Which diagnostic command is used to perform DNS lookups?

Which diagnostic command is used to perform DNS lookups?

• A. Ping
• B. Traceroute
• C. Nslookup
• D. Arp

Answer: (C)

When you need to translate a domain name into an IP address or inspect DNS records, you use a tool built specifically for querying DNS servers. That tool is nslookup. It sends a DNS query to a server and returns the answer, such as the IP address for a domain or other record types you specify. You can run it for a simple lookup or enter it into interactive mode to perform multiple lookups as you troubleshoot. This targeted DNS querying capability is what makes nslookup the right choice for performing DNS lookups. Other commands serve different purposes: ping checks reachability and may resolve a name to an IP, but it isn’t designed to query or display DNS records; traceroute traces the path to a destination and may show hostnames along the way, not the details of DNS records; and ARP resolves IP addresses to MAC addresses on the local network, which is a different layer of the network stack.

When you need to translate a domain name into an IP address or inspect DNS records, you use a tool built specifically for querying DNS servers. That tool is nslookup. It sends a DNS query to a server and returns the answer, such as the IP address for a domain or other record types you specify. You can run it for a simple lookup or enter it into interactive mode to perform multiple lookups as you troubleshoot.

This targeted DNS querying capability is what makes nslookup the right choice for performing DNS lookups. Other commands serve different purposes: ping checks reachability and may resolve a name to an IP, but it isn’t designed to query or display DNS records; traceroute traces the path to a destination and may show hostnames along the way, not the details of DNS records; and ARP resolves IP addresses to MAC addresses on the local network, which is a different layer of the network stack.