Host how to

[Kihara Muriithi]

Hi again
 Thanks for the response. I am sorry I took a while to reply, but I am far
behind my mail. Anyway, it look like you are getting the expected response,
while it is failing on my box. Here is what i get when I try your example
word to word

# host tlug.ss.org
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
]# host waltdnes.org
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
# host 192.234.254.38
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

Can't really explain it. I am using the same host to respond to this email
which mean I can't be having nwtwork problems. Could there be a specific
port I need to have iptable allow? Nothing else make sense as to why it
should work for you while its failing for me.
 As for what I was trying to so, I was helping a friend set up evolution. He
currently use a webmail and I wanted to poke his mail provider IP with nmap
and see if pop port is open. Unfortunately, I only had  domain name with me,
and nmap doesn't work very well with domain name for me. I hence tried using
"host" to extract the Ip and that is how I landed in above issue.
 Thank you for your help. At least I know I am in the write path, just
getting killed by some funky issues that I can't fathom

William


On 26/05/06, Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 26, 2006 at 09:21:44AM +0300, Kihara Muriithi wrote
> > Hi,
> > There is this tool called host that is supposed to resolve a host
> > names to an IP. I am having issues on how to use it, i.e the syntax
> > and switch use to make it helpful. Man page is a little unfriendly
> > and google threw way too way too many useless pages due to the
> > heavy usage of the word "host" in other context. Would someone be
> > kind enough to type a few oxamples of how to use this tool, i.e one
> > extracting a name from IP address and the other doing reverse?
>
>   It's a general tool that can do *A LOT* of different things.  It also
> deals with DNS information, which is a complex area.  That's why it's
> not simple.  Some of the more common uses are...
>
>
> 1) Looking up IP addresses for specific machines.  It will also list
> mail handlers (MX)...
>
> [m3000][waltdnes][~] host tlug.ss.org
> tlug.ss.org has address 192.234.254.38
> tlug.ss.org mail is handled by 1 dsl.ss.org.
>
> [m3000][waltdnes][~] host waltdnes.org
> waltdnes.org has address 216.40.33.117
> waltdnes.org mail is handled by 10 manson.clss.net.
>
>
> 2) Converting IP addresses to machine names... if the machine has an
> rDNS entry in the first place
>
> [m3000][root][~] host 192.234.254.38
> Host 38.254.234.192.in-addr.arpa not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
>
> [m3000][waltdnes][~] host 216.40.33.117
> 117.33.40.216.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer ddwww.tucows.com.
>
>
> 3) Listing specific DNS records (MX, CNAME, etc)
>
> [m3000][root][~] host -t CNAME www.waltdnes.org
> www.waltdnes.org is an alias for www.clss.net.
>
> [m3000][waltdnes][~] host -t MX waltdnes.org
> waltdnes.org mail is handled by 10 manson.clss.net.
>
>
> --
> Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org> In linux /sbin/init is Job #1
> My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
> --
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