Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help 
NSPING(8)		     System Manager's Manual		       NSPING(8)

NAME
     nsping -- measure reachability and latency of DNS nameservers

SYNOPSIS
     nsping [-drR] [-c count] [-z zone] [-h hostname] [-t timer] [-p port]
	    [-P port] [-a address] [-T type]
	    [<address>]

DESCRIPTION
     Nsping  uses  DNS	queries  to  monitor reachability and operation of name-
     servers, as well as the latency of DNS queries. It  does  this  by  sending
     random recursive DNS queries to the nameserver (avoiding the effects of DNS
     caching)  and measuring the amount of time between the sending of the query
     and the receipt of the response packet.

     The latency of DNS transactions depends heavily on the data  being  queried
     for. The zone within which to query can be specified explicitly on the com-
     mand  line,  or inferred from the local host. To measure the responsiveness
     of a nameserver for information it is authoritative for, specify  one  it's
     zones of authority as this zone.

     To  measure  basic network latency and DNS processing time, specify a host-
     name on the command line. If this is done, DNS queries sent by nsping  will
     not  be  randomized, and nameservice caching will cause the program to mea-
     sure only network+processing time. If latency between the first and  subse-
     quent queries does not vary greatly, nameservice caching may not be enabled
     on the probed server.

     Finally,  a  rough  estimate of the latency between two sets of nameservers
     can be measured by querying one of those servers for information  within  a
     zone  authoritative  for  the  other  servers. This would be more useful if
     there was a way to specify which  of  a  zone's  servers  a  target  server
     queries.

     Nsping recognizes the following options:

     -c count
	  Total number of DNS queries to send (default infinite).

     -z zone
	  The DNS domain to formulate queries in.

     -h hostname
	  Do  not  use random queries, but rather query repeatedly for one host-
	  name.

     -t timespec
	  Specify the interval timeout to send packets with, as an expression of
	  seconds.subseconds (ie, 0.5 = half second).  (default 1 second).

     -p port
	  The remote DNS server port.

     -P port
	  The local port to send queries from

     -a address
	  The local address from which to send queries.

     -T type
	  The type of information to query for (default  "a"  for  Internet  "A"
	  record).

     -d   Print debugging output (don't do this).

     -r   (Redundant) use recursive queries.

     -R   Don't use recursive queries.

EXAMPLES
     nsping ns.victim.com
	    Ping the nameserver "ns.victim.com" until interrupted using defaults
	    (random queries, local domain name as zone, etc).

     nsping -z internic.net -t .5 ns.victim.com
	    As	above, but query for names within the domain "internic.net", and
	    do so every half-second instead of every second.

     nsping -h www.yahoo.com ns.victim.com
	    Query repeatedly for "www.yahoo.com" from ns.victim.com.

AUTHOR
     Thomas H. Ptacek, <tqbf@secnet.com>

BUGS
     This is embryonic software. If you find a bug, let me know; I won't be sur-
     prised, but I will try to fix it for you. =)

HISTORY
     Real benchmarking tools can be found at WWW.CAIDA.ORG; this tool is  merely
     inspired from them.

4.4BSD				  October 1997			       NSPING(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=nsping&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

home | help