Information gathering Using Dnstracer

Dnstracer is another in the line of information gathering tool in Backtrack 5 R3 that determines where a given Domain Name Server (DNS) gets its information from, and follows the chain of DNS servers back to the servers which know the data. It basically works by sending the specified name-server a non-recursive request for the name. If the name server does returns an authoritative answer for the name, the next server is queried. If it returns an non-authoritative answer for the name, the name servers in the authority records will be queried. The program stops if all name-servers are queried.

As can be made out from the screen shhot above,the option switches have variety to offer and thus a whole lot of basic info on the specific DNS can be churned out.The syntax of the command is :

Usage: dnstracer [options] [host]

            -c: disable local caching, default enabled

            -C: enable negative caching, default disabled

            -o: enable overview of received answers, default disabled

            -q <querytype>: query-type to use for the DNS requests, default A

            -r <retries>: amount of retries for DNS requests, default 3

            -s <server>: use this server for the initial request, default localhost

                         If . is specified, A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET will be used.

            -t <maximum timeout>: Limit time to wait per try

            -v: verbose

            -S <ip address>: use this source address.

            -4: don't query IPv6 servers

Open Dnstracer through Kali Linux >> Information Gathering >>  Dns Analysis >> Dnstracer

root@VH0:~# dnstracer -q soa -o google.com

Tracing to google.com[soa] via 192.168.0.1, maximum of 3 retries

192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)

 |\___ ns3.google.com [google.com] (216.239.36.10) Got authoritative answer

 |\___ ns1.google.com [google.com] (216.239.32.10) Got authoritative answer

 |\___ ns2.google.com [google.com] (216.239.34.10) Got authoritative answer

  \___ ns4.google.com [google.com] (216.239.38.10) Got authoritative answer

ns4.google.com (216.239.38.10)          google.com -> serial: 2014021200 mname: ns1.google.com rname: dns-admin.google.com

ns2.google.com (216.239.34.10)          google.com -> serial: 2014021200 mname: ns1.google.com rname: dns-admin.google.com

ns1.google.com (216.239.32.10)          google.com -> serial: 2014021200 mname: ns1.google.com rname: dns-admin.google.com

ns3.google.com (216.239.36.10)          google.com -> serial: 2014021200 mname: ns1.google.com rname: dns-admin.google.com