Record types
Each WHOIS database record has a field saying what type of record
it is. The main NIC database contains records for individuals, domains,
groups, hosts, networks, organizations, PSNs (formerly called IMPs),
TACs, and gateways. It is advantageous to specify which type of
record you are looking for since then WHOIS can present fewer, closer
matches, and can also perform extra searches on fields specific to
that record type, fields not ordinary searched in a general lookup.
To search for a specific type of record, put one of the following
keywords (shown with their minimum abreviation in all CAPS) before
your target:
- Arpanet
- This finds only "host" records which are on net 10, the ARPANET.
See below for a description of "hosts".
- DOmain
- Finds a domain record. Searches the usual places plus the
domain-name field ("COM", "MIT.EDU", etc). You can match on any pre-dot
portion of a domain name (that part of the name that precedes the
dot). That is, "DOM MIT" would find MIT.EDU.
- Gateway
- Finds gateway records. Searches the same places as host,
below.
- HOst
- Finds records for "hosts", meant more as "machines". Host records
are found, as well as PSNs, TACs, and gateways. Looks in the hostname,
nicknames, net-address, and domain-name fields, with bonus pre-dot
AND pre-dash matching (i.e. matches text before the '.' or '-' in
the name)! For example, "ho rutgers" finds RUTGERS.EDU, RUTGERS-GW.RUTGERS.EDU,
and RED.RUTGERS.EDU, the last one found because RED's name field is
"Rutgers University.
- MIlnet
- Like Arpanet, this keywords says to find only hosts that
are on net 26, the MILNET.
- NEtwork
- Finds network records. Looks in net-name ("ARPANET", "S1NET",
etc) and net-number ("10.0.0.0", "128.15.0.0", etc), with pre-dot
matching on net number: "net 10" and "net 128.15" are eqvivalent
to the above. "net 128" finds all networks with a first octet of
128.
- Organization or Group
- Finds org/group records. Looks in the usual
places plus nicknames. Examples: "org rfc", "o net-sponsors".
- PSn
- Finds PSN records. Checks the usual places plus nicknames,
PSN name, and PSN number. PSN names are like SRI51 and ROCK-ISLAND;
"psn 1" will find you OBERURSEL-IMP (MILNET) and UCLA-IMP (ARPANET).
- Tac
- Finds TAC records. Looks in all the host places plus TAC-number,
which is the BBN-assigned small number identifier for that TAC.
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