ipwho: Fast CLI Utility for IP Address Information

If you frequently work in the terminal and need to quickly check where an IP address is located, the standard whois command can sometimes be too verbose or slow. That's why we created ipwho — a lightweight, high-performance command-line interface (CLI) tool specifically optimized for retrieving geographical and administrative details of an IP address.

Developed by the ExtractIP team, ipwho is written in Go and designed for Unix-like systems. It provides a clean, readable output that gives you exactly what you need without the clutter.

Key Features

• Fast Country Detection: Instantly identify the country associated with any IP.
• Verbose Mode (-v): Get a detailed table including:
  • City, Region, and Country.
  • Time Zone and local Currency.
  • Main Domain and associated service info.
  • International calling codes.
• JSON Output: Use the --json flag to get raw data, perfect for piping into other tools like jq.
• Lightweight & Portable: A single binary with no external dependencies (once built).

Installation

To install ipwho, you need to have Go installed on your system. Run the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/extractip/ipwho.git
cd ipwho
go build -o ipwho
sudo mv ipwho /usr/local/bin/

After these steps, you can run ipwho from anywhere in your terminal.

Usage Examples

1. Basic Country Lookup

To get just the country name for an IP:

ipwho 8.8.8.8

Output: United States

2. Detailed Information (Verbose)

To see a full breakdown of the IP's metadata:

ipwho -v 1.1.1.1

3. JSON Output for Scripting

If you're building a script and need to parse the data:

ipwho --json 8.8.4.4 | jq .

Why Use ipwho?

While whois is a standard tool, it often returns raw text from different registries (ARIN, RIPE, etc.) in inconsistent formats. ipwho leverages the powerful ExtractIP API to provide consistent, structured, and accurate data regardless of which registry owns the IP block.

Whether you're a system administrator, a security researcher, or a developer, ipwho is a handy addition to your toolkit.

Open Source

The project is fully open-source. We welcome contributions, bug reports, and feature requests on our GitHub repository.

Give it a try today and simplify your IP investigation workflow!