How do I check DNS records?
You can check your DNS records on dnsstuff.com by using the following instructions:
- Go to http://www.dnsstuff.com
- Look for the box labeled DNS lookup and put the domain you wish to check in the box.
- After that, select the type of record you wish to check (For example: A, MX, NS, SOA, etc.).
- Click on the Lookup button.
- On the next page you will see the results.
You can also check your DNS records using "DiG" on *NIX systems, or you can check them using "nslookup" on Windows systems.
To check your DNS records using "DiG" (We will use fluidhosting.com as an example), in your command line, type "dig fluidhosting.com" (without the "") and you will see something similar to the following:
; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> fluidhosting.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 22618
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;fluidhosting.com. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
fluidhosting.com. 84114 IN A 204.14.90.5
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
fluidhosting.com. 86385 IN NS ns1.fluidhosting.com.
fluidhosting.com. 86385 IN NS ns2.fluidhosting.com.
fluidhosting.com. 86385 IN NS ns3.fluidhosting.com.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns3.fluidhosting.com. 82533 IN A 209.191.137.253
;; Query time: 21 msec
;; SERVER: 204.14.93.251#53(204.14.93.251)
;; WHEN: Fri Sep 15 16:05:28 2006
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 120
To use "DiG" for Querying different types of DNS records (For example: A, MX, NS, SOA, etc.). For example:
dig fluidhosting.com MX
This will show your MX or Mail eXchange record, which tells mail servers how to route the email for the domain. You should see something similar to the following:
; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> fluidhosting.com MX
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 4442
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 2
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;fluidhosting.com. IN MX
;; ANSWER SECTION:
fluidhosting.com. 83890 IN MX 99 mail0.fluidhosting.com.
fluidhosting.com. 83890 IN MX 10 mail.fluidhosting.com.
fluidhosting.com. 83890 IN MX 20 mail1.fluidhosting.com.
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
fluidhosting.com. 86392 IN NS ns1.fluidhosting.com.
fluidhosting.com. 86392 IN NS ns2.fluidhosting.com.
fluidhosting.com. 86392 IN NS ns3.fluidhosting.com.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mail.fluidhosting.com. 278 IN A 204.14.90.11
ns3.fluidhosting.com. 82309 IN A 209.191.137.253
;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 204.14.93.251#53(204.14.93.251)
;; WHEN: Fri Sep 15 16:09:12 2006
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 185
To check your DNS records using "nslookup" on Windows systems, click Start and then click Run. In the prompt type "command" (without the "") to open your command prompt. Once the command prompt window opens, type the following:
nslookup fluidhosting.com
You will see something similar to the following:
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: fluidhosting.com
Address: 204.14.90.5
The section you will concentrate on is the "Non-authoritative answer:" section such as above. This shows the 'A' record, or what IP address fluidhosting.com is pointing to.
To see different types of records (mx, a, cname, ns), add the option "-type=<type>". For example, to check the MX record, simply type:
nslookup -type=mx fluidhosting.com
This will show the mx records for fluidhosting.com. Similar to the following:
Non-authoritative answer:
fluidhosting.com MX preference = 99, mail exchanger = mail0.fluidhosting.com
fluidhosting.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail.fluidhosting.com
fluidhosting.com MX preference = 20, mail exchanger = mail1.fluidhosting.com
mail.fluidhosting.com internet address = 204.14.90.11
mail1.fluidhosting.com internet address = 204.14.90.11
mail0.fluidhosting.com internet address = 209.191.137.250
The part you will be looking at for the MX records is the section with MX preference.
There you will see the MX records for fluidhosting.com.
