RFC 954 · DRAFT STANDARD · 1985
WED · 29 JUL 2026
NICNAME/WHOIS
Overview
RFC 954, “NICNAME/WHOIS”, is a Draft Standard document published in October 1985 by K. Harrenstien, M.K. Stahl, E.J. Feinler. It obsoletes RFC 812. It has been obsoleted by RFC 3912 — refer to the newer document for the authoritative version. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.
Abstract
This RFC is the official specification of the NICNAME/WHOIS protocol. This memo describes the protocol and the service. This is an update of RFC-812.
What “Draft Standard” means
A historical maturity level (retired in 2011) that sat between Proposed Standard and Internet Standard and required multiple interoperable implementations.
Read this RFC
The canonical text of RFC 954 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.
Relationships to other RFCs
Other RFCs from 1985
- RFC 953 Hostname Server
- RFC 955 Towards a transport service for transaction processing applications
- RFC 952 DoD Internet host table specification
- RFC 956 Algorithms for synchronizing network clocks
- RFC 951 Bootstrap Protocol
- RFC 957 Experiments in network clock synchronization
- RFC 950 Internet Standard Subnetting Procedure
- RFC 958 Network Time Protocol