diff --git a/pkgs/tools/networking/whois/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/networking/whois/default.nix
index bbee69e0c91b..30ecf617873a 100644
--- a/pkgs/tools/networking/whois/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/tools/networking/whois/default.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, perl, gettext, pkgconfig, libidn2 }:
+{ stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, perl, gettext, pkgconfig, libidn2, libiconv }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   version = "5.2.20";
@@ -12,17 +12,20 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   };
 
   nativeBuildInputs = [ perl gettext pkgconfig ];
-  buildInputs = [ libidn2 ];
+  buildInputs = [ libidn2 libiconv ];
 
   preConfigure = ''
     for i in Makefile po/Makefile; do
       substituteInPlace $i --replace "prefix = /usr" "prefix = $out"
     done
+
+    substituteInPlace Makefile --replace "DEFS += HAVE_ICONV" "DEFS += HAVE_ICONV\nwhois_LDADD += -liconv"
   '';
 
-  buildPhase = "make whois";
+  makeFlags = [ "HAVE_ICONV=1" ];
+  buildFlags = [ "whois" ];
 
-  installPhase = "make install-whois";
+  installTargets = [ "install-whois" ];
 
   meta = with stdenv.lib; {
     description = "Intelligent WHOIS client from Debian";