WHOIS.CONF(5) Debian GNU/Linux WHOIS.CONF(5)

# [NAME](#NAME)

whois.conf - alternative WHOIS servers list for whois client

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**/etc/whois.conf**

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

This file contains a list of WHOIS servers which can augment or override the built-in list of the client.

It's a plain text file in ASCII encoding. Each line consists of two fields: a pattern to match WHOIS object identifier and a corresponding WHOIS server domain name.

Fields are separated by non-empty sequence of space or a tabular characters. A line starting with a hash character is a free comment and it's not considered.

The pattern is case-insensitive extended regular expression if whois client has been compiled with POSIX regular expressions support. Otherwise, simple case-insensitive suffix comparison against WHOIS object identifier is used.

Internationalized domain names (IDN) must be specified in ascii-compatible encoding (ACE) format.

# [EXAMPLE](#EXAMPLE)

\\.nz$ nz.whois-servers.net  
\# Hangul Korean TLD  
\\.xn--3e0b707e$ whois.kr  
\# Private ASNs  
^as645(1\[2-9]|2\[0-9]|3\[0-4])$ whois.example.net

# [FILES](#FILES)

/etc/whois.conf

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

[*whois*(1)](/man/os/whois/whois.1)

# [AUTHOR](#AUTHOR)

This manual page was written by Petr Písař <*ppisar@redhat.com*> and is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or higher.

2019-12-30 Petr Písař

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Document: whois.conf(5) from whois 5.6.6-r3 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/rfc1036/whois