How can I resolve an IP address to a hostname in Arch Linux?

Question

What is the most concise way to resolve a hostname to a local IP address in Arch Linux?

I coulnd't find that in the Arch Repo or AUR, do you know what package this comes with? — Paradox, Jul 17 '16 at 18:30
Thanks. You are welcome to add an answer so I can close this question — Paradox, Jul 17 '16 at 18:32
I had seen that originally but found it to be the opposite of what I am looking to do. — Paradox, Jul 17 '16 at 18:40

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 17 '16 at 18:37

You can use either host or nslookup from bind-tools:

$ host 172.217.19.195
195.19.217.172.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer fra02s21-in-f3.1e100.net.


$ nslookup 172.217.19.195
Server:     192.168.2.1
Address:    192.168.2.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
195.19.217.172.in-addr.arpa name = fra02s21-in-f3.1e100.net.

Kusalananda · Answer 2 · 2016-07-17T18:41:03.607

2

The host utility will return a string containing the resolved host name:

$ host 8.8.8.8
8.8.8.8.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer google-public-dns-a.google.com.

This ought to be fairly easy to parse in any shell script. If the host name lookup fails, host exits with a non-zero exit status:

$ if ! host 8.8.8.1 2>/dev/null; then echo "lookup failed"; fi
lookup failed

This utility is part of the bind-tools package in Arch Linux.

edited Jul 17 '16 at 18:41

answered Jul 17 '16 at 18:37

Kusalananda

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There is no `dnsutils` package in Arch, it was replaces by `bind-tools` in June 2015. – Wieland Jul 17 '16 at 18:40

How can I resolve an IP address to a hostname in Arch Linux?

2 Answers2