# whois: connection refused ??

## Gentree

Hi ,

yesterday I did a whois and got expected results. I pasted a copy in an email to a friend. This morning whois refuses to respond. I cut and pasted from the email to be sure it was exactly the same request. No go.

```
bash-3.2#whois  alternative-energycentre.co.uk

connect: Connection refused

bash-3.2#whois -v  alternative-energycentre.co.uk

% This is the RIPE Whois query server #3.

% The objects are in RPSL format.

%

% Rights restricted by copyright.

% See http://www.ripe.net/db/copyright.html

%ERROR:103: unknown object type

%

% "alternative-energycentre.co.uk" is not a known object type.

% Use "-q types" to list known object types.

```

Whois works on usual .com , .org TLDs but sadly I can make no sense of the -q output and my attempt to specify the regristrar source failed the same way.

```
bash-3.2#whois -s nominet.org.uk  alternative-energycentre.co.uk

Warning: RIPE flags used with a traditional server.

connect: Connection refused
```

Can anyone tell me why this stopped working over night and how to whois a UK registered domain.

TIA, Gentree.   :Cool: 

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## bunder

whois -s doesn't work for me... but whois -h does.  well, it works, but nominet doesn't respond.  i can pull up alternative-energycentre.co.uk without the host option though.    :Confused: 

not sure if that helps at all.

cheers

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## Gentree

thanks for the reply. It's back to working here now. Must have been a glitch on the server. I guess they got bombed by 5 million emails and fixed it. 

thx.  :Cool: 

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