About the DNS Lookup
DNS is the phone book that turns a name like example.com into the addresses and services behind it. This lookup asks Cloudflare's public resolver over DNS-over-HTTPS for the records of the domain you enter and lists them by type: A and AAAA for the web server's IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, CNAME for aliases, MX for the mail servers and their priorities, NS for the name servers that publish the zone, TXT for verification strings and SPF policies, SOA for the zone's serial and timers, CAA for which certificate authorities may issue, and SRV for service endpoints.
Each answer comes with its TTL, the number of seconds a resolver may keep it before asking again. A short TTL such as 60 or 300 usually means the record is meant to change soon, which is what you want before a migration; a long TTL of 86400 explains why a change you just made is still not visible everywhere. If a type returns nothing, the resolver status tells you why: NOERROR with no answers means the name exists but has no record of that type, and NXDOMAIN means the name itself does not exist.
The query is performed by a small function on our edge, because browsers cannot send DNS queries themselves. Only the domain name you typed is forwarded to the resolver; it is not logged or kept. For the registration side of a domain use the WHOIS lookup, and for a single mail or name server question the MX and NS pages give a shorter answer.
How to use
- Type a domain name such as example.com; a full URL is fine, the path is stripped.
- Leave the record type on All common types, or pick one to see just that type.
- Read the value and TTL of each record; the resolver status explains empty sections.
- Copy the table or download it as a text file.
Common questions
- Which resolver answers the query?
- Cloudflare's public resolver at 1.1.1.1, reached over DNS-over-HTTPS from our edge function. Its answers can lag a few minutes behind the authoritative servers while cached records expire.
- Why is my new record not showing?
- The old record is still within its TTL somewhere between you and the authoritative server. Wait for the TTL that the lookup shows to pass, then query again.
- Does the lookup send anything except the domain?
- No. The domain name and the chosen record type go to our function and on to the resolver; nothing else is sent and nothing is stored.
- Can I look up a subdomain?
- Yes. Enter the full name, such as mail.example.com. CNAME answers show where an alias points; A and AAAA answers show the final addresses.