Whois

Whois (pronounced as the phrase who is) is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block, or an autonomous system, but is also used for a wider range of other information .

Implementation

Whois is first implemented on UNIX and is available for all operation systems. The implementation may vary in functionality.

Servers

<img title="Regional Internet Registries" width="400" src=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Regional_Internet_Registries_world_map.svg />

Whois servers operated by Regional Internet Registries (RIR) can be queried directly to determine the Internet Service Provider responsible for a particular resource: Whois Description Address URL AfriNIC Africa Network Information Centre     APNIC Asia Pacific Network Information Centre whois.apnet.net http://www.apnic.net/search/ ARIN American Registry for Internet Numbers whois.arin.net http://ww1.arin.net/whois/ LACNIC Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre   http://lacnic.net/cgi-bin/lacnic/whois?lg=EN RIPE NCC Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre whois.ripe.net http://www.ripe.net/perl/whois

Services

Is it possible to get Whois information for free? Yes and no.

• Yes for doing lookups using the unix whois clients using port 43.
• No for bulk lookups. The services are limited by the number of queries. The first 100-500 queries are for free. The next have to be paid. Example

Also the given information differs in quality. See the examples below.

If you host your website on an external server, the owner may have closed port 43 for whois access. In that case you'll need an http-lookup without using port 43. A very popular and good service is provided by http://www.woisxmlapi.com. Unfortunately not for free.

Arin

 whois -h wois.arin.net 66.249.75.160

#
# Query terms are ambiguous.  The query is assumed to be:
#     "n 66.249.75.160"
#
# Use "?" to get help.
#

#
# The following results may also be obtained via:
# http://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=66.249.75.160?showDetails=true&showARIN=false&ext=netref2
#

NetRange:       66.249.64.0 - 66.249.95.255
CIDR:           66.249.64.0/19
OriginAS:
NetName:        GOOGLE
NetHandle:      NET-66-249-64-0-1
Parent:         NET-66-0-0-0-0
NetType:        Direct Allocation
RegDate:        2004-03-05
Updated:        2012-02-24
Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-66-249-64-0-1


OrgName:        Google Inc.
OrgId:          GOGL
Address:        1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
City:           Mountain View
StateProv:      CA
PostalCode:     94043
Country:        US
RegDate:        2000-03-30
Updated:        2011-09-24
Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/GOGL

OrgAbuseHandle: ZG39-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   Google Inc
OrgAbusePhone:  +1-650-253-0000
OrgAbuseEmail:  arin-contact@google.com
OrgAbuseRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ZG39-ARIN

OrgTechHandle: ZG39-ARIN
OrgTechName:   Google Inc
OrgTechPhone:  +1-650-253-0000
OrgTechEmail:  arin-contact@google.com
OrgTechRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ZG39-ARIN

#
# ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use
# available at: https://www.arin.net/whois_tou.html
#

apnic

whois -h whois.apnic.net 66.249.75.160

% [whois.apnic.net node-7]
% Whois data copyright terms    http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html

inetnum:        66.0.0.0 - 66.255.255.255
netname:        ARIN-CIDR-BLOCK
descr:          Not allocated by APNIC
remarks:        ------------------------------------------------------
remarks:
remarks:        Important:
remarks:
remarks:        Details of networks in this range are not registered
remarks:        in the APNIC Whois Database.
remarks:
remarks:        Please search the ARIN Whois, which contains
remarks:        details of IP addresses allocated in North America,
remarks:        parts of the Caribbean, and sub-equatorial Africa:
remarks:
remarks:        website:  https://ws.arin.net/whois
remarks:        command line: whois.arin.net
remarks:
remarks:        ------------------------------------------------------
country:        AU
admin-c:        IANA1-AP
tech-c:         IANA1-AP
mnt-by:         MAINT-APNIC-AP
mnt-lower:      MAINT-APNIC-AP
status:         ALLOCATED PORTABLE
changed:        hm-changed@apnic.net 20030403
changed:        hm-changed@apnic.net 20040926
changed:        hm-changed@apnic.net 20090501
source:         APNIC

role:           Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
address:        see http://www.iana.org.
country:        US
phone:          +1-310-823-9358
e-mail:         nobody@apnic.net
admin-c:        IANA1-AP
tech-c:         IANA1-AP
nic-hdl:        IANA1-AP
remarks:        For more information on IANA services
remarks:        go to IANA web site at http://www.iana.org.
mnt-by:         MAINT-APNIC-AP
changed:        helpdesk@apnic.net 20110811
changed:        hm-changed@apnic.net 20111206
source:         APNIC

Ripe

 whois -h whois.ripe.net 66.249.75.160

% This is the RIPE Database query service.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% The RIPE Database is subject to Terms and Conditions.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/support/db-terms-conditions.pdf

% Note: this output has been filtered.
%       To receive output for a database update, use the "-B" flag.

% Information related to '0.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255'

inetnum:        0.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255
netname:        IANA-BLK
descr:          The whole IPv4 address space
country:        EU # Country field is actually all countries in the world and not just EU countries
org:            ORG-IANA1-RIPE
admin-c:        IANA1-RIPE
tech-c:         IANA1-RIPE
status:         ALLOCATED UNSPECIFIED
remarks:        This object represents all IPv4 addresses.
remarks:        If you see this object as a result of a single IP query, it
remarks:        means that the IP address you are querying is not managed by
remarks:        the RIPE NCC but by one of the other five RIRs. It might
remarks:        also be an address that has been reserved by the IETF as part
remarks:        of a protocol or test range.
remarks:        You can find the whois server to query, or the
remarks:        IANA registry to query on this web page:
remarks:        http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/ipv4-address-space.xml
mnt-by:         RIPE-NCC-HM-MNT
mnt-lower:      RIPE-NCC-HM-MNT
mnt-routes:     RIPE-NCC-RPSL-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered

organisation:   ORG-IANA1-RIPE
org-name:       Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
org-type:       IANA
address:        see http://www.iana.org
remarks:        The IANA allocates IP addresses and AS number blocks to RIRs
remarks:        see http://www.iana.org/ipaddress/ip-addresses.htm
remarks:        and http://www.iana.org/assignments/as-numbers
admin-c:        IANA1-RIPE
tech-c:         IANA1-RIPE
mnt-ref:        RIPE-NCC-HM-MNT
mnt-by:         RIPE-NCC-HM-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered

role:           Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
address:        see http://www.iana.org.
admin-c:        IANA1-RIPE
tech-c:         IANA1-RIPE
nic-hdl:        IANA1-RIPE
remarks:        For more information on IANA services
remarks:        go to IANA web site at http://www.iana.org.
mnt-by:         RIPE-NCC-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered

% This query was served by the RIPE Database Query Service version 1.42 (WHOIS4)