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My dig Cheatsheet

Dig (Domain Information Groper) is part of the BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) suite of DNS utilities. It queries DNS name servers and shows records such as:

  • A record used to translate from a domain name to an IPv4 address
  • AAAA record used to translate from a domain name to an IPv6 address
  • MX record specifies the mail server used to handle mail for a domain specified in an e-mail address
  • NS record lists which name servers can answer lookups on a DNS zone
  • TXT record (Text record) RFC 1035, originally used for arbitrary human-readable text in a DNS record. Since the early 1990s, however, this record more often carries machine-readable data, such as specified by RFC 1464
  • CNAME record (Canonical name record), Alias of one name to another: the DNS lookup will continue by retrying the lookup with the new name
  • PTR record RFC 1035. Pointer to a canonical name. Unlike a CNAME, DNS processing stops and just the name is returned. The most common use is for implementing reverse DNS lookups, but other uses include such things as DNS-SD

For a more comprehensive list of DNS record types see: wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DNS_record_types

/usr/bin/dig +short example.com
Usage: Collect the IP address or another specific record type without extra context, useful in some scripting use cases.
Output: 93.184.216.34

/usr/bin/dig MX wellsfargo.com +short
Usage: Collect the IP address(es) for the domain's mail server(s) without extra context, useful in some scripting use cases.
Output: 10 mxb-00004003.gslb.pphosted.com. 10 mxa-00004003.gslb.pphosted.com.

/usr/bin/dig MX wellsfargo.com
Usage: Collect the IP address(es) for the domain's mail server(s) including context, useful in some troubleshooting use cases.
Output:

matt@host:~$ /usr/bin/dig MX wellsfargo.com

; <<>> DiG 9.20.18-1ubuntu2.1-Ubuntu <<>> MX wellsfargo.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 7557
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;wellsfargo.com.                        IN      MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
wellsfargo.com.         353     IN      MX      10 mxb-00004003.gslb.pphosted.com.
wellsfargo.com.         353     IN      MX      10 mxa-00004003.gslb.pphosted.com.

;; Query time: 19 msec
;; SERVER: 10.255.255.254#53(10.255.255.254) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Sat Jun 27 17:24:01 CDT 2026
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 115

matt@host:~$

/usr/bin/dig SOA wellsfargo.com
Usage: Collect the hostname for the domain's SOA start of authority -- the authoritative DNS server server -- including context, useful in some troubleshooting use cases.
Output:

matt@host:~$ /usr/bin/dig SOA wellsfargo.com

; <<>> DiG 9.20.18-1ubuntu2.1-Ubuntu <<>> SOA wellsfargo.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 40856
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;wellsfargo.com.                        IN      SOA

;; ANSWER SECTION:
wellsfargo.com.         3600    IN      SOA     edns1.ultradns.com. hostmaster.wellsfargo.com. 2009396341 1800 900 2592000 300

;; Query time: 31 msec
;; SERVER: 10.255.255.254#53(10.255.255.254) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Sat Jun 27 17:33:32 CDT 2026
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 105

matt@host:~$

SOA – the start of authority, shows the authoritative DNS server. In this record, you see valuable information about the zone. There is only one SOA per zone. /usr/bin/dig SOA wellsfargo.com +short
Usage: Collect the hostname for the domain's SOA start of authority -- the authoritative DNS server server -- including context, useful in some troubleshooting use cases.
Output: edns1.ultradns.com. hostmaster.wellsfargo.com. 2009396341 1800 900 2592000 300

Some common DNS Services

Google DNS:
dig @8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 Cloudflare DNS:
dig @1.1.1.1 or 1.0.0.1
DNS.Watch:
dig @84.200.69.80 or 84.200.70.40

https://www.cyberithub.com/20-dig-command-examples-in-linux-cheat-sheet/

https://www.dnsdingo.com/dns-commands.html

https://www.commandinline.com/cheat-sheet/dig/

https://www.cloudns.net/blog/linux-dig-command-install-use/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System

https://github.com/geeek-khushi15/DIG-Commands-

https://linuxize.com/cheatsheet/dig/

https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-use-dig-command-to-query-dns-in-linux/

List of DNS record types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DNS_record_types

Chinese A.I. Models Close the Gap With Anthropic and OpenAI Silicon Valley engineers recently flocked to new technology from a Chinese company, Z.ai, that is almost as good as its American competitors but much cheaper. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/technology/zai-china-artificial-intelligence-models.html