[Gllug] host and dig commands

Nix nix at esperi.org.uk
Fri Oct 1 21:22:37 UTC 2010


On 1 Oct 2010, Bruce Richardson spake thusly:

> On Fri, Oct 01, 2010 at 10:00:53AM +0100, john maclean wrote:
>> What's the diff between `host` and `dig`? When is it best to use either tool?
>
> They do the same things.  As you've seen, the output format is
> different.  Also, the default behaviour differs; "host av.com" does the
> same as "dig av.com any", not "dig av.com".

Well, host is much simpler than dig and has easier-to-understand
output that is further from DNS itself. Really, host is intended for
normal people to use: dig is intended for DNS debugging. (dig is
explicitly intended as a replacement for the awful nslookup, which
there is thankfully no longer much reason to use.)
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