The easy way to make dig more useful: .digrc
I’ve been a long-time “dig” user (on Mac and Linux) to retrieve DNS records before I start transferring a domain to a new registrar. Every time I issue the same dig commands to gather the data I need and put it in a text file for easy reference later. Dig always outputs way more information than I need and I end up fishing through most of it to find the one or two lines that interest me.
$ dig jssm.com any
; <<>> DiG 9.3.6-APPLE-P2 <<>> jssm.com any
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 37409
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 7, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;jssm.com. IN ANY
;; ANSWER SECTION:
jssm.com. 7200 IN MX 5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN MX 0 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN A 216.98.141.250
jssm.com. 7200 IN A 69.72.142.98
jssm.com. 7200 IN SOA ns8.zoneedit.com. soacontact.zoneedit.com. 1255263341 14400 7200 950400 7200
jssm.com. 7200 IN NS ns17.zoneedit.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN NS ns8.zoneedit.com.
;; Query time: 62 msec
;; SERVER: 172.16.0.100#53(172.16.0.100)
;; WHEN: Tue Mar 9 10:10:20 2010
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 203
Dig Options
After perusing the man page for dig, I discovered the magical combination of options that hides all the stuff I don’t want to see while still returning all the data I do want to see: +nostats +nocomments +nocmd +noquestion +recurse.
Now my command is messy, cumbersome, and difficult to remember, but I have what I want:
$ dig +nostats +nocomments +nocmd +noquestion +recurse jssm.com any
jssm.com. 7200 IN MX 0 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN MX 5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN A 69.72.142.98
jssm.com. 7200 IN A 216.98.141.250
jssm.com. 7200 IN SOA ns8.zoneedit.com. soacontact.zoneedit.com. 1255263341 14400 7200 950400 7200
jssm.com. 7200 IN NS ns8.zoneedit.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN NS ns17.zoneedit.com.
.digrc
I was delighted to see that dig supports a .digrc file for setting default options. I simply plopped the options I like into my ~/.digrc file all on a single line, issued my simple query, and voila! just the data I need without the extra stuff I don’t.
$ dig jssm.com any
jssm.com. 7200 IN MX 0 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN MX 5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN A 69.72.142.98
jssm.com. 7200 IN A 216.98.141.250
jssm.com. 7200 IN SOA ns8.zoneedit.com. soacontact.zoneedit.com. 1255263341 14400 7200 950400 7200
jssm.com. 7200 IN NS ns8.zoneedit.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN NS ns17.zoneedit.com.
Bonus Syntax
I also discovered that dig supports multiple queries on the command line. I can now issue a single command and get all the DNS information I need for a domain:
$ dig jssm.com any www.jssm.com any mail.jssm.com any
jssm.com. 7200 IN MX 5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN MX 0 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN A 216.98.141.250
jssm.com. 7200 IN A 69.72.142.98
jssm.com. 7200 IN SOA ns8.zoneedit.com. soacontact.zoneedit.com. 1255263341 14400 7200 950400 7200
jssm.com. 7200 IN NS ns17.zoneedit.com.
jssm.com. 7200 IN NS ns8.zoneedit.com.
www.jssm.com. 7200 IN CNAME wfb.zoneedit.com.
wfb.zoneedit.com. 951 IN A 216.98.141.250
wfb.zoneedit.com. 951 IN A 69.72.142.98
mail.jssm.com. 7200 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
Smitty's Thoughts 
August 3, 2013 at 12:41 pm
Really useful post
Very knowledgeable.
April 15, 2014 at 9:59 am
Thanks for the fruitful article. What about having the same for Windows OS?
February 9, 2021 at 5:48 pm
I know this is an old article but it’s one of the first google search results so I want to answer your question for anyone else who is trying to use the .digrc file on Windows. Obviously you will need to create the .digrc file but you also need to create a user environment variable called “home” with a value of the path to the directory where the .digrc file lives.