A Unix utility by Andrew Cherenson for querying Internet

domain name servers. The basic use is to find the Internetaddress corresponding to a given hostname (or vice versa).

By changing the query type (e.g. "set type=CNAME") other types

of information can be obtained including CNAME - the

canonical name for an alias; HINFO - the host CPU and

operating system type; MINFO - mailbox or mail list

information; MX - mail exchanger information; NS - the

name server for the named zone; PTR - the hostname if the

query is an Internet address, otherwise the pointer to other

information; SOA the domain's start-of-authority information;

TXT - text information; UINFO - user information; WKS -

supported well-known services. Other types (ANY, AXFR, MB,

MD, MF, NULL) are described in RFC 1035.