ARIN's WHOIS service provides a mechanism for finding contact and registration
information for resources registered with ARIN. ARIN's database contains IP
addresses, autonomous system numbers, organizations, or customers that are
associated with these resources, and related Points of Contact [POC].

ARIN's WHOIS will NOT locate any domain related information, nor any
information relating to military networks. Please use whois.internic.net to
locate domain information, and whois.nic.mil for military network information.

Many operating systems provide a whois utility. To conduct a query from the
command line, such as:
whois -h hostname
(e.g. whois -h whois.arin.net foo)

To obtain a more specific response, you may conduct a search by using certain
flags. Many of these flags can be combined to tailor the desired output.
Flags must be separated from each other and from the search term by a space.
Your results will vary depending on the refinements you apply in your search.
Listed below are the flags currently available; you may only use one flag from
each flag-type in a query, i.e. one record type, one attribute, etc.


Query-by-record-type:
---------------------
To limit your query to a specific record type, include one of the following
flags:
n Network address space
r CIDRized network space
d Delegations
a Autonomous systems
p Points-of-contact
o Organizations
c End-user customers
e Points-of-contact, Organizations, End-user customers
z All of the above


Query-by-attribute:
-------------------
To limit your query to a specific record attribute, include one of the
following flags:
@ Searches for matches by domain-portion of an
email address
! Searches for matches by handle or id
/ Searches for matches by name
. Searches for matches by name
(same as above, but some WHOIS clients have problems with)

Searches that retrieve a single record will display the full record. Searches
that retrieve more than one record will be displayed in list output.


Display flags:
--------------
To modify the way that the query results display, include one of the
following flags:
+ FULL output shows detailed display for EACH match
- LIST output shows summary only, even if single match
returned

The + flag cannot be used with the sub-query features described below.


Record hierarchy:
-----------------
Records in the ARIN WHOIS database have hierarchical relationships with other
records. To display those related records, use the following flags:

< Displays the record related up the hierarchy. For a network,
display the supernet, or parent network in detailed format.
> Displays the record related down the hierarchy. For a network,
display the subdelegations, or subnets, below the network, in
list format. For an organization or customer, display the
resources registered to that organization or customer, in
list format.
= Display only an exact match in the hierarchy.


Wild card queries:
------------------
WHOIS supports wild card queries. This feature is only supported as a trailing
character option. To take advantage of this append the query with an asterisk
[*]. This can also be used in combination with any flags defined above.


Other helpful hints:
--------------------
To guarantee matching only a single record, look it up by its handle using a
handle-only search. In the record summary line, the handle is shown in
parenthesis after the name.

When using a handle to conduct a search for POC information, be sure to add
the -ARIN extension.

Queries that return more than 256
results will stop displaying data after the limit has been reached for each
record type. You may want to narrow your search criteria or add flags to your
query to limit the results.

To search on an individual's name, you may enter the last name, or to further
restrict results, use the last name and first name, separated by a comma. For
example: Smith, John.


Contact us:
-----------
For operational problems with WHOIS please contact noc@arin.net with the
appropriate details.

To correct information within your area of responsibility, submit a template
to hostmaster@arin.net. Information on how to fill out the appropriate template
can be found at: http://www.arin.net/resources/guide/request/documentation/

To notify ARIN of invalid POC information, contact hostmaster@arin.net with
the relevant information.


Terms of Service:
-----------------
ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use available at:
https://www.arin.net/resources/registry/whois/tou/