Trace a DNS lookup path

While working through some DNS lookup inconsistency today, I was reminded of this tip that allows you to trace an entire DNS lookup.  Normally I just do an NSlookup, but I wanted more information.   DIG is a command that’s built into Linux (and therefore MAC) So I hopped on my Mac and ran the command like this:

>Dig +trace www.yourdomain.com

results look like this:

————————————————————————–

; <> DiG 9.4.1-P1 <> +trace www.yourdomain.com
;; global options:  printcmd
.                       505277  IN      NS      A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
.                       505277  IN      NS      M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
;; Received 372 bytes from 172.18.33.1#53(172.18.33.1) in 1 ms

com.                    172800  IN      NS      I.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      H.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      A.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      B.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      F.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      G.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      M.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      K.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      D.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      E.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      J.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      C.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com.                    172800  IN      NS      L.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
;; Received 511 bytes from 192.33.4.12#53(C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET) in 333 ms

www.yourdomain.com         172800  IN      NS      ns1.wordpress.com.
www.yourdomain.com        172800  IN      NS      ns2.wordpress.com.
www.yourdomain.com          172800  IN      NS      ns3.wordpress.com.
;; Received 141 bytes from 192.5.6.30#53(A.GTLD-SERVERS.NET) in 931 ms

www.yourdomain.com  300     IN      CNAME   www.yourdomain.com edgekey.net.
www.yourdomain.com.          14400   IN      NS      NS1.yourdomain.com
www.yourdomain.com.          14400   IN      NS      NS2.yourdomain.com
www.yourdomain.com          14400   IN      NS      NS3.yourdomain.com
;; Received 180 bytes from 123.456.234.123#53(ns1.yourdomain.com) in 1021 ms


This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Mac. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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