ahost

Ahost is a powerful command line tool used to perform DNS lookups and investigate domain information. It is commonly available on Unix-like systems, including Linux and macOS.

By entering a domain name as an argument, ahost queries the DNS server to retrieve information related to that domain. This includes the IP address, canonical name (CNAME), mail exchange (MX) servers, name servers (NS), and other DNS records associated with the domain.

Ahost can also work in reverse by accepting an IP address as input and returning the associated domain name, if available. This can be helpful in identifying the hostname linked to a specific IP.

In addition to basic DNS lookups, ahost offers various options for more advanced functionality. It allows specifying the DNS server to be used, setting a timeout for the query, enabling verbose output, or displaying only specific types of DNS records.

Ahost can be useful in troubleshooting network issues, verifying domain configurations, or investigating the DNS records of a target domain. It provides a quick and efficient way to gather information about a domain without the need for a graphical user interface.

When combined with other command line tools or scripts, ahost becomes a valuable component of network administration, automation, and security-related tasks. It is often used in shell scripts or in combination with other tools like grep, awk, or sed to extract or filter specific information from the DNS output.

The simplicity and versatility of ahost make it a popular choice among system administrators, network engineers, and security professionals. It provides a reliable and efficient means of performing DNS lookups directly from the command line interface.