIPE-223 or in the
       help file which can be obtained with the command:

	      whois -h whois.ripe.net HELP

BUGS
       The program has many buffer overflows when  parsing  the  command  line
       parameters:  be	sure  to  not  pass  untrusted data to it.  It will 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 origi
       nal BSD client.	I also	added  support	for  the  protocol  extensions
       developed by David Kessens of QWest for the 6bone server.

AUTHOR
       Whois  and this man page were written by Marco dItri  and
       are licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.



Marco dItri			4 March 2005			     WHOIS(1)




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