Is there a way to get a list of all machines in a local DNS?

BrianK · 10-07-2008, 08:30 PM

I have a DNS server. I have the DNS server config files. I want to get the names of all the machines in the facility from DNS.

Currently, I simply parse the dns config files, but because the files live on the DNS server, I have to copy the file(s) over to get the latest names, then parse the file, then take the names & do stuff with them (like ping them all or rsync a bunch of data to each one).

Is there a way I can ask DNS to give me all the names it holds without manually fetching the dns config files?

indeliblestamp · 10-07-2008, 10:04 PM

Something like host -l example.com ? (The '-a' argument also does something similar)

Mr. C. · 10-07-2008, 11:39 PM

The DNS server must allow full transfers for host -l to work:

Code:

$ host -l example.com
; Transfer failed.
Host example.com.mikecappella.com not found: 9(NOTAUTH)
; Transfer failed.

If the DNS server does not allow zone transfers, the only way to obtain this information is by sequentially probing for PTR records. On large networks, this is unwieldy.

Configure your DNS server to allow a zone transfer to system that requires the information.

BrianK · 10-08-2008, 12:57 PM

That works great. Thanks guys.