What's the command-line utility in Windows to do a reverse DNS look-up?

Question

Is there a built-in command line tool that will do reverse DNS look-ups in Windows? I.e., something like <toolname> w.x.y.z => mycomputername

I've tried:

• nslookup: seems to be forward look-up only.
• host: doesn't exist
• dig: also doesn't exist.

I found "What's the reverse DNS command line utility?" via a search, but this is specifically looking for a *nix utility, not a Windows one.

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

ping -a w.x.y.z

Should resolve the name from the IP address.

Answer 2

nslookup <ip>

Does what you're looking for. It will tell you the server you're querying and the result.

For example:

c:\>nslookup 192.168.101.39
Server: dns1.local
Address: 192.168.101.24

Name: enigma.local
Address: 192.168.101.39

Answer 3

The trouble with "ping" is that it's not strictly a name server lookup tool (like nslookup) - for instance if you ping a hostname, it can be resolved to an IP address by a number of methods: DNS lookup, host file lookup, WINS (god forbid) or NetBIOS broadcast. It can also return a potentially out-dated cached result.

The order in which the methods are tried, depends on the clients' TCP/IP configuration and node type flag:

• B-node (1): Broadcast
• P-node (2): Peer (WINS only)
• M-node (4): Mixed (broadcast, then WINS)
• H-node (8): Hybrid (WINS, then broadcast)

To see the node type of the current computer:

C:\>ipconfig /all | find "Node Type"
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

If the resolution method is of no concern, use

ping -a w.x.y.z

or

nslookup w.x.y.z

as you please. If you need to be sure you're querying your DNS server for the correct name, use nslookup.

See also

• Tech-FAQ: NetBIOS Node Types
• Wikipedia: NetBIOS: Node types
• Microsoft: TCP/IP and NBT configuration parameters for Windows XP (search for "NodeType")

Answer 4

nslookup -type=ptr 10.1.x.x

Answer 5

nslookup will do reverse DNS on windows just as it can do it on linux.

Of course, there isn't a reverse entry for every ip address

Answer 6

Use nslookup like this:

nslookup -type=PTR  127.0.0.1

Answer 7

nslookup will do reverse lookups in Windows.

C:\>nslookup star.slashdot.org

Server:  my-dns-server
Address:  10.242.0.1

Name:    star.slashdot.org
Address:  216.34.181.48

C:\>nslookup 216.34.181.48

Server:  my-dns-server
Address:  10.242.0.1

Name:    star.slashdot.org
Address:  216.34.181.48

Answer 8

You can use the standard NSLOOKUP command:

nslookup 123.123.123.123

In order to get a result there has to be a PTR record registered for the IP address in question.