Tools for DNS diagnosis

[Jonathan de Boyne Pollard]

AF> I finally decided to grab the tools you use to try them,
AF> specifically interested in dnsqey, as you mentioned in
AF> the past that it's a better tool to query nameservers with.

These many years I have done my best to avoid discussing DNSQRY in either of
the "microsoft.*.dns" newsgroups and in the DNS on Unix mailing lists, because
it isn't really on-topic for any of them. None of Microsoft Windows, Unix,
and Linux are capable of running it.

I prefer the tool, and consider it to be "better", because of the compactness
of its output and the fact that its output is relatively easy to post-process
with "awk" and "grep" to pick out various portions. It would be useful if
there were a DNS diagnostic tool that Microsoft Windows _could_ run that
provided a similarly compact and easy to sift style of output, but I know of
none. The closest is (the Win32 port of) "dnsquery", that is bundled with
ISC's BIND, which is what I suggested to you before.

The dearth of decent textual tools for DNS diagnosis on Microsoft Windows is
quite surprising. Unix and Linux are comparatively inundated with them; from
Dan Bernstein's "dnsqr", "dnsq", and "dnstrace"; through Sam Trenholme's
"askmara"; to ISC's "dig" and "dnsquery".

[Ace Fekay [MVP]]

In news:3F4B981E...@tesco.net,
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoyn...@tesco.net> posted their
thoughts, then I offered mine

>> I finally decided to grab the tools you use to try them,

>> specifically interested in dnsqey, as you mentioned in

Gotchya, thanks.
I was at your link (your post below) but did not find dnsqry. Will use
dnsquery. Thanks

--
Regards,
Ace

Please direct all replies to the newsgroup so all can benefit.

Ace Fekay, MCSE 2000, MCSE+I, MCSA, MCT, MVP
Microsoft Windows MVP - Active Directory
--
=================================

[William Stacey]

IIRC isc has depreciated dnsqry in favor of dig and does not include it in
their builds any longer. dig and nslookup are the stardard tools these days
going forward. You can grep and awk dig output just as well as dnsqry.
However, I am in favor of using what works for you.

--
William Stacey, DNS MVP

"Jonathan de Boyne Pollard" <J.deBoyn...@tesco.net> wrote in message
news:3F4B981E...@tesco.net...

[Jonathan de Boyne Pollard]

WS> IIRC isc has depreciated [sic] dnsqry in favor of dig and does
WS> not include it in their [sic] builds any longer. dig and
WS> nslookup are the stardard tools these days going forward. You
WS> can grep and awk dig output just as well as dnsqry.

You recall incorrectly; wrong; and wrong.

ISC cannot have deprecated DNSQRY, because ISC's BIND doesn't have
a tool by that name. As should be readily apparent from the web
pages whose URLs have been posted, DNSQRY is a tool that I wrote.
It is "nslookup" that ISC has deprecated, as mentioned at
<URL:http://homepages.tesco.net./~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/nslookup-daft-error-message.html>.

The "standard tools" (a highly inappropriate description, since this
really has nothing to do with standards - a better description is
"non-deprecated tools") accompanying ISC's BIND are in fact "dig",
"dnsquery", and "host", as I have said before. "nslookup" is not
one of them at all.

And it is _not_ as easy to post-process the output of "dig" with "awk"
and "grep" as it is to post-process the output of DNSQRY. For
example: Picking out only the "answer section" resource records from
the output of DNSQRY is as simple as piping it through
"grep ^Answer:". Achieving the same with "dig" involves either
supplying a _lot_ of non-default options when invoking the program
(no less than seven of them - even then leaving some stuff in the
output that has to be stripped out by post-processing) or performing
gyrations with "awk" or "sed" considerably more complex than matching
a simple anchored string.

[C:\]dnsqry mx aol.com. | grep /b ^^Answer:
Answer: aol.com. IN MX 3591 15 mailin-01.mx.aol.com.
Answer: aol.com. IN MX 3591 15 mailin-02.mx.aol.com.
Answer: aol.com. IN MX 3591 15 mailin-03.mx.aol.com.
Answer: aol.com. IN MX 3591 15 mailin-04.mx.aol.com.

[C:\]

[William Stacey]

> ISC cannot have deprecated DNSQRY, because ISC's BIND doesn't have
> a tool by that name. As should be readily apparent from the web

Sorry, I meant dnsquery.

> It is "nslookup" that ISC has deprecated, as mentioned at

They still include it in the latest builds (i.e. 9.2.x)

> The "standard tools" (a highly inappropriate description, since this
> really has nothing to do with standards - a better description is
> "non-deprecated tools") accompanying ISC's BIND are in fact "dig",
> "dnsquery", and "host", as I have said before. "nslookup" is not

? Better check again. Bind 9.2.2 and at *least back to 9.0, they include
dig.exe, host.exe, nslookup.exe, and nsupdate.exe (along with the server
support exe's, etc.) So they do include nslookup. They do not, however,
include dnsquery.exe (maybe the unix builds?).

> And it is _not_ as easy to post-process the output of "dig" with "awk"
> and "grep" as it is to post-process the output of DNSQRY. For
> example: Picking out only the "answer section" resource records from

>...

That is your opinion. This is very easy and you use one tool:
C:\Program Files\BIND9.2.2\bin>dig www.microsoft.com +noall +answer

; <<>> DiG 9.2.2 <<>> www.microsoft.com +noall +answer
;; global options: printcmd
www.microsoft.com. 3506 IN CNAME
www.microsoft.com.edgesuite.net.
www.microsoft.com.edgesuite.net. 887 IN CNAME a562.cd.akamai.net.
a562.cd.akamai.net. 7 IN A 81.52.248.96
a562.cd.akamai.net. 7 IN A 81.52.248.105

Plus you don't have to parse out the "Answer" token in your output, just get
all lines that don't contain a ";" in first char. Very minor difference
that anyone familar with regular expressions or grep could do if they wanted
to strip off the header. You can also use the "+short" parm for a different
look. However, I always say use the tools you feel comfortable with and
productive with.