DNS Lookup
Query DNS records (A, AAAA, MX, TXT, CNAME, NS) for any domain.
DNS lookup queries authoritative records for a domain — the same data your operating system uses to turn
github.com into an IP. Useful for verifying a DNS change took effect,
debugging mail (MX), confirming SPF/DKIM/DMARC, or seeing which CDN/SaaS a domain points to.
We query from our server, so the result reflects what the public internet sees, not your local resolver's cache.
Running...
Reading the records
- A — IPv4 address(es) for this hostname. Multiple A records is round-robin DNS; clients pick one per lookup.
- AAAA — IPv6 address(es). Ship A and AAAA together if your service is dual stack.
- CNAME — alias pointing to another hostname (common for CDN endpoints). The apex of a domain cannot have a true CNAME.
- MX — mail servers, each with a priority (lower number = higher priority). Clients try lowest first.
- TXT — arbitrary strings; in practice SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and short verification tokens for services like Google Workspace or GitHub Pages.
- NS — authoritative name servers for the zone. Parent (TLD) and child (zone) NS records should match exactly.
Common use cases
- After a DNS change — query A or AAAA to confirm the new value is being served. Pair with a check from your own resolver to see what your local cache thinks.
- Email troubleshooting — verify MX priorities are correct and SPF/DKIM/DMARC TXT records exist with the expected values.
- Domain verification — read the TXT record a SaaS service asked you to add.
- CDN identification — a CNAME pointing to
*.cloudfront.netor*.fastly.nettells you which CDN a domain uses.
Tips
- Long TXT values may be split into multiple quoted chunks at the wire level but represent one logical string — most tools concatenate them for you.
- "DNS propagation" is really cache expiration. Authoritative servers update immediately; resolvers worldwide catch up as their TTL expires.
- For a deeper walkthrough of all record types, see our tutorial: DNS records explained for developers.