DNS diagnosis tools.

You've come to this page because you've asked a question similar to the following:

What tools for DNS diagnosis can I use (instead of nslookup) ?

This is the Frequently Given Answer to that question.

Most DNS server softwares (with the exception of Microsoft's) come with DNS diagnosis tools in the package.

Tools accompanying Daniel J. Bernstein's djbdns

Tools for djbdns supplied by Daniel J. Bernstein

Dan Bernstein's djbdns package comprises dnsq, dnsqr, and dnstrace for DNS diagnosis.

For looking DNS information it also has dnsname, dnsip, dnsmx, and dnstxt. (Although note that several of these tools do not handle erroneous situations in the most robust manner. The response parser in dnsip, for example, is fragile and doesn't deal at all well with unusual or erroneous responses.)

Tools for djbdns supplied by others

Other people supply additional DNS diagnosis tools for use with djbdns, such as dnsqrx.

An up-to-date version of the djbdns tools is available in the djbwares toolset. This also includes dnsqrx and dnsnamex; and the various general-purpose query tools implement human-readable forms of more resource record types, including printing AAAA resource records in the actual human-readable IPv6 form.

The djbwares toolset also includes a host command that is a rough workalike for the similarly named tools that are supplied with ISC's BIND and supplied with KnotDNS.

Tools in the Internet Utilities for OS/2

The Internet Utilities for OS/2 has dnsqry, dnsgeta, dnsgetns, dnsgetmx, dnsgetd, and dnsgetz for DNS diagnosis.

Tools supplied with ISC's BIND

The ISC's BIND has host, dnsquery, and dig for DNS diagnosis. (Note that some operating systems are supplied with their own tool named host which often does not perform the same thing as the ISC tool by that name.)

Tools supplied with Knot DNS

KnotDNS has khost and kdig which are rough workalikes for the similarly named tools supplied with ISC's BIND.

Tools supplied with LDNS

LDNS has drill which is a workalike for dig from supplied with ISC's BIND, except that it lacks dig's range of command-line options, has no short mode (its authors explicitly stating one of its features to be producing more output than dig does), and has a sloppy command-line argument parser that just blithely ignores usage errors.

Tools for Win32

Tools for Win32 supplied by Microsoft

Microsoft's DNS server doesn't come with any better tools than nslookup.

Alas! Microsoft, foolishly, doesn't provide in its DNS server package for Windows any query tool other than a port to Win32 of nslookup. (No. ping is not an appropriate tool for querying DNS servers.)

Tools for Win32 supplied by others

If you use Microsoft Windows, you'll have obtain and use the tools from another package, such as (for examples)


© Copyright 2004,2017 Jonathan de Boyne Pollard. "Moral" rights asserted.
Permission is hereby granted to copy and to distribute this web page in its original, unmodified form as long as its last modification datestamp is preserved.