Useful host command examples for DNS queries. Host Command CLI utility Linux. 4k.
Useful host command examples for DNS queries
The Host Command is a minimally easy-to-use CLI utility for performing DNS queries that translate domain names to IP addresses and vice versa. It can also be used to enumerate and check various types of DNS records such as NS and MX, check the ISP's DNS server and internet connections, detect and troubleshoot DNS server problems, etc.
In this article, we will learn how to use the Host command and walk through some helpful examples for performing DNS lookups. The Host utility comes preinstalled on most, if not all major Linux distributions.
Domain IP address lookup
This is the simplest host command you can run, just provide a domain name like google.com to get the IP addresses associated with it.
$ host google.com
Find Domain Name Servers
To find the domain name server, use the -t parameter:
$ host -t ns google.com
Finding a CNAME Record on a Domain
To find out the CNAME domain, run:
$ host -t cname mail.google.com
mail.google.com is an alias for googlemail.l.google.com.
Finding an MX Domain Record
To find the MX records for a domain:
$ host -n -t mx google.com
Find TXT Domain Record
To find TXT records for a domain:
$ host -t txt google.com
Find the SOA record of a domain
You can tell the host command to display SOA records for the specified zone, from all listed nameservers, with the -C option.
host -C google.com
Using an alternate name server for queries
You can query a specific domain name server using:
$ host google.com ns4.google.com
Find all information about domains and zones
To execute an ANY query, use the -a (all) option, which is equivalent to the -v option.
$ host -a google.com
Get domain TTL information
To find out information about the TTL of a domain:
$ host -v -t a google.com
How to use only IPv4 or IPv6
The -4 or -6 option causes the host utility to use only IPv4 or only IPV6, respectively.
$ host -4 google.com
OR
$ host -6 google.com
Executing non-recursive queries
The -r option performs non-recursive queries, note that setting this option clears the RD (recursion desirable).
$ host -rR 5 google.com
Changing the number of UDP requests for searches
The default UDP request count is 1, to change the number of retries use the -R option:
$ host -R 5 google.com
Using the -W parameter, you can tell the host utility how long to wait for a response (in seconds). And if the -w option is used, it tells host to wait for a response all the time:
$ host -T -W 10 google.com
That's all! In this article, we learned how to use the host command and looked at some useful examples of using the host command in Linux.
Thank you for taking the time to read the article!
If you have any questions, ask them in the comments.
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