Dig

dig is a tool for troubleshooting DNS issues, very similar to nslookup, but prefered to it because of nslookup is now obsolete. dig is included with the BIND DNS software, which is part of the base system.

The command format is

dig @server.you.want.to.do.dns.lookups record_you're_looking_for RECORDTYPE 

for example:

dig @192.168.1.1 A freebsdwiki.net

will query the DNS server running at 192.168.1.1 for the "A" (host) record for freebsdwiki.net. You should get results very much like:

digging freebsdwiki.net from server 192.168.1.1 

; <<>> DiG 9.2.3 <<>> @192.168.1.1 freebsdwiki.net a
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 2879
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;freebsdwiki.net.               IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
freebsdwiki.net.        300     IN      A       66.154.114.98

;; Query time: 123 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.1#53(192.168.1.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Dec 25 16:26:35 2005
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 49

options

-x reverse lookup