[CentOS] TIP for broken ARIN whois

[Always Learning]

On Sat, 2011-09-10 at 11:23 -0400, me at tdiehl.org wrote:

> Where is this syntax documented? I see the -h option in the man page
> but the n + part is not there and I would like to understand where
> that comes from.

	whois -h whois.arin.net ?

The ' n + ' are parameters (arguments) introduced by ARIN. They are not
part of the standard WHOIS.

To reduce typing I now use for WHOIS:-

	.w 65.65.65.65

.w being a one line script containing (whois $1).

When that encounters the ARIN deficiency, I simply up-arrow to get the
previous line and add 'a'

	.wa 65.65.65.65

.wa is my ARIN whois command (whois -h whois.arin.net n + $1)


However, when ARIN redirects the original enquiry to a RWHOIS, the query
is broken and unrecognised by the RWHOIS

	whois -h whois.arin.net n + 66.66.66.66

It is a bit of a North American mess. I hope Europe's RIPE retains its
fully functioning WHOIS.


Paul.