CWHOIS(3)

📦 version 3.72, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 CWHOIS — whois client 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual page for cwhois, and it lives in section 3 of the manual (yes, the library-calls section, we're fancy like that 🎀). It's a whois client, and if you ask it nicely it will hand you back output that plays real pretty with RIPE DB v2. iykyk.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

[-T type[[,type]...]] [-i attr[[,attr]...]] keys

cwhois [-t type]

cwhois [-v type]

that's the whole shape of it, three little moods. one for looking stuff up, one for grabbing a template, one for grabbing a verbose template. slay. 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

cwhois is a simple whois client that just gives you back output — no drama, no games — and that output is compatible with RIPE DB v2 if you ask it to be. that's it. that's the whole vibe. 🦋

👑 OPTIONS 👑

  • -a — search all the databases, no crumbs left behind 🍓
  • -F — fast raw output, straight up, no filter, main character energy 🔥
  • -L — find all the Less specific matches (the bigger, broader ones above you in the tree)
  • -m — find the first level more specific matches
  • -M — find all the More specific matches (every lil one below)
  • -r — turn off recursive lookups, we're staying in our lane ✋
  • -S — tell the server to leave out the 'syntactic sugar' 🍬 (rude, but okay)
  • -R — force it to show the local copy of the domain object even if that object contains a referral
  • -h hostname — search an alternate server, going somewhere else for the tea ☕
  • -s source[[,source]...] — search the databases with source source (and you can stack them comma-separated like a little stack of pancakes 🥞)
  • -T type[[,type]...] — only look for objects of type type (again, comma-stack friendly)
  • -i attr[[,attr]...] — do an inverse lookup for the attributes you name
  • -t type — requests the template for an object of type type 📝
  • -v type — requests the verbose template for an object of type type, the deluxe edition ✨

🙈 HINT 🙈

bestie, real talk — most of these flags are NOT understood by non-RIPE whois servers! 😭 don't send them to a server that doesn't speak the language, it'll just be confused and awkward.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

💜 AUTHOR 💜

CWHOIS was written by Timur Bakeyev <timur@ripe.net>.

This manual page was written by Jan Wagner <waja@cyconet.org>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others — sharing is caring, periodt 🫶).

and that's a wrap, babe — this was version 1.10, dated 2006-11-03, and honestly? iconic behavior for a page older than most of us. ⭐💖🧚

📦 where this page comes from