Problem in '-cname' argument

[Sevada797]

Hi, I am thankful for all the great work you are doing guys, just wanted to tell you about this issue.

dnsx version:

Latest version currently: 1.2.2
OS: Ubuntu 20.04

Current Behavior:

The -cname argument, which should have provided CNAME of the domain/subdomain doesn't seem to work

Example using dig (correct output):

$ dig cname jfkt.github.shopify.com | grep -i cname
;jfkt.github.shopify.com.    IN    CNAME
jfkt.github.shopify.com. 2204 IN    CNAME github.com.

$ dig cname eu2.deployment.api.varonis.io | grep -i cname
;eu2.deployment.api.varonis.io. IN  CNAME
eu2.deployment.api.varonis.io. 300 IN CNAME eastus2-prd-distributed-deployment-ep.azureedge.net.

But with dnsx:

$ echo jfkt.github.shopify.com | dnsx -silent -cname
jfkt.github.shopify.com

$ echo eu2.deployment.api.varonis.io | dnsx -silent -cname
eu2.deployment.api.varonis.io

Expected Behavior:

dnsx -cname Should've returned actual CNAME record

Steps To Reproduce:

Run:
echo jfkt.github.shopify.com | dnsx -silent -cname

Output is just the input domain, not the real CNAME record (you can check on any order CNAME having domain/subdomain also)

[oxqnd]

I’ll work on a fix for this issue.

[Mzack9999]

@Sevada797 You need to use the -resp flag in order to obtain the record type response, otherwise the tool just filter out the inputs having the specific response type

[Mzack9999]

Thanks for reporting this. The behavior you're seeing is actually expected with the current syntax.

-cname tells dnsx to query for CNAME records, but -silent only prints the domain name if a record is found — it doesn't display the record value itself. To see the actual CNAME values, use the -resp flag:

echo jfkt.github.shopify.com | dnsx -silent -cname -resp

This will output the CNAME record alongside the domain. Closing as the tool is working as designed.