nslookup(1M) System Administration Commands nslookup(1M)NAMEnslookup - query Internet name servers interactively
SYNOPSISnslookup [-option] [name | -] [server]
DESCRIPTION
The nslookup utility is a program to query Internet domain name
servers. It has two modes: interactive and non-interactive. Interactive
mode allows the user to query name servers for information about vari‐
ous hosts and domains or to print a list of hosts in a domain. Non-
interactive mode is used to print just the name and requested informa‐
tion for a host or domain.
PARAMETERS
Interactive mode is entered in the following cases:
1. No arguments are given (the default name server is used).
2. 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, and the initial timeout to 10
seconds, type:
nslookup -query=hinfo -timeout=10
INTERACTIVE COMMANDS
host [server]
Look 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
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 can't be found,
the names of servers that might have the answer are returned.
root
Not implemented.
finger
Not implemented.
ls
Not implemented.
view
Not implemented.
help
Not implemented.
?
Not implemented.
exit
Exits the program.
set keyword[=value]
This command is used to change state information that affects the
lookups. Valid keywords are:
all
Prints the current values of the frequently used options to
set. Information about the current default server and host is
also printed.
class=value
Change 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 information.
(Default = IN; abbreviation = cl)
[no]debug
Turn on or off the display of the full response packet and any
intermediate response packets when searching.
(Default = nodebug; abbreviation = [no]deb)
[no]d2
Turn debugging mode on or off. This displays more about what
nslookup is doing.
(Default = nod2)
domain=name
Sets the search list to name.
[no]search
If the lookup request contains at least one period but doesn't
end with a trailing period, append the domain names in the
domain search list to the request until an answer is received.
(Default = search)
port=value
Change the default TCP/UDP name server port to value.
(Default = 53; abbreviation = po)
querytype=value
type=value
Change the top of the information query.
(Default = A; abbreviations = q, ty)
[no]recurse
Tell the name server to query other servers if it does not have
the information. (Default = recurse; abbreviation = [no]rec)
retry=number
Set the number of retries to number.
timeout=number
Change the initial timeout interval for waiting for a reply to
number seconds.
[no]vc
Always use a virtual circuit when sending requests to the
server.
(Default = novc)
[no]fail
Try the next nameserver if a nameserver responds with SERVFAIL
or a referral (nofail) or terminate query (fail) on such a
response.
(Default = nofail)
FILES
/etc/resolv.conf
resolver configuration file
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │network/dns/bind │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Volatile │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOdig(1M), host(1M), named(1M), attributes(5)
See the BIND 9 Administrator's Reference Manual. As of the date of pub‐
lication of this man page, this document is available at
https://www.isc.org/software/bind/documentation.
NOTES
BIND 9 nslookup is deprecated and not as full featured as its BIND 8
version. For more features and functionality refer to dig(1M).
nslookup and dig(1M) now report "Not Implemented" as NOTIMP rather
than NOTIMPL. This will have impact on scripts that are looking for
NOTIMPL.
SunOS 5.10 11 Jan 2010 nslookup(1M)
