hpux man page for whois

whois(1)						      General Commands Manual							  whois(1)

NAME
       whois - Internet user name directory service

SYNOPSIS
       hostname] name

DESCRIPTION
       looks up records in the Network Information Center database.

       The operands specified to whois are concatenated together (separated by white-space) and presented to the whois server.

       The  default  action, unless directed otherwise with a special name, is to do a very broad search, looking for matches to name in all types
       of records and most fields (name, nicknames, hostname, net address, etc.) in the database.  For more information as to what  name  operands
       have special meaning, and how to guide the search, use the special name ``help''.

   Options
       supports the following option:

	      use the specified host instead of the default NIC.

EXAMPLES
       Look up user John Doe

DEPENDENCIES
       The machine making the enquiry must be able to route the request over the network to the specified host, or to the default NIC.

AUTHOR
       was developed by the University of California, Berkeley.

SEE ALSO
       RFC 854: Nicname/Whois

																	  whois(1)