nslookup - query Internet name servers interactively
nslookup [-option] [name | -] [server]
NSLOOKUP(1) BIND 9 NSLOOKUP(1)
NAME
nslookup - query Internet name servers interactively
SYNOPSIS
nslookup [-option] [name | -] [server]
DESCRIPTION
nslookup is a program to query Internet domain name servers. nslookup
has two modes: interactive and non-interactive. Interactive mode allows
the user to query name servers for information about various hosts and
domains or to print a list of hosts in a domain. Non-interactive mode
prints just the name and requested information for a host or domain.
ARGUMENTS
Interactive mode is entered in the following cases:
a. when no arguments are given (the default name server is used);
b. when the first argument is a hyphen (-) and the second argument is
the host name or Internet address of a name server.
Non-interactive mode is used when the name or Internet address of the
host to be looked up is given as the first argument. The optional sec-
ond argument specifies the host name or address of a name server.
Options can also be specified on the command line if they precede the
arguments and are prefixed with a hyphen. For example, to change the
default query type to host information, with an initial timeout of 10
seconds, type:
nslookup -query=hinfo -timeout=10
The -version option causes nslookup to print the version number and
immediately exit.
INTERACTIVE COMMANDS
host [server]
This command looks up information for host using the current
default server or using server, if specified. If host is an
Internet address and the query type is A or PTR, the name of the
host is returned. If host is a name and does not have a trailing
period (.), the search list is used to qualify the name.
To look up a host not in the current domain, append a period to
the name.
server domain | lserver domain
These commands change the default server to domain; lserver uses
the initial server to look up information about domain, while
server uses the current default server. If an authoritative
answer cannot be found, the names of servers that might have the
answer are returned.
root This command is not implemented.
finger This command is not implemented.
ls This command is not implemented.
view This command is not implemented.
help This command is not implemented.
? This command is not implemented.
exit This command exits the program.
set keyword[=value]
This command is used to change state information that affects
the lookups. Valid keywords are:
all This keyword prints the current values of the frequently
used options to set. Information about the current
default server and host is also printed.
class=value
This keyword changes the query class to one of:
IN the Internet class
CH the Chaos class
HS the Hesiod class
ANY wildcard
The class specifies the protocol group of the informa-
tion. The default is IN; the abbreviation for this key-
word is cl.
nodebug
This keyword turns on or off the display of the full
response packet, and any intermediate response packets,
when searching. The default for this keyword is nodebug;
the abbreviation for this keyword is [no]deb.
nod2 This keyword turns debugging mode on or off. This dis-
plays more about what nslookup is doing. The default is
nod2.
domain=name
This keyword sets the search list to name.
nosearch
If the lookup request contains at least one period, but
does not end with a trailing period, this keyword appends
the domain names in the domain search list to the request
until an answer is received. The default is search.
port=value
This keyword changes the default TCP/UDP name server port
to value from its default, port 53. The abbreviation for
this keyword is po.
querytype=value | type=value
This keyword changes the type of the information query to
value. The defaults are A and then AAAA; the abbrevia-
tions for these keywords are q and ty.
Please note that it is only possible to specify one query
type. Only the default behavior looks up both when an
alternative is not specified.
norecurse
This keyword tells the name server to query other servers
if it does not have the information. The default is
recurse; the abbreviation for this keyword is [no]rec.
ndots=number
This keyword sets the number of dots (label separators)
in a domain that disables searching. Absolute names
always stop searching.
retry=number
This keyword sets the number of retries to number.
timeout=number
This keyword changes the initial timeout interval to wait
for a reply to number, in seconds.
novc This keyword indicates that a virtual circuit should
always be used when sending requests to the server. novc
is the default.
nofail This keyword tries the next nameserver if a nameserver
responds with SERVFAIL or a referral (nofail), or termi-
nates the query (fail) on such a response. The default is
nofail.
RETURN VALUES
nslookup returns with an exit status of 1 if any query failed, and 0
otherwise.
IDN SUPPORT
If nslookup has been built with IDN (internationalized domain name)
support, it can accept and display non-ASCII domain names. nslookup
appropriately converts character encoding of a domain name before send-
ing a request to a DNS server or displaying a reply from the server.
To turn off IDN support, define the IDN_DISABLE environment variable.
IDN support is disabled if the variable is set when nslookup runs, or
when the standard output is not a tty.
FILES
/etc/resolv.conf
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+---------------+--------------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Availability | network/dns/bind |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Stability | Pass-through uncommitted |
+---------------+--------------------------+
SEE ALSO
dig(1), host(1), named(8).
AUTHOR
Internet Systems Consortium
COPYRIGHT
2022, Internet Systems Consortium
NOTES
Source code for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can
be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
code-downloads.html.
This software was built from source available at
https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland. The original community
source was downloaded from
http://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind9/9.16.29/bind-9.16.29.tar.xz.
Further information about this software can be found on the open source
community website at http://www.isc.org/software/bind/.
9.16.29 2022-05-10 NSLOOKUP(1)