Dig commands cheat sheet

Dig (Domain Information Groper) is a command-line network administration tool used for querying DNS servers. Here are some common dig commands and their uses. Official BIND 9 man page available here.

Query a single domain name

dig anyplanet.org

Reverse DNS Lookup (Finds the hostname for an IP address)

dig -x 95.217.183.234

Query name servers

dig anyplanet.org NS

To directly query a specific DNS server (Google, more public dns servers available here)

This command is useful for checking DNS propagation

dig @8.8.8.8 A anyplanet.org

Checking SOA files

dig anyplanet.org SOA

Just the serial number

dig @ns1.anyplanet.org SOA domainparkki.com +short | awk '{print $3}'

Which mail servers are connected to the domain

dig anyplanet.org MX +short