DNS¶

DNS is an essential part of the Internet’s infrastructure for mapping people-friendly domain names like “www.lassosoft.com” to machine-friendly IP addresses like “127.0.0.1”. Every URL entered into a web browser or email address entered into an email client requires consulting the DNS system to determine which server to submit the request or route the message to.

DNS servers can handle many different types of requests. Some of the most common are listed here:

*: Returns all available information about the domain name. The results of this type of request are returned in human-readable form.
A: This is the most common type of request and simply returns the IP address that corresponds with the domain name.
CNAME: This is a request for the common name associated with a domain name.
MX: This is a request for the mail server that is associated with a domain name. A prioritized list of mail servers are returned.
NS: This is a request for the name servers responsible for providing definitive information about the domain name.
PTR: This type of request allows a reverse lookup to be performed, returning the domain name associated with an IP address.
TXT: Domain name servers can store additional information about a domain name. Specially formatted domain names are sometimes used as keys that return useful information when queried with this option.

Any query can return either a single value or an array of values. For example, a single domain name may be served by a collection of web servers. When the A record for that domain name is looked up, a list of servers is returned. The DNS server may round-robin the list of servers so a different server is on top for each request. This effectively spreads traffic among all the servers in the pool more or less evenly.

Domain Names¶

Domain names are written as a series of words separated by periods. Reading from left to right the domain name gets progressively more general. In a typical three word domain name like “www.lassosoft.com” the first word represents a particular machine or a particular service, the second word represents the domain in which the machine or service resides, and the third word represents the top-level domain that has authorized the use of the domain name.

Top-level domains are controlled by an organization that has been designated by the IANA. Two common, general-purpose top-level domains are “.com” and “.net”, “.edu” is a top-level domain reserved for educational institutions, “.gov” is a top-level domain reserved for U.S. government institutions, “.org” is a top-level domain intended for non-profit organizations.

Each country has its own top-level domain defined by its standard two letter abbreviation, e.g. “.us” is the top-level domain for the United States, “.uk” is the top-level domain for the United Kingdom, and “.cn” is the top-level domain for China. The domain “.tv”, frequently used to refer to television, is actually the country domain for Tuvalu. Each country decides how it wants to assign domain names within their own top-level domain. Some have created virtual top-level domains like “.com.uk”, “.org.uk”, “.edu.uk”, etc.

IP Addresses¶

IPv4 addresses consist of four numbers from 0 to 255 separated by periods. Each number represents a single 8-bit integer and the entire IP address represents a 32-bit integer, so there are effectively about 4 billion IPv4 addresses. A typical IPv4 address appears as follows:

17.149.160.49

In order to expand the range of IP addresses that are available, a new Internet Protocol has been designed and is in the process of being adopted. This is version 6 of the Internet Protocol and is abbreviated IPv6. The most recent versions of Windows, OS X, and Linux all support IPv6 addresses. IPv6 addresses are essentially 128-bit integers. A typical IPv6 address may appear as follows, though abbreviated forms also exist:

2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:ff00:0042:8329

Note

The DNS lookup methods in Lasso do not support IPv6 addresses at this time.

Querying for DNS Records¶

DNS queries are performed with the dns_lookup method.

dns_lookup(name::string, ...)¶

Queries a DNS server for information about a specified domain name. It requires one parameter, the domain name being queried. The optional parameters are described below. This method returns either a string, array, or dns_response object.

Parameters:

Parameters:	name (string) – The domain name being queried. -type – The type of data to look up. Defaults to “” if the first parameter is a domain name or “PTR” if it is an IP address. Possible values include “”, “A”, “NS”, “MD”, “MF”, “CNAME”, “SOA”, “MB”, “MG”, “MR”, “NULL”, “WKS”, “PTR”, “HINFO”, “MINFO”, “MX”, “TXT”, “AXFR”, “MAILB”, “MAILA”. -class – The class in which to perform the lookup. Defaults to “IN” which represents the Internet DNS system. Searching other classes is very rare. Possible values include “”, “IN”, “CS”, “CH”. -noRecurse* (boolean) – By default the local DNS server will automatically query other DNS servers to find the answer to a request. If this parameter is included then the query will only return information that is known directly by the local DNS server. -inverse (boolean) – Sets the inverse bit in the DNS query. -status (boolean) – Sets the status bit in the DNS query. -showQuery (boolean) – If specified the query is not actually performed, but a `dns_response` object representing the query is returned. -formatQuery (boolean) – If specified the query is not actually performed, but a string describing the constructed query is returned. -bitQuery (boolean) – If specified the query is not actually performed, but a string is returned that shows the low-level bit representation of the constructed query. -showResponse (boolean) – If specified the response is returned as `dns_response` object that can be inspected using the member methods described in the documentation below. -format (boolean) – If specified a string is returned that describes the response from the DNS server. -bitFormat (boolean) – If specified a string is returned that shows the low-level bit representation of the response from the DNS server. -hostname – Allows specifying the name of a specific DNS server to query. Defaults to the DNS server set up in the OS. -port (integer) – The port of the DNS server to connect to when doing a DNS lookup. -timeout (integer) – How long to wait for a response when doing a DNS lookup.

name (string) – The domain name being queried.
-type – The type of data to look up. Defaults to “*” if the first parameter is a domain name or “PTR” if it is an IP address. Possible values include “*”, “A”, “NS”, “MD”, “MF”, “CNAME”, “SOA”, “MB”, “MG”, “MR”, “NULL”, “WKS”, “PTR”, “HINFO”, “MINFO”, “MX”, “TXT”, “AXFR”, “MAILB”, “MAILA”.
-class – The class in which to perform the lookup. Defaults to “IN” which represents the Internet DNS system. Searching other classes is very rare. Possible values include “*”, “IN”, “CS”, “CH”.
-noRecurse (boolean) – By default the local DNS server will automatically query other DNS servers to find the answer to a request. If this parameter is included then the query will only return information that is known directly by the local DNS server.
-inverse (boolean) – Sets the inverse bit in the DNS query.
-status (boolean) – Sets the status bit in the DNS query.
-showQuery (boolean) – If specified the query is not actually performed, but a dns_response object representing the query is returned.
-formatQuery (boolean) – If specified the query is not actually performed, but a string describing the constructed query is returned.
-bitQuery (boolean) – If specified the query is not actually performed, but a string is returned that shows the low-level bit representation of the constructed query.
-showResponse (boolean) – If specified the response is returned as dns_response object that can be inspected using the member methods described in the documentation below.
-format (boolean) – If specified a string is returned that describes the response from the DNS server.
-bitFormat (boolean) – If specified a string is returned that shows the low-level bit representation of the response from the DNS server.
-hostname – Allows specifying the name of a specific DNS server to query. Defaults to the DNS server set up in the OS.
-port (integer) – The port of the DNS server to connect to when doing a DNS lookup.
-timeout (integer) – How long to wait for a response when doing a DNS lookup.

IP Lookup¶

The following example looks up the associated IP address(es) for a specified domain name. Using a -type of “A” will always return an array, even if there is only one IP address. An empty array will be returned if no information about the specified domain name can be found.

dns_lookup('www.apple.com', -type='A')
// => array(17.149.160.49, 17.178.96.59, 17.172.224.47)

Reverse Lookup¶

Reverse lookups are performed when an IP address is passed to the dns_lookup method, or when the “PTR” type is specified, and return an array of domain names. An empty array will be returned if no domain name could be found for the specified IP address.

dns_lookup('23.208.45.15')
// => array(a23-208-45-15.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com)

MX Records Lookup¶

“MX” lookups return an array of pairs. The first element of each pair is a priority and the second element of each pair is an IP address. The mail servers should be used in order of priority to provide fallback if the preferred mail servers cannot be reached.

dns_lookup('lassosoft.com', -type='MX')
// => array((10 = smtp1.lassosoft.com), (15 = smtp2.lassosoft.com))

Return Different Formats¶

The following output shows the human-readable response to a DNS request:

dns_lookup('www.apple.com', -format)

// =>
// Length: 73
// ID: 32569
// Type: Answer
// Flags: RD, RA
// Counts: QD 1, AN 1
// QD 1: www.apple.com.. * IN
// AN 1: www.apple.com.. CNAME IN 1331 www.isg-apple.com.akadns.net..

The following output shows the low-level bit formatting of a DNS response. The actual response is fairly long and not shown here:

dns_lookup('www.lassosoft.com', -bitFormat)

// =>
// ASCII
// 3  T  X
// ... rest of response ...

DNS Response Helper Type¶

The dns_response type is a helper type which is used to format both DNS requests and responses. Normally a value of this type will only be returned from the dns_lookup method when -showResponse is specified. However, this type can also parse raw DNS requests or responses if necessary.

type dns_response¶

dns_response(message::bytes): Create a new dns_response object. An object of this type can be returned from the dns_lookup method when -showResponse is specified.

dns_response->format()¶: Returns a formatted display of the entire response from the DNS server.

dns_response->bitFormat()¶: Returns a formatted display of the raw bits returned by the DNS server.

dns_response->answer()¶: Returns an array of answers for most DNS responses. Address lookups or reverse lookups return an array of IP addresses or host names. MX record lookups return an array of pairs, each with a priority and an IP address. Other lookups may return an array of strings or other data.

dns_response->data()¶: Returns the response as a raw bytes object.