DNS Lookup Tool

DNS Lookup Tool

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the internet's address book: it maps human-readable names like "example.com" to the machine-usable data applications actually need — an IP address for A/AAAA, a mail server for MX, arbitrary text for TXT (often used for domain verification and email-authentication policies like SPF/DKIM/DMARC), the authoritative name servers for NS, and an alias to another name for CNAME. Every one of these is a distinct "record type" stored under the same domain name, queried independently — asking for a domain's MX records tells you nothing about its A records, and vice versa, which is why this tool asks you to pick a type rather than dumping everything at once.

This tool resolves records live via the standard DNS resolution path — the same mechanism your operating system and browser already use, not a cached third-party snapshot. A/AAAA give you the IPv4/IPv6 addresses a name resolves to; MX gives you the mail servers responsible for a domain, each with a numeric priority (lower means preferred); TXT returns every text record verbatim, commonly SPF policies, domain-verification tokens, or DKIM/DMARC-adjacent values (a dedicated SPF/DKIM/DMARC parser is planned as a separate tool — this one just fetches the raw records); NS lists the authoritative name servers a domain's parent zone delegates to; and CNAME reveals whether a name is an alias for another canonical name, returning nothing when it isn't (a bare A record, not an error).

Reverse DNS (PTR) runs the lookup backwards: given an IP address, it returns the hostname(s) that address's block owner has published for it, if any — used to sanity-check outbound mail servers, identify a host from a log line, or verify a server's own naming is set up correctly. Not every IP has a PTR record; a missing one is a normal, valid outcome, not an error. Select PTR as the type and enter an IP address (not a domain name) to use it.

Two outcomes this tool is careful to keep distinct: a domain that genuinely doesn't exist (NXDOMAIN) still returns a normal, successful "no records" result — DNS's way of saying "this name is not registered" is not an error condition for a tool like this. A real infrastructure failure (an unresponsive or timing-out authoritative server) is reported as a distinct failure instead, so you can tell "nothing is there" apart from "we couldn't find out." SOA (start-of-authority) records are not supported yet — the record type is deliberately excluded from the selector above and returns an explicit error if requested via the API directly, rather than a silent empty result.

How to use this lookup

1. Enter a name or IP

   Type a domain name (like example.com) for A/AAAA/MX/TXT/NS/CNAME, or an IP address (like 8.8.8.8) for a reverse PTR lookup.

2. Pick a record type

   Choose which record type to resolve — A is the default. SOA is not supported.

3. Look up

   Click "Look up" (or open a permalink URL) to query DNS live and show every matching record.

4. Share

   The page URL updates with your query as a permalink, so you can copy and share the current result directly.

Glossary

A / AAAA record

Maps a domain name to an IPv4 (A) or IPv6 (AAAA) address — the most common record type, used every time a browser or app resolves a hostname before connecting to it.

MX record

Lists the mail servers responsible for accepting email for a domain, each with a numeric priority — lower values are tried first.

TXT record

An arbitrary text value attached to a domain name — commonly used for domain-ownership verification and email-authentication policies (SPF, and DKIM/DMARC-adjacent values).

NS record

Names the authoritative name servers a domain's parent zone delegates queries to — the servers that actually hold that domain's other records.

CNAME record

An alias pointing one name at another canonical name — resolving a CNAME means following it to find the real target's own records.

PTR record (reverse DNS)

Maps an IP address back to a hostname — the opposite direction of an A/AAAA lookup, published by whoever controls that address block's reverse-DNS delegation.

NXDOMAIN

The DNS response code meaning "this name does not exist" — a normal, valid answer, distinct from an infrastructure failure like a timeout.

TTL

Time To Live — how long a resolver is allowed to cache a DNS answer before re-querying the authoritative server, set by the domain's own DNS administrator.

API equivalent

This page calls our own public tools endpoint under the hood — you can call the same endpoint directly, unauthenticated, subject to a per-caller rate limit. `type` defaults to A when omitted; SOA is not a supported type:

curl "https://ip.xakki.pro/api/v1/tools/dns?name=example.com&type=MX"

Example response:

{
  "name": "example.com",
  "type": "MX",
  "records": [
    {"value": "mail.example.com", "priority": 10}
  ],
  "truncated": false
}

Read the full API docs

Related tools

• All free tools
• ASN Lookup / Whois
• Bulk IP List Classifier
• IP Geolocation API

Frequently asked questions

Why doesn't this tool support SOA records?

Go's standard library resolver — the primitive this service uses for every other record type — has no built-in SOA lookup. Adding it would mean either a new third-party dependency or hand-implementing the DNS wire protocol, neither of which is justified for one record type yet; a request for it returns an explicit "not supported" error rather than a silent empty result.

Why did my lookup return no records instead of an error?

Two different things look similar but aren't: a domain can exist but simply have no records of the type you asked for (e.g. a domain with A records but no MX), and a domain can not exist at all (NXDOMAIN). Both are normal, valid "no records" results — not the same as a timeout or a resolver failure, which this tool reports as a distinct error.

Can I look up a reverse DNS (PTR) record for a domain name?

No — PTR queries only accept an IP address as input, since reverse DNS is indexed by address, not by name. Enter the IP address whose hostname you want, with PTR selected as the type.

Why is my result marked as truncated?

This tool caps how many records (and how much total text) one response can carry — TXT records in particular can be long SPF/DKIM chains. A truncated result still shows every record up to that cap, honestly marked, rather than silently dropping data past the limit.

Does this tool log or store the names/IPs I look up?

Your query is sent to our server to perform the live DNS lookup (unlike our purely client-side calculators), but results are cached briefly to spare third-party authoritative name servers from repeated identical queries — not a permanent record tied to you.

Is there a rate limit on this tool?

Yes — this page and its underlying API endpoint share the free tools lane's per-caller rate limit, independent of our main IP lookup API's daily quota. If you need higher volume or programmatic access, our API docs cover the paid tiers.