Manual zone transfers with dig

Transferring zones with named (bind) can be done manually with this command:

dig <master_dns_server> <zone> axfr

Example:

dig 10.1.1.6 example.com axfr

If this is run on a slave named server, /var/named/db.example.com will be updated as well if zone transfers are enabled on both servers.

DNS lookups

To find a hostname when you know the IP address:

nmblookup -A <ip_address>

eg. nmblookup -A 192.168.0.148

or

host <ip_address>

eg. host 192.168.0.148

To find an IP address when you know the hostname, try the following ways:

whois www.google.com
dig www.google.com
nslookup www.google.com