What are DNS records?

DNS records are the entries a domain publishes in the Domain Name System. Each record has a type that says what it holds: A and AAAA records point the name to IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, CNAME makes it an alias of another name, MX names the servers that receive its email, NS lists its authoritative name servers, TXT carries free text such as SPF and domain verification codes, SOA describes the zone itself, SRV points a service to a host and port, and CAA says which certificate authorities may issue certificates for it.

Tool description

Enter a Domain, pick a Record type and press Look up records. The tool shows every record of that type the domain publishes, one per row, written the way a zone file writes them:

Type How a record is shown
A 93.184.215.14
AAAA 2606:2800:21f:cb07:6820:80da:af6b:8b2c
CNAME target.example.net
MX 10 mail.example.com (priority, then mail server; lowest first)
NS ns1.example.com
TXT v=spf1 include:_spf.example.com -all
SOA primary name server, hostmaster, serial, refresh, retry, expire, TTL
SRV 10 5 5060 sip.example.com (priority, weight, port, target)
CAA 0 issue "letsencrypt.org" (flags, tag, value)

The lookup runs on our server through Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4). An empty list means the domain exists but has no records of that type; a domain that doesn't exist at all fails with an error.

AI assistants connected to the Rapid Tool Set MCP server can run the same lookup as dns_record_lookup.

Examples

  • example.com with MX shows where its email goes
  • _dmarc.example.com with TXT shows its DMARC policy
  • _sip._tcp.example.com with SRV shows its SIP server
  • https://www.example.com/page looks up www.example.com, since only the hostname of a link is used

Features

  • Nine record types: A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT, SOA, SRV and CAA
  • Accepts names with service labels, such as _dmarc and _domainkey
  • MX and SRV records sorted by priority