The DNS Check Tool is a troubleshooting tool that checks the availability and proper response for a particular DNS Resource Record query against your entire DNS environment.  The premise behind the tool is that a resource record is searched in a hierarchical manner against all DNS servers that make up your internal DNS environment.

The DNS Check tool can interface with a wide variety of network monitoring and management platforms through SNMP, log scraping, and a number of other customizable message formats and interfaces.  The tool can be used standalone as a command-line tool or be installed and integrated into the Netlinx IPAM Web Portal offering greater functionality. The tool attempts to query your entire DNS hierarchy in the following order:

1. Root server (if applicable)
2. Master authoritative name server
3. Remaining authoritative name server(s)
4. Caching name server(s)

The DNS Check Tool was developed for customers that periodically experience issues with the propagation of Dynamic DNS Updates.  The tool is used to test individual look ups of DNS resource records against every DNS server in the corporation.

1. Dynamic DNS failures- pin points drops, DNS server ACL issues
2. Dynamic DNS latency - potential issues with Dynamic DNS or IPAM Message Service Routing
3. DNS zone health - potential record collisions with CNAME records, can identify zones that are not AUTH
4. DNS server troubleshooting - tests server reachability, UDP/TCP issues, service availability, network availability

When incorporated into the Netlinx IPAM Web Portal, the DNS Check Tool plug-in provides extensive real-time feedback, and alerting capabilities.  As a command-line utility the DNS Check Tool can be a powerful troubleshooting ally, helping you quickly pin point issues with Dynamic DNS and IPAM Message Service.

The standalone CLI is written in Perl, and the web version is written in PHP. Other forms of the tool are available upon request.