whois

1 definition found

whois - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  whois
  
     An Internet directory service for looking up names of people
     on a remote server.  Many servers respond to TCP queries on
     port 43, in a manner roughly analogous to the DDN NIC
     whois service described in RFC 954.  Other sites provide
     this directory service via the finger protocol or accept
     queries by electronic mail for directory information.  On
     Unix the client command is
  
     	whois -h server_name person_name
  
     You can also type "telnet server_name 43" and then type the
     person's name on a separate line.  For a list of whois
     servers, FTP/Gopher: sipb.mit.edu.  Or
  
     	whois -h sipb.mit.edu whois-servers
  
     As the above command demonstrates, whois can find information
     about things other than users, e.g. domains, networks and
     hosts.
  
     See also finger, X.500, white pages.