DNS resolver

The need for hassle-free control, responsiveness, and centralized management of local network domains accelerates the adoption of DNS servers in organizational IT ecosystems. With network admins using DNS deployments to configure domain mappings, improve network performance, and add an extra layer of network resilience, it is critical to constantly keep the responsiveness and reachability of your DNS servers in check.

Also, with DNS server lookups playing a vital role in aiding efficient network communication even in highly distributed IT infrastructures, running DNS resolution checks have become critical.

However, this can be challenging without an advanced DNS resolver that helps you enhance and inspect DNS resolution results in correlation with several aspects, including your network's IP address space and node connectivity.

OpUtils DNS Resolver tool: An indispensable part of your IT tool set!

OpUtils' DNS resolver tool acts as an interface between you and your DNS servers. Designed to aid DNS resolution in networks of all scales and complexities, the DNS Resolver tool helps you easily track your local DNS services based on their IP addresses or host names. Supporting both IPv4 and IPv6 address management along with DNS resolution, OpUtils allows network admins to inspect their IPv4 and IPv6 DNS records and sites in tandem with ease.

How to use the DNS Resolver tool

Skip the tedious CLI queries and clunky interfaces with OpUtils' user-friendly, intuitive UI to run DNS resolutions in seconds. To run DNS resolutions, simply specify the IP address or host name of the node you wish to check and click Resolve.

OpUtils finds the DNS details of the given IPv4 or IPv6 address and hostnames by looking up your network's DNS server records including the A record for IPv4 address mappings and the AAAA record for IPv6 site mappings.

Why you should use OpUtils DNS Resolver: 5 use cases to consider

Be it a traditional hardware-based DNS, a dedicated software-based DNS server, or a network-connected device configured to act as a DNS server, DNS server utilization has become vital to efficiently run modern IT infrastructures. With various network usability, accessibility, and connectivity functions depending on your DNS servers, it is important that their core functioning, IP to host mapping, is returning the required results to the DNS lookup queries. Loss or incorrect IP to host mapping data can have a devastating impact on your network.

Here are 5 reasons that justify using OpUtils DNS Resolver in your network:

Ensuring DNS availability:

DNS resolution issues are one of the major causes of network outages in modern IT infrastructures. Difficulty to reach business-critical services or nodes hosted in your organization's private and public networks can lead to serious consequences.

For instance, every new deployment or scaling event such as auto-scaling instances in cloud environments utilize your network's IP address space. The IP utilization details should be automatically updated in your IP address management (IPAM) solution and mapped with the appropriate host or service in your DNS records. A mismatch or data unavailability can lead to cascading failures affecting all depending or communicating network nodes and services.

This makes it important for network admins to use a DNS resolver tool to constantly check the availability status of services or hosts associated with their network's DNS servers.

Tracking DNS responsiveness:

The Response Time of a resolved IP or host measured and displayed by the DNS Resolver aids network admins to measure the latency experienced by users or network components running DNS lookups. Latency can be an indicator of DNS issues including network congestion, inefficient DNS servers, incorrect DNS configurations, and inadequate DNS resources. This affects your network's overall performance, availability, and end-user experience.

As a networking best practice, it is crucial to stay in the know of the response time of business-critical hosts; especially during major network events such as network changes or new service deployments. This helps ensure that critical DNSs and their associated services or hosts perform as required.

Reducing DNS risks:

DNS servers and their records are vulnerable to serval attacks including DOS and DNS spoofing attacks. These attacks can cause serious risks to network integrity such as data theft, intrusion, and other security risks.

Running DNS resolution checks using a reliable DNS resolver tool enables IT admins to identify unusual behavior such as high response times or DNS record unavailability.

For instance,

  • A DNS resolution result returned by DNS Resolver displaying an unidentified or unknown network host being mapped to a known IP can be an indicator of DNS spoofing attack.
  • Unusually high response times returned on running DNS resolution checks can be an indicator of network issues such as congestion and attacks such as DOS.

Thus, running DNS resolution checks as a part of your routine IT checks helps in easily identifying and mitigating several DNS issues and risk vectors.

Configuring network routing and switching:

Networks running on multiple local domains deploy several DNS servers to effectively track the IP to host mapping. But the use of these DNS records is not just limited to end users running DNS lookups. Several network admins configure critical networking components such as routers and switches to utilize these records.

For instance, configuring routers or layer 3 switches to use your network's DNS resources helps you benefit from host name-based routing mechanisms. This makes routing more efficient when compared to traditional routing and switching techniques.

Configuring routers and switches with appropriate DNS servers and domains requires the use of a DNS resolver tool to understand the IP to host mapping in your network.

Getting in-depth insights with the network Toolset:

Understanding your DNS servers and their associated IPs and hosts do not just end with using the DNS Resolver tool. Tools such as Ping and Traceroute help network admins to holistically inspect and understand several DNS related metrics.

For instance, using OpUtils' TraceRoute tool to trace the network route to a domain name can provide information about each hop along the way, including the IP address, DNS server name, and round-trip time. This information can be useful in diagnosing issues with DNS resolution, as it can help identify the point in the network where the issue is occurring.

Using OpUtils' diverse network Toolset aids network admins with tools that can provide valuable information about the state of the network, details of the DNS system, and its associate IPs.

New to OpUtils? Download our free, 30-day trial or schedule a live demo with a product expert today!