dns_browse(1)

👑 dns_browse(1) — the manual page, but make it a vibe 👑

okay so bestie, you opened the manual page for dns_browse, and this whole thing lives in section 1 of the General Commands Manual (that's the "user commands" section, iykyk). the actual command it documents is called dns_tree, so don't get it twisted — the page name and the program name are two different girlies. let's get into it 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

dns_tree — command-line frontend to dig ✨

that's it. that's the whole name section. short, sweet, iconic.

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

dns_tree [-f] [-v] [-d] [-t TYPE] [-m MATCH] DNS_domain

so you give it a domain, and you can sprinkle in the flags however you like. the only thing that's not optional is the domain itself, bestie. she needs to know what to look at 🫶

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so this manual page documents dns_tree briefly. that's literally the job. and listen — this page was written for the Debian distribution specifically, because the original program does not have a manual page of its own. not a single one. so a kind soul wrote one for Debian. we love a community effort 🎀

now for the actual tea: dns_tree is a program that works as a front-end to dig. given a specific domain, dns_tree will make several dig invocations to fetch a zone, and it will format the output in a somewhat sensible hierarchical style (a tree). hence the name. she's giving structure, she's giving branches, she's giving organization 🌳

⚠️ important reality check, bestie: the information extracted from the DNS relies on being possible to fetch a zone through a zone transfer. if the DNS servers for the requested domain do not allow file transfers, dns_tree will not be able to obtain information from the zone. periodt. no zone transfer, no zone info. that's not a bug, that's just how it is 😭

and here's the caching situation: all data obtain is cached in ~/.DNS_BROWSE with an approximation of the usual DNS caching rules. so if you're sitting there like "why is this stale," the answer is cache. want to prematurely flush it? just remove all files in that directory. that's the whole ritual 🧚

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

a summary of options is included below. as promised. all of them. no skipping 💜

• -t TYPE — show only records of TYPE. this argument can be repeated to indicate multiple types, so you can stack her up if you're feeling greedy. and if you use the "all" type, she'll print all the known types. queen behavior 👑
• -m MATCH — show only records in which the first component matches the PERL regexp MATCH. yes, an actual regexp. bring your pattern game 🍓
• -h — show summary of options. the little help moment 🥰
• -v — enable verbose mode. all DNS requests are printed in the standard error. so if you want to see everything happening, this is your girl. heads up, she yells into stderr, not stdout 👀
• -d — enable debug output. presents internal information of the program. this is the "show me your soul" flag 💀
• -f — override warnings (force). she's stubborn, you're stubborn-er 🔥

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

go read these too, bestie, they're part of the canon:

• dig (1)
• dns_browse (1)
• perlrequick (1)

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

this manual page was written by Javier Fernandez-Sanguino jfs@debian.org for the Debian system (and may be used by others). permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

on Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL. go read it if you want the full legal slay, no cap 📜

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okay that's the whole page!! and for the sign-off, the footer just loops the page name back at you — dns_browse(1) — and the whole thing is filed under the General Commands Manual, section 1. no date stamp on this one, so no fake date for you, bestie, i'm not out here inventing facts 🙈

take care of her, she's a good little tree 🌸💖