dog

dog is a command-line DNS client.

Note: This project is a fork of the upstream dog repository.

---

Dogs can look up!

dog is a command-line DNS client, like dig. It has colourful output, understands normal command-line argument syntax, supports the DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-HTTPS protocols, and can emit JSON.

Examples

dog example.net                          Query a domain using default settings
dog example.net MX                       ...looking up MX records instead
dog example.net MX @1.1.1.1              ...using a specific nameserver instead
dog example.net MX @1.1.1.1 -T           ...using TCP rather than UDP
dog -q example.net -t MX -n 1.1.1.1 -T   As above, but using explicit arguments

---

Command-line options

Query options

-q, --query <HOST>       Host name or domain name to query
-t, --type <TYPE>        Type of the DNS record being queried [possible values: A, AAAA, ANAME, ANY, AXFR, CAA, CNAME, DNSKEY, DS, HINFO, HTTPS, IXFR, MX, NAPTR, NS, NULL, OPENPGPKEY, OPT, PTR, SOA, SRV, SSHFP, SVCB, TLSA, TXT, RRSIG, NSEC, NSEC3, NSEC3PARAM, TSIG, CDS, CDNSKEY, CSYNC, KEY, SIG]
-n, --nameserver <ADDR>  Address of the nameserver to send packets to
    --class <CLASS>      Network class of the DNS record being queried (IN, CH, HS)

Sending options

    --edns <SETTING>     Whether to OPT in to EDNS (disable, hide, show)
    --txid <NUMBER>      Set the transaction ID to a specific value
-Z <TWEAKS>              Set uncommon protocol tweaks

Protocol options

-U, --udp                Use the DNS protocol over UDP
-T, --tcp                Use the DNS protocol over TCP
-S, --tls                Use the DNS-over-TLS protocol
-H, --https              Use the DNS-over-HTTPS protocol

Output options

    --color <WHEN>       When to use terminal colors
    --colour <WHEN>      When to use terminal colours
-J, --json               Display the output as JSON
    --seconds            Do not format durations, display them as seconds
-1, --short              Short mode: display nothing but the first result

Meta options

-V, --version            Print version information
-?, --help               Print list of command-line options
-l, --list               List known DNS record types
-v, --verbose            Print verbose information
    --completions <SHELL> Generate shell completions

Shortcuts

Instead of using the -q, -t, and -n flags, you can provide the arguments directly:
dog lookup.dog             Query a domain
dog lookup.dog MX          Query a domain for a specific type
dog lookup.dog @8.8.8.8    Query a domain using a specific nameserver
dog 1.1.1.1                Perform a reverse lookup for an IP address

---

Record Types

dog supports the following record types: A, AAAA, ANAME, ANY, AXFR, CAA, CDNSKEY, CDS, CNAME, CSYNC, DNSKEY, DS, HINFO, HTTPS, IXFR, KEY, MX, NAPTR, NS, NSEC, NSEC3, NSEC3PARAM, NULL, OPENPGPKEY, OPT, PTR, RRSIG, SIG, SOA, SRV, SSHFP, SVCB, TLSA, TSIG, TXT.

---

Installation

To install dog, you can download a pre-compiled binary, or you can compile it from source. You may be able to install dog using your OS’s package manager, depending on your platform.

Packages

• For Arch Linux, install the dog package.
• For Homebrew on macOS, install the dog formula.
• For NixOS, install the dogdns package.

Downloads

Binary downloads of dog are available from the releases section on GitHub for 64-bit Windows, macOS, and Linux targets. They contain the compiled executable, the manual page, and shell completions.

Compilation

dog is written in Rust. You will need rustc version 1.45.0 or higher. The recommended way to install Rust for development is from the official download page, using rustup.

To build, download the source code and run:

$ cargo build
$ cargo test

• If you are compiling a copy for yourself, be sure to run cargo build --release to benefit from release-mode optimisations. Copy the resulting binary, which will be in the target/release directory, into a folder in your $PATH. /usr/local/bin is usually a good choice.

• To compile and install the manual pages, you will need pandoc. The just man command will compile the Markdown into manual pages, which it will place in the target/man directory. To use them, copy them into a directory that man will read. /usr/local/share/man is usually a good choice.

Container image

To build the container image of dog, you can use Docker or Kaniko. Here an example using Docker:

$ docker build -t dog .

You can then run it using the following command:

$ docker run -it --rm dog

To run dog directly, you can then define the following alias:

$ alias dog="docker run -it --rm dog"

End-to-end testing

dog has an integration test suite written as Specsheet check documents. If you have a copy installed, you can run:

$ just xtests

Specsheet will test the compiled binary by making DNS requests over the network, checking that dog returns the correct results and does not crash. Note that this will expose your IP address. For more information, read the xtests README.

---

See also

mutt, tail, sleep, roff

Licence

dog’s source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. (Original upstream code by Benjamin Sago licensed under EUPL-1.2).