khost – Simple DNS lookup utility¶
Synopsis¶
khost [options] name [server]
Description¶
This utility sends a DNS query for the name to the server and prints a reply in more user-readable form. For more advanced DNS queries use kdig instead.
Parameters¶
- name
- Is a domain name that is to be looked up. If the name is IPv4 or IPv6 address the PTR query type is used.
- server
- Is a name or an address of the nameserver to send a query to. The address
can be specified using [address]:port notation. If no server is specified,
the servers from
/etc/resolv.conf
are used.
If no arguments are provided, khost prints a short help.
Options¶
- -4
- Use the IPv4 protocol only.
- -6
- Use the IPv6 protocol only.
- -a
- Send ANY query with verbose mode.
- -d
- Enable debug messages.
- -h, --help
- Print help and usage.
- -r
- Disable recursion.
- -s
- Stop querying the next nameserver if SERVFAIL response is received
- -T
- Use the TCP protocol.
- -v
- Enable verbose output.
- -V, --version
- Print the program version.
- -w
- Wait forever for the reply.
- -c class
- Set the query class (e.g. CH, CLASS4). The default class is IN.
- -t type
- Set the query type (e.g. NS, IXFR=12345, TYPE65535). The default is to send 3 queries (A, AAAA and MX).
- -R retries
- The number (>=0) of UDP retries to query a nameserver. The default is 1.
- -W wait
- The time to wait for a reply in seconds. This timeout applies to each query try. The default is 2 seconds.
Notes¶
Missing features with regard to ISC dig:
Options -C, -i, -l, -m and -N.
Differences with regard to ISC host:
Option -d is not equivalent to -v, but enables debug messages.
The number of retries can be set to zero.
Verbose mode has slightly different format (same as kdig).
Examples¶
Get the A, AAAA and MX records for example.com:
$ khost example.com
Get the reverse record for address 192.0.2.1:
$ khost 192.0.2.1
Perform a verbose zone transfer for zone example.com:
$ khost -t AXFR -v example.com
Files¶
/etc/resolv.conf
See Also¶
kdig(1), knsupdate(1).