There are a variety of reasons you should check the DNS records of your domain that are distributed via the internet. For example, your site isn’t available (it may be because DNS records aren’t correct) or you have to determine the DNS records are available online.
Domain Name System (DNS) is used to direct an incoming domain to its IP address. When you visit a website it will use DNS records are retrieved. DNS records retrieve information about the address IP of that server (there is the domain that is pointed) and then serve the site.
In this article I will demonstrate how you can check your current DNS records for your domain by using the commands provided and online tools.
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Conducting a search for DNS records with the command line
The most efficient method to verify DNS records for the domain is by using a terminal and run the command nslookup. This command is compatible with the majority of OSes (Windows, Linux, and macOS). The command nslookup will display all DNS records for the domain. Below you will be provided with a range of commands for the different DNS records that you can check with on the command line.
To demonstrate I will use for the demonstration our own domain name ‘hostpoco.com’. If you open in the terminal screen, enter the following commands, but make sure to replace ‘hostpoco.com” with your domain’s name.
Lookup A record:
nslookup -type=A hostpoco.com
Example output:
nslookup hostpoco.com
Example Output:
Lookup NS record:
nslookup -type=NS hostpoco.com
Lookup MX record:
nslookup -type=MX hostpoco.com
Lookup CNAME record:
nslookup -type=CNAME hostpoco.com
Lookup TXT record:
nslookup -type=TXT hostpoco.com
Checking domain DNS records using online tools
If you do not have the ability to check DNS records using the command line, you can check records using online trusted tools. Down below are provided some online tools which you can use.
DNSRecords
The online tool where you can enter the domain name and all the domain DNS records will be provided – is the website fully propagated or not worldwide.
DNSChecker.org
This tool not only shows all DNS records for the domain but also shows how those records are propagated on the internet.
LeafDNS
This online tool shows domain DNS records. Also, this tool provides warnings and failures of the DNS records. So this leafdns tool will check if your DNS records are correct or no. It’s quite helpful, for example, when you create custom nameservers for the domain.