DNSTRACER(8)

📦
version 1.10 · 6 versions
, in alpine 3.24, nixpkgs unstable

💅 DNSTRACER — the manual, but make it make sense 💅

okay so bestie, you know how DNS is basically the internet's group chat where everyone's gossiping about where everything lives? This is dnstracer(8), and it's the tool that traces the whole gossip chain back to the original source. Iconic behaviour, honestly.

✨ NAME ✨

dnstracer — trace a chain of DNS servers to the source 🕵️‍♀️

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

dnstracer [options] name

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the vibe: dnstracer figures out where a given Domain Name Server (DNS) actually gets its info from, and then it follows that chain of DNS servers alllll the way back to the servers that actually know the data. It's giving investigative journalism. It's giving ancestry.com for IP addresses. 🔥

The options are:

  • -c — Disable local caching. no storing stuff for later, we're going in fresh 💅
  • -C — Enable negative caching.
  • -e — Disable EDNS0 options.
  • -E size — Set EDNS0 size, default is 1500 bytes.
  • -o — Enable overview of received answers at the end. cute little recap, we love a summary ✨
  • -q queryclass — Change the query-class, default is A. You can either specify a number of the type (if you're brave 😭) or one of the following strings: a, aaaa, a6, soa, cname, hinfo, mx, ns, txt and ptr.
  • -r retries — Number of retries for DNS requests, default 3. like, if at first you don't succeed, try three times 🫶
  • -s server — DNS server to use for the initial request, default is aquired from the system. If a dot is specified (.), A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET will be used. the dot is the main character here 👑
  • -v — Be verbose on what sent or received. she's a talker, she tells you everything 💀
  • -4 — Use only IPv4 servers, don't query IPv6 servers (only available when IPv6 support hasn't been disabled)
  • -S sourceaddress — Use this as source-address for the outgoing packets.

🌈 HOW IT WORKS 🌈

okay so here's the tea. It sends the specified name-server a non-recursive request for the name.

Non-recursive means: if the name-server knows it, it will return the data requested. If the name-server doesn't know it, it will return pointers to name-servers that are authoritive for the domain part in the name — or it will return the addresses of the root name-servers. basically "idk, ask her 👀".

If the name server does returns an authoritative answer for the name, the next server is queried. If it returns an non-authoritative answer for the name, the name servers in the authority records will be queried.

The program stops if all name-servers are queried. that's the end of the chain, bestie, we've reached the source ⭐

⚠️ Make sure the server you're querying doesn't do forwarding towards other servers, as dnstracer is not able to detect this for you. like, she can't read minds, she's just a traceroute for DNS, give her some grace 😭

It detects so called lame servers, which are name-servers which has been told to have information about a certain domain, but don't have this information. fake friends, honestly. not the vibe. 💀

🎀 HOW TO USE IT (EXAMPLES) 🎀

Search for the A record of www.mavetju.org on your local nameserver:

dnstracer www.mavetju.org

Search for the MX record of mavetju.org on the root-nameservers:

dnstracer "-s" . "-q" mx mavetju.org

Search for the PTR record (hostname) of 212.204.230.141:

dnstracer "-q" ptr 141.230.204.212.in-addr.arpa

And for IPv6 addresses:

dnstracer "-q" ptr "-s" . "-o"
2.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.6.4.0.2.0.0.0.0.8.b.0.e.f.f.3.ip6.arpa

see how that last one is literally two lines? yeah. copy it exactly, don't rearrange it, she's sensitive. 🙈

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

ntptrace(8), traceroute(8), dig(1) — the whole friend group 🫶

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Edwin Groothuis, edwin@mavetju.org (http://www.mavetju.org)

See http://www.mavetju.org/contacts.php for mailing-lists.

okay that's the whole page, bestie, no cap. 🧚 version info from the header/footer: this is the Additional Software flavor of dnstracer(8), dated June 10, 2008 (yes that's the date twice, once for the source and once for the page — slay consistency 💅). go trace something and be iconic. 💖

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