[manpage_begin dns n 1.3.3] [copyright {2002, Pat Thoyts}] [moddesc {Domain Name Service}] [titledesc {Tcl Domain Name Service Client}] [category Networking] [require Tcl 8.2] [require dns [opt 1.3.3]] [description] [para] The dns package provides a Tcl only Domain Name Service client. You should refer to (1) and (2) for information about the DNS protocol or read resolver(3) to find out how the C library resolves domain names. The intention of this package is to insulate Tcl scripts from problems with using the system library resolver for slow name servers. It may or may not be of practical use. Internet name resolution is a complex business and DNS is only one part of the resolver. You may find you are supposed to be using hosts files, NIS or WINS to name a few other systems. This package is not a substitute for the C library resolver - it does however implement name resolution over DNS. The package also extends the package [package uri] to support DNS URIs (4) of the form [uri dns:what.host.com] or [uri dns://my.nameserver/what.host.com]. The [cmd dns::resolve] command can handle DNS URIs or simple domain names as a query. [para] [emph Note:] The package defaults to using DNS over TCP connections. If you wish to use UDP you will need to have the [package tcludp] package installed and have a version that correctly handles binary data (> 1.0.4). This is available at [uri http://tcludp.sourceforge.net/]. If the [package udp] package is present then UDP will be used by default. [section COMMANDS] [list_begin definitions] [call [cmd ::dns::resolve] [arg query] [opt [arg "options"]]] Resolve a domain name using the [term DNS] protocol. [arg query] is the domain name to be lookup up. This should be either a fully qualified domain name or a DNS URI. [list_begin definitions] [def "[cmd -nameserver] [arg hostname] or [cmd -server] [arg hostname]"] Specify an alternative name server for this request. [def "[cmd -protocol] [arg tcp|udp]"] Specify the network protocol to use for this request. Can be one of [arg tcp] or [arg udp]. [def "[cmd -port] [arg portnum]"] Specify an alternative port. [def "[cmd -search] [arg domainlist]"] [def "[cmd -timeout] [arg milliseconds]"] Override the default timeout. [def "[cmd -type] [arg TYPE]"] Specify the type of DNS record you are interested in. Valid values are A, NS, MD, MF, CNAME, SOA, MB, MG, MR, NULL, WKS, PTR, HINFO, MINFO, MX, TXT, SPF, SRV, AAAA, AXFR, MAILB, MAILA and *. See RFC1035 for details about the return values. See [uri http://spf.pobox.com/] about SPF. See (3) about AAAA records and RFC2782 for details of SRV records. [def "[cmd -class] [arg CLASS]"] Specify the class of domain name. This is usually IN but may be one of IN for internet domain names, CS, CH, HS or * for any class. [def "[cmd -recurse] [arg boolean]"] Set to [arg false] if you do not want the name server to recursively act upon your request. Normally set to [arg true]. [def "[cmd -command] [arg procname]"] Set a procedure to be called upon request completion. The procedure will be passed the token as its only argument. [list_end] [para] [call [cmd ::dns::configure] [opt [arg "options"]]] The [cmd ::dns::configure] command is used to setup the dns package. The server to query, the protocol and domain search path are all set via this command. If no arguments are provided then a list of all the current settings is returned. If only one argument then it must the the name of an option and the value for that option is returned. [list_begin definitions] [def "[cmd -nameserver] [arg hostname]"] Set the default name server to be used by all queries. The default is [term localhost]. [def "[cmd -protocol] [arg tcp|udp]"] Set the default network protocol to be used. Default is [arg tcp]. [def "[cmd -port] [arg portnum]"] Set the default port to use on the name server. The default is 53. [def "[cmd -search] [arg domainlist]"] Set the domain search list. This is currently not used. [def "[cmd -timeout] [arg milliseconds]"] Set the default timeout value for DNS lookups. Default is 30 seconds. [def "[cmd -loglevel] [arg level]"] Set the log level used for emitting diagnostic messages from this package. The default is [term warn]. See the [package log] package for details of the available levels. [list_end] [para] [call [cmd ::dns::name] [arg token]] Returns a list of all domain names returned as an answer to your query. [para] [call [cmd ::dns::address] [arg token]] Returns a list of the address records that match your query. [para] [call [cmd ::dns::cname] [arg token]] Returns a list of canonical names (usually just one) matching your query. [para] [call [cmd ::dns::result] [arg token]] Returns a list of all the decoded answer records provided for your query. This permits you to extract the result for more unusual query types. [para] [call [cmd ::dns::status] [arg token]] Returns the status flag. For a successfully completed query this will be [emph ok]. May be [emph error] or [emph timeout] or [emph eof]. See also [cmd ::dns::error] [para] [call [cmd ::dns::error] [arg token]] Returns the error message provided for requests whose status is [emph error]. If there is no error message then an empty string is returned. [para] [call [cmd ::dns::reset] [arg token]] Reset or cancel a DNS query. [para] [call [cmd ::dns::wait] [arg token]] Wait for a DNS query to complete and return the status upon completion. [para] [call [cmd ::dns::cleanup] [arg token]] Remove all state variables associated with the request. [para] [call [cmd ::dns::nameservers]] Attempts to return a list of the nameservers currently configured for the users system. On a unix machine this parses the /etc/resolv.conf file for nameservers (if it exists) and on Windows systems we examine certain parts of the registry. If no nameserver can be found then the loopback address (127.0.0.1) is used as a default. [list_end] [comment { ----------------------------------------------------------- }] [section EXAMPLES] [para] [example { % set tok [dns::resolve www.tcl.tk] ::dns::1 % dns::status $tok ok % dns::address $tok 199.175.6.239 % dns::name $tok www.tcl.tk % dns::cleanup $tok }] [para] Using DNS URIs as queries: [example { % set tok [dns::resolve "dns:tcl.tk;type=MX"] % set tok [dns::resolve "dns://l.root-servers.net/www.tcl.tk"] }] [para] Reverse address lookup: [example { % set tok [dns::resolve 127.0.0.1] ::dns::1 % dns::name $tok localhost % dns::cleanup $tok }] [comment { ----------------------------------------------------------- }] [section {REFERENCES}] [list_begin enumerated] [enum] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities", RFC 1034, November 1987. ([uri http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1034.txt]) [enum] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Implementation and Specification", RFC 1035, November 1087. ([uri http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1035.txt]) [enum] Thompson, S. and Huitema, C., "DNS Extensions to support IP version 6", RFC 1886, December 1995. ([uri http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1886.txt]) [enum] Josefsson, S., "Domain Name System Uniform Resource Identifiers", Internet-Draft, October 2003, ([uri http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-josefsson-dns-url-09.txt]) [enum] Gulbrandsen, A., Vixie, P. and Esibov, L., "A DNS RR for specifying the location of services (DNS SRV)", RFC 2782, February 2000, ([uri http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2782.txt]) [enum] Ohta, M. "Incremental Zone Transfer in DNS", RFC 1995, August 1996, ([uri http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1995.txt]) [list_end] [see_also resolver(5)] [section AUTHORS] Pat Thoyts [section {BUGS, IDEAS, FEEDBACK}] This document, and the package it describes, will undoubtedly contain bugs and other problems. Please report such in the category [emph dns] of the [uri {http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=12883} {Tcllib SF Trackers}]. Please also report any ideas for enhancements you may have for either package and/or documentation. [keywords DNS resolver {domain name service} {rfc 1034} {rfc 1035} {rfc 1886}] [manpage_end]