Monthly Archives: January 2012

Domain Tools

Posted by kernelcraft on

These are some of the Domain tools I use daily on my linux box:

WHOIS command:

This command provides information on where the domain is registered, who the domain owner is and all other domain related information like when the domain was last updated, when it will expire etc.

This utility might not be installed on your linux box. You can check what provides this package by using the following command:

[soj@linuxgenius bash]$ yum whatprovides “*bin/whois”
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit
jwhois-4.0-19.el6.i686 : Internet whois/nicname client
Repo : base
Matched from:
Filename : /usr/bin/whois

From the above output, you will get to know that whois utility can be configured on your linux box if you install jwhois.

[soj@linuxgenius bash]$ sudo yum install jwhois

Once installed, you can issue the command whois as follows:

[soj@linuxgenius bash]$ whois wordpress.com

Try and see the output for your domain name.

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DIG command:

This command ‘dig’ will query the DNS nameservers.

To check which package belongs to this particular utility, you can use the command:

[soj@linuxgenius bash]$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/dig
bind-utils-9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.1.i686

So, in short, you have to install ‘bind-utils’ inorder to install this tool. The usage is as follows:

[soj@linuxgenius Packages]$ dig msn.com

This will show the nameservers and IP addresses the domain is pointing to. In case if you are only interested in the A record (IP address), you can issue the command as follows:

[soj@linuxgenius Packages]$ dig msn.com a +short
65.55.206.203

You can check the MX (Mail records) as follows:

[soj@linuxgenius Packages]$ dig msn.com mx +short
5 mx3.hotmail.com.
5 mx4.hotmail.com.
5 mx1.hotmail.com.
5 mx2.hotmail.com.

NSLOOKUP command:

You can use the command ‘nslookup’ to query the Internet name servers interactively as follows

[soj@linuxgenius Packages]$ nslookup msn.com

You can use the command ‘nslookup’ to check the MX record as follows:

[soj@linuxgenius Packages]$ nslookup
> set type=mx
> eoi.com
Server: 202.54.12.164
Address: 202.54.12.164#53

Non-authoritative answer:
eoi.com mail exchanger = 10 mx1.emailsrvr.com.

Using ‘nslookup’, you can query the A record from a different DNS (nameserver) server as follows:

[soj@linuxgenius Packages]$ nslookup
> server dns1.name-services.com
Default server: dns1.name-services.com
Address: 98.124.192.1#53
> eoi.com
Server: dns1.name-services.com
Address: 98.124.192.1#53

Name: eoi.com
Address: 69.64.147.243

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