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gethost

Current version: 0.03
Updated: 05/Jul/2002

gethost uses local libraries to lookup a hostname or IP address (for reverse lookups). It is useful for troubleshooting, because by using gethostbyname(3) and gethostbyaddr(3) it can check what your system really sees instead of relying on some nameserver's opinion. It can do IPv6.

For example, depending on your OS and setup (like nsswitch) it could check /etc/hosts (and/or maybe NIS).

It can also show the elapsed time (using -t switch) of the gethostbyname(3) call.

Read the manual page gethost(1) (in HTML).

Some examples of the output: 

$ gethost 3ffe:8050:201:1860:290:27ff:feab:19a7 -x 127.0.0.1 -t -6 localhost
Hostname: www6.netbsd.org
Address: 3ffe:8050:201:1860:290:27ff:feab:19a7

Hostname: localhost
Address: 127.0.0.1

Hostname: localhost
Address: ::1
gethostbyname2() took 0.000 seconds

$ ./gethost www.microsoft.com
Hostname: www.microsoft.akadns.net
Alias: www.microsoft.com
Address: 207.46.197.102
Address: 207.46.197.100
Address: 207.46.230.219
Address: 207.46.230.220
Address: 207.46.230.218

$ ./gethost -x 17.254.0.91
Hostname: www.apple.com
Address: 17.254.0.91 

$ ./gethost -t -x 127.0.0.1
Hostname: localhost
Address: 127.0.0.1
gethostbyaddr() took 0.001 seconds

$ ./gethost -t kids
Hostname: kids
Address: 192.168.0.4
gethostbyname() took 0.002 seconds
You can use gethost to see if an IP or hostname resolves: 
$ ./gethost bogus > /dev/null 2>&1 || echo 'no good'
no good

To Do

  • add quiet switch
  • use getopt or similar, so -xt works
  • add option to output in BIND's master file format.

Current version download:
    gethost-0.03.tar.gz (05/Jul/2002)

Previous version download:
    gethost-0.02.tgz (12/Apr/2002)

If you have any ideas, please email. Also, please share your feedback: Is it useful?