DNS Archiver

A Simple DNS lookup tool that dumps all records for archiving.

Useful to run on a schedule to monitor DNS changes which can help if a customer modifies their DNS and breaks their site you can quickly debug and tell what the old (correct) records were.

Install

The recommended way to run is with uvx (part of uv):

# Run directly without installing (recommended)
uvx dns-archiver example.com

# Or install persistently
uv tool install dns-archiver

# Alternative: use pipx
pipx install dns-archiver

Usage

% dns-archiver --help

Usage: dns-archiver [OPTIONS] NAME

╭─ Arguments ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ *    name      TEXT  DNS name to lookup [required]                                                                   │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
╭─ Options ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ --record                              [all|a|aaaa|cname|txt|ns|mx|soa]  The DNS record to archive [default: ALL]     │
│ --ttl                     --no-ttl                                      Include TTL values or not [default: ttl]     │
│ --nameserver          -n              TEXT                              DNS nameserver(s) to query (can be specified │
│                                                                         multiple times)                              │
│ --version             -v                                                                                             │
│ --install-completion                                                    Install completion for the current shell.    │
│ --show-completion                                                       Show completion for the current shell, to    │
│                                                                         copy it or customize the installation.       │
│ --help                                                                  Show this message and exit.                  │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Examples

Basic Usage

# Archive all DNS records for a domain
dns-archiver example.com

# Archive only A records
dns-archiver example.com --record A

# Archive without TTL values
dns-archiver example.com --no-ttl

Using Custom Nameservers

# Query using Google's DNS
dns-archiver example.com -n 8.8.8.8

# Query using Cloudflare's DNS
dns-archiver example.com -n 1.1.1.1

# Query with multiple nameservers (uses first available)
dns-archiver example.com -n 8.8.8.8 -n 1.1.1.1

# Check DNS propagation across different providers
dns-archiver example.com -n 8.8.8.8 > google-dns.json
dns-archiver example.com -n 1.1.1.1 > cloudflare-dns.json
diff google-dns.json cloudflare-dns.json

Monitoring and Archiving

# Save DNS snapshot to a file with timestamp
dns-archiver example.com > "dns-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).json"

# Query specific record types for monitoring
dns-archiver example.com --record MX -n 8.8.8.8