Query Wikipedia by issuing a DNS query for a TXT record. The TXT record will also include a short URL to the complete corresponding Wikipedia entry.You can also write a little shell script like: $ cat wikisole.sh #!/bin/sh dig +short txt ${1}.wp.dg.cx and run it like ./wikisole.sh unix were your first option ($1) will be used as search term. Show Sample Output

Instead of opening your browser, googling "whatismyip"... Also useful for scripts. dig can be found in the dnsutils package.

It's somewhat common ISPs to intercept DNS queries at port 53 and resolve them at their own. To check if your ISP is intercepting your DNS queries just type this command in the terminal. "#.abc" it's an OK answer. But if you get something like "I am not an OpenDNS resolver.", yep, you are beign cheated by your ISP.

Shorter version, works with multiple words. Show Sample Output

Uses GNU Parallel. Show Sample Output

The +short option should make dig less chatty.

Performs a reverse DNS lookup, variants include: nslookup 74.125.45.100 or: host 74.125.45.100 Show Sample Output

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Simple command to trace a DNS query from the root all the way to the authoritative servers.

google has added 2 more netblocks... Show Sample Output

A function that takes a domain name as an argument Show Sample Output

Change the $domain variable to whichever domain you wish to query. Works with the majority of whois info; for some that won't, you may have to compromise: domain=google.com; for a in $(whois $domain | grep "Domain servers in listed order:" --after 3 | grep -v "Domain servers in listed order:"); do echo ">>> Nameservers for $domain from $a Note that this doesn't work as well as the first one; if they have more than 3 nameservers, it won't hit them all. As the summary states, this can be useful for making sure the whois nameservers for a domain match the nameserver records (NS records) from the nameservers themselves. Show Sample Output

Quick shortcut if you know the hostname and want to save yourself one step for looking up the IP address separately.

Evoke from the command like as: timeDNS commandlinefu.com . This isn't too terribly practical, but it is a good code example of using subshells to run the queries in parallel and the use of an "anonymous function" (a/k/a "inline group") to group i/o. . I'm assuming you have already defined your local DNS cache as ${local_DNS}, (here, it's 192.168.0.1). . You do need to install `moreutils` to get `sponge`. . If you're willing to wait, a slower version w/o sponge, (and w/o sorting), is this: . DNS () { for x in "192.168.0.1" "208.67.222.222" "208.67.220.220" "198.153.192.1" "198.153.194.1" "156.154.70.1" "156.154.71.1" "8.8.8.8" "8.8.4.4"; do (echo -n "$x "; dig @"$x" "$*"|grep Query) ; done ; } Show Sample Output

Mostly for Norwegians, but easily adoptable to others. Very handy if you are brainstorming for a new domainname. Will only display the available ones.. You can usually do this better with dig, but if you dont have dig, or the TLD only have an online service to check with, this will be usefull.. Show Sample Output

Works for multiple hosts (such as www.google.com) and/or wrong hosts. Show Sample Output

This removes the enclosing quotation marks ("), and sticthes the different packets together, e.g. ' Show Sample Output

Short and concise output appropiate for scripts. Show Sample Output