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.confare 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 the program help.
- -r
Disable recursion.
- -T
Use the TCP protocol.
- -v
Enable verbose output.
- -V, --version
Print the program version. The option -VV makes the program print the compile time configuration summary.
- -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.
Exit values¶
Exit status of 0 means successful operation. Any other exit status indicates an error.
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).
