Illustrated TCP/IP by Matthew G. Naugle Wiley Computer Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN: 0471196568   Pub Date: 11/01/98

Chapter 238
WHOIS Command

Another useful utility is WHOIS. This command is included with most Unix systems, but for those who do not have access to their Unix systems or are using Windows, the InterNIC provides this function at:

rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois

>Whois ascend.com

Ascend Communications, Inc.

ASCEND-DOM

1275 Harbor Bay Pkwy

Alameda, CA 94502

Domain name: ASCEND.COM

Administrative contact, technical contact, zone contact:

Rochon, Lyle LR88

lrochon@ASCEND.COM (510) 769-6001

Record last updated on 10-Jul-97.

Record created on 05-Dec-90.

Database last updated on 3-Aug-97

04:39:20 EDT.

Domain servers in listed order:

DRAWBRIDGE.ASCEND.COM

198.4.92.1

NS.UU.NET

Let’s say you wanted to find out who owned the 192.1 Class C block of addresses. At the whois server you would type in whois net 192.1 and a listing would follow:

BBN Corporation

NETBLK-BBN-CNETBLK BBN-CNET

BLK 192.1.0.0 - 192.1.255.255

Actually, there was a lot more information listed but it was too much for this page. Try it yourself and see what happens! You can use the InterNIC’s whois server as shown previously or TELNET into their server by typing Telnet whois.internic.net. After you have a connection, type in the command WHOIS and you should get the WHOIS prompt. From there you can check on person (whois pe robbins), domain (whois dom baynetworks.com), and network numbers (whois net 192.32). Pretty cool stuff and very, very open!