Overview

A whois query reveals the location of your website’s registration. It also offers information about your Nameservers, which indicate where your website is hosted.

Using an online tool
This is the simplest approach to search the public database for domain registration and ownership information. You may check the current WHOIS records for domains using services like whois-search.com.

Entering a WHOIS query from the command line
If your operating system allows it, you can also do a whois inquiry from your computer. Run a whois inquiry from the command line at a terminal on your computer. Consider the following scenario:

$ whois example.com [server]
You may need to check the record directly on that domain’s WHOIS service for some domain extensions. However, there is no current standard for defining the domain extension’s responsible WHOIS server. Some whois lookups necessitate further effort, such as conducting a search through the domain name’s specific registrar to obtain ownership information.

Breaking down a WHOIS query

WHOIS Server Discovery is described in Wikipedia.
In most circumstances, using a third-party WHOIS searching service to do your whois lookup searches is the most convenient option.

A WHOIS query is dissected.
A whois inquiry consists of two parts:

Information from the central register
Information from the registrar
Information from the central register
DREAMHOST.COM is the domain name for this website.
DREAMHOST, LLC is the registrar.
IANA ID: 431 Sponsoring Registrar
DreamHost’s Whois Server is whois.dreamhost.com.
http://www.dreamhost.com/referral/
NS1.DREAMHOST.COM is the name server.
NS2.DREAMHOST.COM is the name server.
NS3.DREAMHOST.COM is the name server.
Client status
Transfer
Prohibited
Date Last Updated: 27-Aug-2014
Date of creation: September 23, 1997
Date of Expiration: September 22, 2015
The domain name in question, the company that supplied registration services, a link to their WHOIS server, the domain status, nameservers, and create/expire dates are all displayed in the central registry information. Your WHOIS client will connect to the registrar’s server to look for the contact details once you have this information. The central registry is updated every 24 hours or so, so if the information in the registrar’s WHOIS section differs from the central registry, try again in about 24 hours.