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HOST(1) 		     General Commands Manual			 HOST(1)

NAME
     host -- DNS lookup utility

SYNOPSIS
     host [-aCdilrsTvw46] [-c class] [-N ndots] [-R number] [-t type] [-W wait]
	  name [server]

DESCRIPTION
     host  is  a simple utility for performing DNS lookups.  It is normally used
     to convert names to IP addresses and vice versa.

     name is the domain name that is to be looked up.  It can also be a  dotted-
     decimal  IPv4 address or a colon-delimited IPv6 address, in which case host
     will by default perform a reverse lookup for that address.

     When name is not provided, host prints a short summary of it's usage.

     server is an optional argument which is either a domain name or an  IP  ad-
     dress  of	the  name server that host should query instead of the server or
     servers listed in /etc/resolv.conf.  When server is a domain  name,  system
     resolver is used to obtain it's address.

     Supported options:

     -a      Make a verbose query of type ANY.	Equivalent to -v -t ANY.

     -C      Query  for SOA records for zone name from all of it's authoritative
	     name servers.  The list of name servers is obtained  via  NS  query
	     for name.

     -c class
	     Perform  DNS  query  of  class  class.   Recognized  classes are IN
	     (Internet), CH (Chaosnet), HS (Hesiod), NONE, ANY and CLASSN (where
	     N is a number from 1 to 255).  Default is IN.

     -d      Produce verbose output.  This is a synonym for -v, and is	provided
	     for backward compatibility.

     -i      Use  IP6.INT  domain  for reverse lookups of IPv6 addresses (as de-
	     fined in RFC1886; note that RFC4159 deprecates  IP6.INT).	 By  de-
	     fault IP6.ARPA is used.

     -l      List  all	NS, PTR, A and AAAA records in zone name by performing a
	     zone transfer (AXFR).  You can combine this option with -a to print
	     all records, or with -t to only print specific ones.

     -N ndots
	     Consider names with at least this many dots as absolute.  That  is,
	     try to resolve them directly before consulting domain or search op-
	     tions from /etc/resolv.conf.

     -r      Perform  non-recursive  query  to	the  name  server by clearing RD
	     ("recursion desired") bit of the query.

     -R number
	     Retry this many times when a query does not receive  an  answer  in
	     time.  The default is 1 retry.  If number is negative or zero, 1 is
	     used instead.

     -s      Report SERVFAIL responses as they are, do not ignore them.

     -T      Query  name  server  over	TCP.  By default UDP is used, except for
	     AXFR and IXFR queries, which require TCP.	host will also retry UDP
	     queries in TCP mode if the UDP response was truncated (i.e. had  TC
	     bit set).

     -t type
	     Perform  DNS  query  of  type type, which can be any standard query
	     type name (A, CNAME, MX, TXT, etc),  a  wildcard  query  (ANY),  or
	     TYPEN,  where N is a number from 1 to 65535.  For IXFR (incremental
	     zone transfer) queries the starting serial number can be  specified
	     by  appending  an	equal  sign  followed  by  the	number	(e.g. -t
	     IXFR=12345678).

	     The default is to query for A, AAAA, and MX records, unless  -C  or
	     -l  options  are given (in which case SOA or AXFR queries are made)
	     or name is a valid IP address (in which case reverse  lookup  using
	     PTR query is performed).

     -v      Produce verbose output.

     -w      Wait  forever  (or for a very long time) for response from the name
	     server.

     -W wait
	     Wait this many seconds for a reply from name server  before  timing
	     out.  If wait is negative or zero, value of 1 is used.  The default
	     is  to  wait  10 seconds for TCP connections, and 5 seconds for UDP
	     (both are subject to retries, see option -R).

     -4      Only use IPv4 transport.

     -6      Only use IPv6 transport.

FILES
     /etc/resolv.conf

SEE ALSO
     drill(1), resolv.conf(5)

COMPATIBILITY
     host aims to be reasonably compatible with `host' utility from  BIND9  dis-
     tribution,  both  in  supported  options and in produced output.  Here is a
     list of known notable differences:

     *	 Debugging options (-D and -m) are not supported.

     *	 Query class CLASS0 and type TYPE0 are not supported.

     *	 Backslashes in domain names are treated especially.

     *	 The maximum of 255 retries (option -R) are supported.

     *	 Some resource records are formatted differently.   For  example,  RRSIG
	 and DNSKEY records are displayed without spaces in them.

     *	 When  parsing	/etc/resolv.conf  commands  sortlist and options are ig-
	 nored.  When multiple search and/or domain commands are  present,  host
	 first	uses  the  last domain command, and then all of search commands,
	 while `host' from BIND9 uses whatever command was specified last.

     *	 `Pseudosection TSIG' is missing from verbose packet output.

AUTHORS
     Vitaly Magerya <magv@tx97.net>

FreeBSD ports 15.1		  Aug 27, 2012				 HOST(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=host&manpath=FreeBSD+15.1-RELEASE+and+Ports>

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