How to install whois on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8

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How to install whois on RHEL 8

I deployed RHEL 8 in the cloud server. However, I am unable to find the whois command on my newly created RHEL 8 Linux server. It says ‘‘ I tried yum install whois, but it failed too. How do I install whois command on RHEL/CentOS 8 Linux using the command line?whois command searches for an object in an RFC 3912 database. For example, you can find out who is the owner of an IP address or domain name. It is useful to report spam or other issues. However, whois client removed from RHEL 8 and CentOS 8 Linux system. This page explains how to install the whois client on a CentOS/RHEL 8 based system.

Procedure to install whois as follows on a CentOS/RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) version 8:

Open the terminal app on CentOS 8. For remote RHEL 8 server login using ssh user@server-ip-here command Enable EPEL repo on CentOS 8 (see how to enable EPEL repo on RHEL 8). : Install whois client, execute: sudo yum install whois Test it: whois public-ipv4-here OR whois cyberciti.biz

Let us see all examples and commands in details.

Install whois on a CentOS 8 Linux box

Turn on EPEL repo on CentOS 8, run the following yum commands:

sudo yum install epel-release

sudo yum config-manager --set-enabled PowerTools

sudo yum repolist



Search for the package:

sudo yum search whois

Sample outputs:

Last metadata expiration check: 0:27:16 ago on Tuesday 01 October 2019 06:38:00 PM UTC. ======================== Summary & Name Matched: whois ========================= whois.x86_64 : Improved WHOIS client whois-nls.noarch : Gettext catalogs for whois tools Last metadata expiration check: 0:27:16 ago on Tuesday 01 October 2019 06:38:00 PM UTC. ======================== Summary & Name Matched: whois ========================= whois.x86_64 : Improved WHOIS client whois-nls.noarch : Gettext catalogs for whois tools

Find info about the whois package on CentOS 8 box:

sudo yum info whois

Sample outputs:

Last metadata expiration check: 1 : 33 : 27 ago on Tuesday 01 October 2019 05: 36 : 22 PM UTC. Available Packages Name : whois Version : 5.5.1 Release : 1 .el8 Arch : x86_64 Size : 77 k Source : whois-5.5.1- 1 .el8.src.rpm Repo : epel Summary : Improved WHOIS client URL : http://www.linux.it/~md/software/ License : GPLv2+ Description : Searches for an object in a RFC 3912 database. : : This version of the WHOIS client tries to guess the right server : to ask for the specified object. If no guess can be made it will : connect to whois.networksolutions.com for NIC handles or : whois.arin.net for IPv4 addresses and network names. Last metadata expiration check: 1:33:27 ago on Tuesday 01 October 2019 05:36:22 PM UTC. Available Packages Name : whois Version : 5.5.1 Release : 1.el8 Arch : x86_64 Size : 77 k Source : whois-5.5.1-1.el8.src.rpm Repo : epel Summary : Improved WHOIS client URL : http://www.linux.it/~md/software/ License : GPLv2+ Description : Searches for an object in a RFC 3912 database. : : This version of the WHOIS client tries to guess the right server : to ask for the specified object. If no guess can be made it will : connect to whois.networksolutions.com for NIC handles or : whois.arin.net for IPv4 addresses and network names.

Let us install whois client:

sudo yum install whois

Sample outputs:

Last metadata expiration check: 1 : 34 : 15 ago on Tuesday 01 October 2019 05: 36 : 22 PM UTC. Dependencies resolved. ================================================================================ Package Arch Version Repository Size = =============================================================================== Installing: whois x86_64 5.5.1- 1 .el8 epel 77 k Installing dependencies: whois-nls noarch 5.5.1- 1 .el8 epel 37 k Transaction Summary = =============================================================================== Install 2 Packages Total download size: 114 k Installed size: 343 k Is this ok [ y/N ] : y Downloading Packages: ( 1 / 2 ) : whois-nls-5.5.1- 1 .el8.noarch.rpm 362 kB/s | 37 kB 00:00 ( 2 / 2 ) : whois-5.5.1- 1 .el8.x86_64.rpm 744 kB/s | 77 kB 00:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 65 kB/s | 114 kB 00:01 Running transaction check Transaction check succeeded. Running transaction test Transaction test succeeded. Running transaction Preparing : 1 / 1 Installing : whois-nls-5.5.1- 1 .el8.noarch 1 / 2 Installing : whois-5.5.1- 1 .el8.x86_64 2 / 2 Running scriptlet: whois-5.5.1- 1 .el8.x86_64 2 / 2 Verifying : whois-5.5.1- 1 .el8.x86_64 1 / 2 Verifying : whois-nls-5.5.1- 1 .el8.noarch 2 / 2 Installed: whois-5.5.1- 1 .el8.x86_64 whois-nls-5.5.1- 1 .el8.noarch Complete! Last metadata expiration check: 1:34:15 ago on Tuesday 01 October 2019 05:36:22 PM UTC. Dependencies resolved. ================================================================================ Package Arch Version Repository Size ================================================================================ Installing: whois x86_64 5.5.1-1.el8 epel 77 k Installing dependencies: whois-nls noarch 5.5.1-1.el8 epel 37 k Transaction Summary ================================================================================ Install 2 Packages Total download size: 114 k Installed size: 343 k Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: (1/2): whois-nls-5.5.1-1.el8.noarch.rpm 362 kB/s | 37 kB 00:00 (2/2): whois-5.5.1-1.el8.x86_64.rpm 744 kB/s | 77 kB 00:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 65 kB/s | 114 kB 00:01 Running transaction check Transaction check succeeded. Running transaction test Transaction test succeeded. Running transaction Preparing : 1/1 Installing : whois-nls-5.5.1-1.el8.noarch 1/2 Installing : whois-5.5.1-1.el8.x86_64 2/2 Running scriptlet: whois-5.5.1-1.el8.x86_64 2/2 Verifying : whois-5.5.1-1.el8.x86_64 1/2 Verifying : whois-nls-5.5.1-1.el8.noarch 2/2 Installed: whois-5.5.1-1.el8.x86_64 whois-nls-5.5.1-1.el8.noarch Complete!

Installing whois on an RHEL 8 Linux server

First enable on EPEL repo on RHEL 8, execute the following commands:

$ sudo yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

$ sudo subscription-manager repos --enable "codeready-builder-for-rhel-8-*-rpms"

$ sudo yum repolist



Install it:

sudo yum search whois

sudo yum install whois



How do I use whois client?

whois is a useful command for Linux and Unix users if you want to find out the following info:

Find out the names of the DNS servers for a domain

Obtain the name of the administrative contact for a domain including the name of a company or organization whose domain name you know

Contact IP or domain owner to report abuse or misconfiguration issues and more.

The syntax is:

whois IP-address

whois domain-name

whois [options] objects

whois cyberciti.biz

whois 69.164.200.202



Conclusion

You learned how to install whois client on a CentOS or RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) version 8 server. See whois command examples here.