host is a simple utility for performing
Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
lookups.
Origin
It was developed by the
Internet Systems Consortium
Internet Systems Consortium, Inc., also known as ISC, is a Delaware-registered, 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that supports the infrastructure of the universal, self-organizing Internet by developing and maintaining core production-quality so ...
(ISC), and is released under the
Mozilla Public License 2.0.
Modes
When applied to a
fully qualified domain name
A fully qualified domain name (FQDN), sometimes also referred to as an ''absolute domain name'', is a domain name that specifies its exact location in the tree hierarchy of the Domain Name System (DNS). It specifies all domain levels, including th ...
(FQDN) the host command will return information associated with that name such as its
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
and mail handling host. It can also be used to list all members of a
domain
Domain may refer to:
Mathematics
*Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined
**Domain of definition of a partial function
**Natural domain of a partial function
**Domain of holomorphy of a function
* Do ...
.
The host command is also able to perform
reverse IP lookups to find the FQDN associated with an IP address.
Example
$ host example.com
example.com has address 93.184.216.34
example.com has IPv6 address 2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946
example.com mail is handled by 0 .
See also
*
BIND
BIND () is a suite of software for interacting with the Domain Name System (DNS). Its most prominent component, named (pronounced ''name-dee'': , short for ''name daemon''), performs both of the main DNS server roles, acting as an authoritative ...
name server
*
dig, a utility interrogates DNS servers directly for troubleshooting and system administration purposes.
*
nslookup
nslookup (from ''name server lookup'') is a network administration command-line tool for querying the Domain Name System (DNS) to obtain the mapping between domain name and IP address, or other DNS records.
Overview
nslookup was a member of the ...
, another utility that can be used to obtain similar information
*
Root name server
A root name server is a name server for the root zone of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. It directly answers requests for records in the root zone and answers other requests by returning a list of the authoritative name servers fo ...
- top-level name servers providing top level domain name resolution
*
List of DNS record types
This list of DNS record types is an overview of resource records (RRs) permissible in zone files of the Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resour ...
- possible types of records stored and queried within DNS
*
whois
WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase "who is") is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block or an autonomou ...
References
External links
*
Free network-related software
DNS software
Software using the ISC license
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