---
name: "dnstrace"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "djbdns-utils"
version: "1:1.05-22"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/dnstrace"
---

# dnstrace(1)

dns lookup tool

## NAME

dnstrace - dns lookup tool

## SYNOPSIS

**dnstrace** *t* *fqdn* *r*

## DESCRIPTION

**dnstrace** searches for all DNS servers that can affect the resolution of records of type   *t* under the domain name  *fqdn*, starting from the root server *r*. You can list more than one root server.

**dnstrace** uses the standard DNS resolution algorithm, but follows all possible paths in the algorithm. It prints all responses it receives from DNS servers; it also prints warnings about slow servers, dead servers, misdelegated (\`\`lame'') servers, and misformatted packets. **dnstrace** is similar in spirit to DOC and dnswalk but is much more effective than those tools at debugging resolution problems.

In versions 1.03 and above: You can pipe **dnstrace** through [**dnstracesort**(1)](/dnstracesort/1.md) for human-friendly output. **dnstrace** can take a long time to run, so standard procedure is to save its output in a file:

  dnstrace any www.aol.com a.root-servers.net \> AOL &

Then you can run [**dnstracesort**(1)](/dnstracesort/1.md) to see the results so far:

  dnstracesort \< AOL \| less

The [**dnstracesort**(1)](/dnstracesort/1.md) output uses *ul* codes for boldface and underline; these codes are displayed properly by [**less**(1)](/less/1.md).

Beware that, as of January 2001, **dnstrace** produces more than 5 megabytes of output for the complete trace of cr.yp.to starting from all the root servers. It ends up sending more than 6000 queries to more than 200 different servers.

## SEE ALSO

[dnsip(1)](/dnsip/1.md), [dnsipq(1)](/dnsipq/1.md), [dnsmx(1)](/dnsmx/1.md), [dnstxt(1)](/dnstxt/1.md), [dnsqr(1)](/dnsqr/1.md), [dnsq(1)](/dnsq/1.md), [dnsname(1)](/dnsname/1.md), [less(1)](/less/1.md), [tinydns-get(1)](/tinydns-get/1.md)

http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html