NS Lookup

Understanding Nameserver Lookup

Our NS lookup tool shows the NS record of a domain. NS records indicate which servers hold the records for a domain. That server is the one queried during DNS lookups when clients are searching for the relevant domains.

How To Lookup an NS Record With Our Tool?

Here’s how you use the NS record checker tool to lookup an NS record of a domain.

• Open the “NS Lookup” webpage. 
• Select your preferred DNS server (the default is Google DNS)
• Input the domain name whose records you want to check.
• Press “Enter” or click the () button.

This will show you the NS records of your inputted domain name.

Example of NS Lookup Output

Here’s what you can expect to see once you use the tool to retrieve NS record's information.

Where:

• NS is the Record type.
• example.com. Is the domain this NS record applies to.
• 2552 is the TTL (Time to Live) in seconds.
• "ns1.example.com" is the name of the nameserver that holds the records for the “example.com.” domain. The same goes for the ns2.example.com and ns3.example.com.

In the given example, there are multiple NS records to create redundancy. The NS1 server is the primary nameserver. Under ordinary circumstances, it will handle all requests.

The NS2 and NS3 servers are secondary nameservers. They only work when either the NS1 server is down or over-encumbered with requests. This is called creating redundancy.

Which server is primary and which is secondary is decided by priority, which can be set manually when creating the NS records. The higher priority server is the primary server, while the lower priority ones are secondary servers.

How To Do NS Record Lookup In Windows/Mac-Linux

To manually lookup NS records, you can use the command prompt (on Windows) or the terminal (MAC and Linux). Here are the steps required to do so.

Windows Command Prompt

• Press “Win+R” to open the run menu
• Type “cmd” and hit enter
• Enter the following command “nslookup -q=ns example.com”. Here, you have to replace “example.com” with the actual domain name whose records you want to check.
• Press enter, and you will see some text. The NS record is found under the label “Non-authoritative Answer.”

And that’s it for Windows.

Mac/Linux Terminal

• Open the terminal. 
• Linux: Press “Ctrl+Alt+T” to open the terminal.
• Mac: Press “Command+Space” and type “terminal.app” and hit Enter.
• Once in the terminal, enter the following command:
  “dig example.com NS”

Needless to say, you have to replace example.com with the domain name of your choice.

• Hit the Enter key to get the record. Your NS record will be found under the “Answer Section”

Who Can Use the NS Record Lookup Tool?

Our tool is designed to be used by professionals such as the following.

• Web Admins
• Website Owners
• Network Administrators
• IT Professionals
• Web Developers/Programmers
• And others with similar roles

These people need to check NS records to troubleshoot connectivity issues, domain name system issues, and security issues. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• What is a Name Server Record

A Name Server (NS) record is a type of DNS record that describes which DNS servers are considered authoritative for a domain. The authoritative DNS server contains the original DNS records, and it is queried by a resolver when it is looking for a domain for the first time. Without NS records, it would be impossible for a domain to be found as its records would be unlocatable.

• What is the NS Lookup Command?

The NS lookup command in Windows is “nslookup -q=ns example.com”. In MAC and Linux, the command is “dig example.com NS”. 

In both commands, you have to replace example.com with your domain name.