dog — A Command-Line DNS Client for Humans

Introduction

dig is powerful but its output is a wall of angle brackets. dog is the modern successor: colorful, well-spaced, and aware of DNS-over-TLS (DoT), DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH), and Tor. A single static Rust binary, it fits in CI pipelines and dev containers without pulling in bind-utils.

What dog Does

• Performs DNS lookups for A, AAAA, MX, TXT, CNAME, NS, SOA, SRV, PTR, CAA, and more.
• Supports UDP, TCP, DNS-over-TLS, DNS-over-HTTPS.
• Colorizes record types, TTLs, and data.
• Emits JSON with --json for scripts.
• Accepts multiple records/domains in one invocation.

Architecture Overview

dog parses CLI args, resolves the requested server (udp/tcp/tls/https), constructs a DNS query with the dns crate, and transmits via the chosen transport. Responses decode into typed records and render via ansi_term. JSON output uses serde for downstream tooling.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Install via brew, cargo, apt, dnf, scoop, or release binaries.
• Config file ~/.config/dog/dog.toml stores default servers.
• DOG_DEBUG=1 prints wire-format for troubleshooting.
• DoT/DoH endpoints work with custom CAs via --tls-ca.

Key Features

• Colorized, readable output out of the box.
• DoT/DoH/DoQ transports for modern privacy.
• JSON for scripting and dashboards.
• Multiple queries per invocation (dog A AAAA example.com github.com).
• ~2MB static binary.

Comparison with Similar Tools

• dig — canonical; verbose output, no DoH by default.
• drill — ldns-based; no DoH.
• kdig — knot-dns client; solid DoT/DoH but CLI less polished.
• doggo — Go-based modern CLI; feature-parity close to dog.
• nslookup — interactive & dated.

FAQ

Q: DoQ support? A: Experimental behind a build flag.

Q: Can I use dog in CI? A: Yes — --json pairs well with jq assertions.

Q: How do I pick a resolver? A: @1.1.1.1, @https://dns.google/dns-query, or @tls://9.9.9.9.

Q: DNSSEC validation? A: Displays RRSIG records but does not validate; pair with unbound for validation.

Sources

• https://github.com/ogham/dog
• https://dns.lookup.dog