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NSLOOKUP(1) BIND 9 NSLOOKUP(1) NAME nslookup - query Internet name servers interactively SYNOPSIS nslookup [-option] [name | -] [server] DESCRIPTION nslookup is a program to query Internet domain name servers. nslookup has two modes: interactive and non-interactive. Interactive mode allows the user to query name servers for information about various hosts and domains or to print a list of hosts in a domain. Non-interactive mode prints just the name and requested information for a host or domain. ARGUMENTS Interactive mode is entered in the following cases: a. when no arguments are given (the default name server is used); b. when the first argument is a hyphen (-) and the second argument is the host name or Internet address of a name server. Non-interactive mode is used when the name or Internet address of the host to be looked up is given as the first argument. The optional second argu- ment specifies the host name or address of a name server. Options can also be specified on the command line if they precede the argu- ments and are prefixed with a hyphen. For example, to change the default query type to host information, with an initial timeout of 10 seconds, type: nslookup -query=hinfo -timeout=10 The -version option causes nslookup to print the version number and immedi- ately exit. INTERACTIVE COMMANDS host [server] This command looks up information for host <#std-iscman-host> using the current default server or using server, if specified. If host <# std-iscman-host> is an Internet address and the query type is A or PTR, the name of the host is returned. If host <#std-iscman-host> is a name and does not have a trailing period (.), the search list is used to qualify the name. To look up a host not in the current domain, append a period to the name. server domain | lserver domain These commands change the default server to domain; lserver uses the initial server to look up information about domain, while server uses the current default server. If an authoritative answer cannot be found, the names of servers that might have the answer are re- turned. root This command is not implemented. finger This command is not implemented. ls This command is not implemented. view This command is not implemented. help This command is not implemented. ? This command is not implemented. exit This command exits the program. set keyword[=value] This command is used to change state information that affects the lookups. Valid keywords are: all This keyword prints the current values of the frequently used options to set. Information about the current default server and host is also printed. class=value This keyword changes the query class to one of: IN the Internet class CH the Chaos class HS the Hesiod class ANY wildcard The class specifies the protocol group of the information. The default is IN; the abbreviation for this keyword is cl. nodebug This keyword turns on or off the display of the full response packet, and any intermediate response packets, when search- ing. The default for this keyword is nodebug; the abbrevia- tion for this keyword is [no]deb. nod2 This keyword turns debugging mode on or off. This displays more about what nslookup is doing. The default is nod2. domain=name This keyword sets the search list to name. nosearch If the lookup request contains at least one period, but does not end with a trailing period, this keyword appends the do- main names in the domain search list to the request until an answer is received. The default is search. port=value This keyword changes the default TCP/UDP name server port to value from its default, port 53. The abbreviation for this keyword is po. querytype=value | type=value This keyword changes the type of the information query to value. The defaults are A and then AAAA; the abbreviations for these keywords are q and ty. Please note that it is only possible to specify one query type. Only the default behavior looks up both when an alter- native is not specified. norecurse This keyword tells the name server to query other servers if it does not have the information. The default is recurse; the abbreviation for this keyword is [no]rec. ndots=number This keyword sets the number of dots (label separators) in a domain that disables searching. Absolute names always stop searching. retry=number This keyword sets the number of retries to number. timeout=number This keyword changes the initial timeout interval to wait for a reply to number, in seconds. novc This keyword indicates that a virtual circuit should always be used when sending requests to the server. novc is the de- fault. nofail This keyword tries the next nameserver if a nameserver re- sponds with SERVFAIL or a referral (nofail), or terminates the query (fail) on such a response. The default is nofail. RETURN VALUES nslookup returns with an exit status of 1 if any query failed, and 0 other- wise. IDN SUPPORT If nslookup has been built with IDN (internationalized domain name) sup- port, it can accept and display non-ASCII domain names. nslookup appropri- ately converts character encoding of a domain name before sending a request to a DNS server or displaying a reply from the server. To turn off IDN support, define the IDN_DISABLE environment variable. IDN support is dis- abled if the variable is set when nslookup runs, or when the standard out- put is not a tty. FILES /etc/resolv.conf SEE ALSO dig(1) <#std-iscman-dig>, host(1) <#std-iscman-host>, named(8) <# std-iscman-named>. Author Internet Systems Consortium Copyright 2026, Internet Systems Consortium 9.20.22 2026-03-31 NSLOOKUP(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ARGUMENTS | INTERACTIVE COMMANDS | RETURN VALUES | IDN SUPPORT | FILES | SEE ALSO | Author | Copyright
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