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@(#)whois.1 8.2 (Berkeley) 6/20/94
.Dd June 20, 1994 .Dt WHOIS 1 .Os BSD 4.3 .Sh NAME .Nm whois .Nd Internet user name directory service .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm whois .Op Fl h Ar hostname .Ar name ... .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm Whois looks up records in the Network Information Center
q Tn NIC database.
p The options are as follows: l -tag -width Ds t Fl h Use the specified host instead of the default NIC (whois.internic.net). .El
p The operands specified to .Nm whois are concatenated together (separated by white-space) and presented to the .Nm whois 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 RFC 812: Nicname/Whois .Sh HISTORY The .Nm whois command appeared in x 4.3 .
Indexes created Wed Oct 29 20:09:47 GMT 2025