Network Utility, removing a Whois server

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Level 1

7 points

Network Utility, removing a Whois server

I was using Network Utility to discover its capabilities. All options appear to work as expected and are quite useful except the Whois and Finger tabs. I finally discovered my firewall was blocking my whois queries by giving almost instant timeout errors. However In the process I've added a lot of unnecessary Whois servers [and non-Whois servers] to my Whois server list. Does anyone know where this list is kept so I can either delete some or wipe it completely and add the correct ones? I'm using MacOS 10.13.2 & Network Utility 1.9.2 (114). Thanks

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2), Safari 11.0.2

Posted on Dec 9, 2017 11:30 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

etresoft

Level 8

46,098 points

Dec 18, 2017 4:50 PM in response to DW_User

Hello DW_User,

This forum is for High Sierra and is very busy. Once your question moves off of page 1, it is likely to be forgotten. Next time you have a similar question, maybe try the Mac OS X Technologies forum. It will stay on page 1 much longer there.

You can reset the defaults with the following two Terminal commands:

defaults write com.apple.NetworkUtility NUWhoisServers '("whois.internic.net","whois.networksolutions.com","whois.arin.net","whois.nic .mil","whois.ripe.net","whois.apnic.net","whois.nic.ad.jp")'

(That should all be on one line).

Then, the most important part is to run this command:

killall cfprefsd

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Answer 2

DW_User Author

Level 1

7 points

Dec 18, 2017 4:39 PM in response to DW_User

It looks like there are no replies to this one. I believe I did find the Network Utility file I was after at "/Users/[userid]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkUtility.plist". This is not a plain text file and I don't know the application used to update these [.plist] "property list" files. Such files are often updated by going through the menu bar, by going [application->] "Network Utility" menu -> "Preferences" option. Network Utility however does not have a preferences option. This probably because there is virtually nothing to "option".

I'm not too concerned about this for the following reasons: 1) The incorrect and unnecessary entries I've made to the "Whois" list of servers will get cleared away the next time I do a clean OS install, 2) The utility option "Whois" is not an option I normally use, and 3) These kind of searches are done via a browser using the web these days. As an aside the "Whois" and "Finger" options can also be done using Terminal - see "man whois" and "man finger" for correct syntax. Unless you are doing a Finger on your very own system, I find I only get "permission denied" type messages from the remote user's server.

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Answer 3

DW_User Author

Level 1

7 points

Dec 19, 2017 8:02 PM in response to etresoft

Thank you etresoft, it worked perfectly and thanks for the posting advice.

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