Reverse nslookup Command

How do I use nslookup command line administrative tool for testing and troubleshooting DNS servers including reverse lookup under UNIX or Windows operating systems? How do I look up an IP address of a domain or host on a network using nslookup command?

nslookup is a UNIX or Windows (nslookup.exe)program to query Internet domain name servers. Nslookup has two modes: interactive and non-interactive. Interactive mode allows the user to query name servers for information about various hosts and domains or to print a list of hosts in a domain. Non-interactive mode is used to print just the name and requested information for a host or domain.

UNIX Example

To find out an IP address of cyberciti.biz, enter:
$ nslookup cyberciti.biz
Sample outputs:

Server:		127.0.0.1
Address:	127.0.0.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	cyberciti.biz
Address: 75.126.153.206

You can run reverse ip lookup as follows:
$ nslookup 75.126.153.206
Sample outputs:

Server:		127.0.0.1
Address:	127.0.0.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
206.153.126.75.in-addr.arpa	name = www.cyberciti.biz.
Authoritative answers can be found from:
153.126.75.in-addr.arpa	nameserver = ns2.arpa.global-datacenter.com.
153.126.75.in-addr.arpa	nameserver = ns1.arpa.global-datacenter.com.
ns1.arpa.global-datacenter.com	internet address = 67.228.254.20
ns2.arpa.global-datacenter.com	internet address = 67.228.255.20
ns2.arpa.global-datacenter.com	has AAAA address 2607:f0d0:0:15:2000::1

MS-Windows Example

To perform a reverse lookup on an IP address 75.126.153.206, enter (open MS-DOS prompt by clicking on Start > Run > Type > Cmd.exe):
nslookup 75.126.153.206

Server: localhost
Address: 127.0.0.1
Name: www.cyberciti.biz
Address: 75.126.153.206

Sample session:

Fig.01: A reverse lookup on an IP address using nslookup.exe

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