sipb.mit.edu:/pub/whois/whois-servers.list List of Internet whois servers, 8 November 1993 (Version 3.61) This list was collected and compiled by Matt Power of M.I.T. Questions or comments about this list should be sent to the address: mhpower@mit.edu Preferred server name Associated institution --------------------------------------------------------------------- camb.com Cambridge Computer Associates C=US gte.com GTE Laboratories C=US whois.pacbell.com Pacific Bell C=US wp.psi.com Performance Systems International C=US whois.sunquest.com Sunquest Information Systems C=US teetot.acusd.edu University of San Diego C=US ns.arizona.edu University of Arizona C=US ducserv.duc.auburn.edu Auburn University C=US whois.bates.edu Bates College C=US poniecki.berkeley.edu Wladyslaw Poniecki Charitable Foundation C=US whois.berkeley.edu University of California at Berkeley C=US bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu State University of New York at Binghamton C=US caltech.edu California Institute of Technology C=US horton.caltech.edu California Institute of Technology C=US csufres.csufresno.edu California State University - Fresno C=US csuhayward.edu California State University - Hayward C=US csus.edu California State University - Sacramento C=US whois.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University C=US cc.fsu.edu Florida State University C=US gettysburg.edu Gettysburg College C=US gmu.edu George Mason University C=US whois.dfci.harvard.edu Dana-Farber Cancer Institute C=US indiana.edu Indiana University C=US kean.edu Kean College C=US acad.csv.kutztown.edu Kutztown University C=US whois.rsmas.miami.edu University of Miami, Rosentiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences C=US mit.edu Massachusetts Institute of Technology C=US whois.msstate.edu Mississippi State University C=US vax2.winona.msus.edu Minnesota State University - Winona C=US nau.edu Northern Arizona University C=US whois.ncsu.edu North Carolina State University C=US nd.edu University of Notre Dame C=US earth.njit.edu New Jersey Institute of Technology C=US acfcluster.nyu.edu New York University, Courant Institute C=US sun1.mcsr.olemiss.edu University of Mississippi C=US austin.onu.edu Ohio Northern University C=US ph.orst.edu Oregon State University C=US osu.edu Ohio State University C=US whois.oxy.edu Occidental College C=US info.psu.edu Pennsylvania State University C=US cs.rit.edu Rochester Institute of Technology C=US whois.cc.rochester.edu University of Rochester C=US whitepages.rutgers.edu Rutgers University C=US whois.sdsu.edu San Diego State University C=US sonoma.edu Sonoma State University C=US stanford.edu Stanford University C=US camis.stanford.edu Stanford University C=US hpp.stanford.edu Stanford University C=US stjohns.edu St. John's University C=US sunysb.edu State University of New York, Stony Brook C=US syr.edu Syracuse University C=US whois.bcm.tmc.edu Baylor College of Medicine C=US tstc.edu Texas State Technical College C=US directory.uakron.edu University of Akron C=US uc.edu University of Cincinnati C=US thor.ece.uc.edu University of Cincinnati C=US directory.ucdavis.edu University of California at Davis C=US uchicago.edu University of Chicago C=US oac.ucla.edu University of California at Los Angeles C=US whois.ucsb.edu University of California at Santa Barbara C=US ucsd.edu University of California at San Diego C=US weber.ucsd.edu University of California at San Diego, Division of Social Sciences C=US cgl.ucsf.edu University of California at San Francisco, School of Pharmacy C=US whois.eng.ufl.edu University of Florida C=US whois.uh.edu University of Houston C=US umbc.edu University of Maryland, Baltimore County C=US ub.umd.edu University of Baltimore C=US umd5.umd.edu University of Maryland C=US umn.edu University of Minnesota C=US ns.unl.edu University of Nebraska at Lincoln C=US whois.uoregon.edu University of Oregon C=US whois.upenn.edu University of Pennsylvania C=US x500.utexas.edu University of Texas at Austin C=US whois.vims.edu Virginia Institute of Marine Science C=US whois.virginia.edu University of Virginia C=US whois.wfu.edu Wake Forest University C=US wisc.edu University of Wisconsin C=US wpi.wpi.edu Worcester Polytechnic Institute C=US dirsvc.xosi.doe.gov U.S. Department of Energy C=US llnl.gov Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory C=US x500.arc.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center C=US x500.gsfc.nasa.gov NASA Goddard Space Flight Center C=US larc.nasa.gov NASA Langley Research Center C=US wp.nersc.gov National Energy Research Supercomputer Center C=US seda.sandia.gov Sandia National Laboratories C=US whois.nic.ddn.mil DDN Network Information Center C=US whois.nrl.navy.mil Naval Research Laboratory C=US wp.es.net Energy Sciences Network C=US ds.internic.net Network Solutions, Inc. (non-MILNET/non-POC) C=US whois.internic.net Network Solutions, Inc. C=US pilot.njin.net New Jersey Intercampus Network C=US whois.ripe.net Reseaux IP Europeens C=NL whois.wu-wien.ac.at Wirtschaftsuniversitaet Wien C=AT archie.au Australian Academic and Research Network C=AU whois.adelaide.edu.au University of Adelaide C=AU wp.adelaide.edu.au University of Adelaide C=AU deakin.edu.au Deakin University C=AU whois.monash.edu.au Monash University C=AU uwa.edu.au University of Western Australia C=AU whois.gu.uwa.edu.au University of Western Australia, University Computer Club C=AU sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au University College, Australian Defense Force Academy C=AU jethro.ucc.su.oz.au University of Sydney C=AU elem4.vub.ac.be Inter-university Institute for High Energies C=BE whois.doc.ca Communications Canada (The Federal Department of Communications) C=CA whois.queensu.ca Queen's University, Kingston, Canada C=CA whois.unb.ca University of New Brunswick C=CA panda1.uottawa.ca University of Ottawa C=CA dvinci.usask.ca University of Saskatchewan, Engineering C=CA whois.usask.ca University of Saskatchewan C=CA phys.uvic.ca University of Victoria, Physics & Astronomy C=CA whois.uwo.ca University of Western Ontario C=CA horton.yorku.ca York University C=CA nic.switch.ch SWITCH Teleinformatics Services C=CH dfnnoc.gmd.de Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung C=DE whois.th-darmstadt.de Darmstadt University of Technology C=DE whois.tu-chemnitz.de Technische Universitaet Chemnitz C=DE deins.informatik.uni-dortmund.de University of Dortmund C=DE whois.uni-c.dk Danish Computing Centre for Research and Education C=DK cs.hut.fi Helsinki University of Technology C=FI cc.jyu.fi Jyvaskyla University C=FI oulu.fi Oulu University C=FI vtt.fi Technical Research Centre of Finland C=FI whois.citilille.fr CITI Lille - France C=FR whois.univ-lyon1.fr Universite Claude Bernard Lyon I C=FR whois.forthnet.gr FORTHnet (Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas) C=GR wp.forthnet.gr FORTHnet (Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas) C=GR sangam.ncst.ernet.in National Centre for Software Technology C=IN isgate.is Association of Research Networks in Iceland C=IS dsa.nis.garr.it GARR-NIS c/o CNR-CNUCE C=IT whois.nis.garr.it GARR-NIS c/o CNR-CNUCE C=IT whois.cc.keio.ac.jp Keio University C=JP whois.nic.ad.jp Japan Network Information Center C=JP whois.nic.nm.kr Korea Network Information Center C=KR whois.tue.nl Eindhoven University of Technology C=NL cantsc.canterbury.ac.nz University of Canterbury C=NZ directory.vuw.ac.nz Victoria University, Wellington C=NZ waikato.ac.nz Waikato University C=NZ whois.elka.pw.edu.pl Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology C=PL whois.ia.pw.edu.pl Institute of Automatic Control, Warsaw University of Technology C=PL archie.inesc.pt Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores C=PT chalmers.se Chalmers University of Technology C=SE whois.gd.chalmers.se Gothenburg Universities' Computing Centre C=SE kth.se Royal Institute of Technology C=SE othello.admin.kth.se Royal Institute of Technology C=SE sics.se Swedish Institute of Computer Science C=SE whois.sunet.se SUNET (Swedish University Network) C=SE whois.uakom.sk SANET (WAN of Slovak academic institutions) C=SK src.doc.ic.ac.uk Imperial College C=GB whois.lut.ac.uk Loughborough University C=GB info.cnri.reston.va.us Corporation for National Research Initiatives, Knowbot interface C=US hippo.ru.ac.za Rhodes University, Grahamstown C=ZA whois.und.ac.za University of Natal (Durban) C=ZA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Documentation", and other comments... Redistribution -------------- If you redistribute this list, or excerpt a significant number of entries from it, be sure to also pass along the original anonymous-FTP location, and request that updates be sent to my e-mail address, as specified at the top of this file. This will allow users to obtain updated versions at a later time, and will help ensure that I get the information I need to do the updating. Also, keep in mind that accessing a whois server requires a direct connection to the Internet. In general, sites that have access to the Internet via tcp/whois will also have access to the Internet via tcp/ftp, and will thus be able to obtain this file directly. Making the file available via a mail-based server is therefore largely unnecessary. Updates ------- I am interested in any corrections to the above listing, and in reports of other whois servers. Please send them via e-mail to the address listed at the top of this file. Unless the maintainer of the server has already announced his whois service publicly, I will attempt to contact the postmaster or system maintainer prior to including a new entry. Scope ----- Whois servers, at least by my definition, provide directory information in response to TCP queries on port 43, in a manner roughly analogous to the DDN NIC whois service described in RFC 954. I realize that many sites instead provide this directory service via the finger protocol, or accept queries by mail for directory information. Although I'd be happy to receive reports of these, the scope of this particular listing is limited to the TCP whois service. There are a few hosts that accept tcp/whois connections, but respond with information identical to that given by a standard finger server. Since I don't consider this a directory service, I have been omitting these hosts. Unlisted servers ---------------- I know of some other whois servers that aren't listed above (at their maintainers' requests), even though they allow access to at least a small amount of directory information. Currently, this includes eighteen in North America, four in Europe, and one in Asia. Typical reasons include: service is about to be shut down, service is still being developed and will be announced later, or another server provides the same data in a better supported manner. Server names ------------ There are currently three popular naming conventions for whois servers. The most common practice is to put whois service on a host as far up as possible in the organization's domain hierarchy. For example, the highest-level domain name associated with M.I.T. is MIT.EDU, and M.I.T.'s whois service is operated on the host named mit.edu. Another common practice is to choose 'whois' or 'wp' as the first part of the domain name ('wp' stands for "White Pages"). This would be the case if M.I.T.'s whois service were on a host named whois.mit.edu or wp.mit.edu. In these cases, the listed name is often an alias, not the host's canonical name. In selecting the name to be listed, I've given preference to aliases starting with whois or wp. I personally prefer the first-mentioned convention, since it results in shorter command lines, and ones I believe are less confusing to beginning Internet users. In particular, the top-level host often supports organization-wide mail service, and thus the same host name can be used for whois queries and for e-mail. Usage ----- The most common access approach involves separately querying each server of interest, via a direct tcp/whois connection. However, there are currently a number of active projects concerned with improved interfaces to these servers, either by more intelligent client software, or by standardization of the server behavior. Eventually, this should eliminate the need for end users to have the complete collection of server names; at this point, though, distributing the server list to individual Internet users is still worthwhile. The procedure for accessing the whois servers will vary depending on your host's operating system, and on what software is installed. On UNIX systems, the preferred method is whois -h _server_name_ _name_of_person_ If there is no whois program, sometimes it will work to type telnet _server_name_ 43 and then type the "name of person" on a separate line. (The usefulness of this will vary depending on the details of the telnet client implementation installed on your system.) Alternatively, you may be able to compile a whois program yourself, starting from source code available at various anonymous FTP sites. As a start, you might try searching archie for files named 'whois.tar.Z'. Programs named 'whois' and 'telnet' may also be available on VMS systems. Typing 'HELP WHOIS' or 'HELP TELNET' at the DCL prompt may be useful. Whois programs may also be installed on other operating systems, or may be available for these systems via anonymous FTP. Searching archie for file names matching 'whois' (case insensitive) might be worthwhile. Also, system administrators interested in starting new whois servers will probably be able to find one or more separate source-code packages on anonymous FTP sites. In addition to checking archie, you may wish to look in the file whois-servers.source, available at the anonymous-FTP location listed at the top of this file. Other Formats of This List -------------------------- Whenever this whois-servers.list file is updated, it is automatically converted to a few other formats. One that might be of common interest is a "Summary" version that contains just the server names and locations, one per line, and a few comment lines that each begin with ';'. This version can be obtained via whois -h sipb.mit.edu whois-servers or from a few replication sites that can be found by doing whois -h sipb.mit.edu whois-list-servers It's intended mainly for people who have a program to copy the server list occasionally (e.g., once a week) for local redistribution. If you're able to redistribute via whois (i.e., by supporting the query whois -h _your_server_name_ whois-servers), please let me know and I'll add you to the list of replication sites. Gopher Access ------------- The data in this list are also available via the Internet Gopher system. Gopher clients should connect to the host sipb.mit.edu, port 70, and choose the selection "Internet whois servers". The whois-server entries accessible in the sipb.mit.edu Gopher server are automatically updated whenever this file is changed. Alternatively, one can access this same Gopher menu by connecting to a root Gopher server at the University of Minnesota and selecting "Phone Books" then "WHOIS Searches". AFS Access ---------- Sites using Transarc's AFS (Andrew File System) software can access the whois-servers.list file using the AFS global name space pathname /afs/sipb.mit.edu/project/gopher-links/whois-servers.list (i.e., it is in the directory project/gopher-links relative to root.cell for the sipb.mit.edu cell.) Access Restrictions ------------------- In general, these servers should only be used for isolated queries about specific individuals of interest. Typically, it is not acceptable to make an extended series of queries in an attempt to obtain large sections, or the entirety, of the directory. Such a strategy is objectionable both because of excessive consumption of server resources, and because the directory itself is usually considered proprietary. In particular, deriving lists of persons for distribution of commercial advertisements or solicitations is expressly prohibited by site policies in many cases, and could easily cause sites to curtail the current open access to their whois servers. Server problems --------------- Not all of the whois-server entries constitute a "supported" service within their respective domains. Even at sites where the service is supported, there may be occasional changes in the server host name. Also, at any given time, you will probably find one or more of the servers not operational, or apparently unusable. I have not purposefully included any servers that I believe have been permanently shut down. In all cases, either I have personally seen the server provide useful information within the last few months, or else the maintainers of the server have asked me to include it anyway, while they work on resolving usage problems. Collection ---------- The list was collected primarily via an active resource-discovery approach involving polling selected Internet hosts for possible support of tcp/whois service. This was done with some attention to minimizing consumption of resources on other Internet hosts and networks. In particular, no DNS zone transfers were used to generate lists of polling candidates. Instead, a small number of host names in most second-level domains were selected, using various heuristics, and whois queries were attempted to each of these. All queries originated from hosts in the MIT.EDU domain. Also, I've been maintaining versions of this list since August 1990, and since then a number of persons have mailed me reports of new whois servers, or updates on the servers already listed here.