On Ubuntu 20.04, I'm using the self compiled git master version of
Emacs. It seems that the whois client in Emacs only works for some
specific domain names, for example gnu.org and emacs.org, but for
others like facebook.com it just hangs and returns nothing. The
following command will trigger the error:
"M-x RET whois RET facebook.com"
It doesn't hang here (I'm not on Ubuntu, though). It times out:
open-network-stream: make client process failed: Connection timed out,
:name, Whois, :buffer, *Whois*, :host, rs.internic.net, :service, 43,
:nowait, nil, :tls-parameters, nil, :coding, nil
If I try a different server, it does work:
C-u M-x whois RET facebook.com RET whois.crsnic.net RET
This returns immediately with a large *Whois* buffer.
Perhaps some network expert could tell why we use by default a server
that is less useful.