12 ms·

Show HN: "q", a DNS query tool with support for UDP, TCP, DoT, DoH, DoQ and ODoH

140 points by natesales 4y ago

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
Let me agree with the comments so far: Cool tool, not cool enough to take a 1-char name by default.
jjice 4y ago
Nice tool and nice interface. It's a shame that (and to no one's fault) we tend to rely on POSIX standard tools (or at least ones we can expect). I do it too since I like to know that that new machine I'm logged into has what I want. The big exception is for personal scripts where I'd only run them on my own machine since I have full control. Very nice looking personal tool though.
ondra 4y ago
Could be useful, but not _that_ useful for me to consider polluting my global shell namespace with this name.
- bejelentkezni 4y ago
  What do you anticipate being the problem? I have several single-letter commands myself.
  - CorrodeXY 4y ago
    Its probably pretty common to use q for one of those commands. It is also easy to accidentally enter an errant q into the shell. Call it qdns?
    - itake 4y ago
      IMHO, it should follow `jq`: `dnsq`: adjective noun
  - geocar 4y ago
    I already have a `q`, and frankly it's useful to me, so this piece of software will never be called `q` on any of my systems. I suspect a lot of people have locked up all the single-letter aliases too, and I believe almost all of them would have the same position. There's other tools for doing DNS diagnostics that are already installed on every system in the world. If I learn this one, I will have to take responsibility for maintaining the fact that I have to give it another name, and distribute that to other systems -- I won't be able to use this tool in a script, because I'll have to make sure the name is configurable for everyone else just like me. Now I will not even give this software a chance because all of that seems so obvious to me, and the cuteness of the name such a display of fetishism (which usually detracts from quality in my experience) has me starting with an extremely low opinion and I haven't even made it to the github page yet. This software would have to be really good to overcome that. Is it? I anticipate that being the big problem with choosing such a high-value single-letter name for something with such a narrow use-case. It just seems smarter to learn the tools that are already there. Heck, "c" can do everything and it doesn't even have the gall to do this; I think "cc" is a much better name, and whilst there are still a fair number of two-letter combinations that aren't used, I think I probably compile more C programs than do DNS diagnostics so maybe three or more letters would be better (if you buy the idea that huffman-coding your names is a good idea-- and I do)
itake 4y ago
9k stars and 5yrs old: https://github.com/harelba/q https://github.com/harelba/q Why not call it like dnsq or dq like jq (https://stedolan.github.io/jq/ https://stedolan.github.io/jq/) did?
- rytill 4y ago
  You can’t just claim a letter and expect no one else to ever make a thing that is named that letter. Except C.
  - itake 4y ago
    From a trademark perspective, that is exactly how it works: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/laws/dates-use-1 https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/laws/dates-use-1 From a "I can only have one cli alias to q" perspective, then I am sticking with SQL "q" cmd, b/c its more useful and I have been using it longer than this one.
  - WhyNotHugo 4y ago
    I use a lot of single-letter aliases, so I'd really prefer applications avoid using single-letter names, and reverse that specifically for user-local aliases.
- stormbrew 4y ago
  There's already a thing called `dnsq`, it's part of the djbdns suite (along with dnsqr for recursive queries). I actually miss it, now that pretty much all of djb's tools have fallen out of both fashion and maintenance, it was a much better -- and simpler -- tool than dig or nslookup.
bzxcvbn 4y ago
You are actively rooting against your tool/docs being discoverable by search engines, aren't you?
LeoPanthera 4y ago
See also "dog" which I've been using for a while, works well. https://github.com/ogham/dog https://github.com/ogham/dog I actually already have a "q" alias, I think single-letter aliases are probably quite common. Are there many other well-known utilities with a single-letter name? Edit: Turns out I have one installed, "z", a universal archiver front-end. https://legacy.cs.indiana.edu/~kinzler/z/ https://legacy.cs.indiana.edu/~kinzler/z/
- jedisct1 4y ago
  I use doggo, a better version written in Go: https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo
- dustyharddrive 4y ago
  I use a “z” as well, but it’s a global cd tool. https://github.com/rupa/z/ https://github.com/rupa/z/
  - memorable 4y ago
    I use Zoxide[0], which incidentally also uses "z" as its main command, and it's also a "cd" tool. [0]: https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide
- joshbaptiste 4y ago
  Grr.. the latest dog binary release gives me "GLIBC_2.32 not found" errors on x64 Linux..
  - LeoPanthera 4y ago
    A version might be on your repo - it's in the Homebrew repo on Macs.
- kevincox 4y ago
  It definitely makes sense for me to reserve 1-letter commands for the user.
srazzaque 4y ago
Interesting tool. Though I'm not sure KDB+ users will be happy with the name.
kelvinko 4y ago
Nice work! convenient to use!~
SuperSandro2000 4y ago
kdig anyone?
deknos 4y ago
can you PLEASE use a longer word? this is hard to google and bad in an environment. everyone can abbreviate it with their shell if they want to. at least the go people started calling the language golang. for heavens sake.
- politician 4y ago
  I like that we can generate a unique searchable phrase by the simple trick of pairing a term with its hypernym. "qdnsquerytool"
post-factum 4y ago
Nice, given `dog` seems to be stalled. Why `q` over `doggo` btw?
- jedisct1 4y ago
  There's already https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo
  - post-factum 4y ago
    This was my question: what's the benefit of using `q` over `doggo`? Both are in Go, both seem to give nice colourful results. I'd appreciate having some comparison.
jedisct1 4y ago
No support for dnscrypt, anonymized DNS and the ability to directly enter DNS stamps?
revertmean 4y ago
Agree with others about the name, but I have a suggestion. There (surprisingly!) doesn't seem to be any *nix utility called `qed` so why not go with that? Maybe standing for "query extended dns" or something. You can also riff on "The best DNS query tool by far. QED." and things of that nature. Best grab it before someone else does.
- loloquwowndueo 4y ago
  Because the “Ed” suffix suggests editor?
tyingq 4y ago
Lots of nice little touches like the ttl in hms format, the --format=pretty/json/raw, etc. Bookmarking for later.
ducktective 4y ago
Thanks! Sorry if this seems obvious, but what is "DNS query tool" useful for?
- politician 4y ago
  The domain name system is a hierarchical database of records that computers use to associate names ("news.ycombinator.com") with an IP address where the corresponding server is listening for connections. It's like how the post office knows how to get to your house to deliver a letter given only your address. It's a map of addresses. Computers query this system all of the time to figure out where they're going. It's helpful for people to be able to query this system too, if only to help themselves understand where the computers are going to go. People create these records, after all, not the computers that use them.
dschulz 4y ago
Very useful. Just built and installed with the Go tooling. Friendly reminder: you can name the binary WHATEVER YOU WANT in your system. There's absolutely no need to nitpick on the name.
- sodality2 4y ago
  It's more about the discovery on search engines than in my own system.
monkaiju 4y ago
I wrote dug, a cli tool I made to help visualize DNS propagation but is a great learning tool. Similar to dig and dog, but specifically for querying or watching large numbers of DNS servers at once. https://github.com/unfrl/dug https://github.com/unfrl/dug https://dug.unfrl.com https://dug.unfrl.com
alophawen 4y ago
Can we talk about that name, though? It only brings me associations with the Q-Anon movement. Also, one-letter names is hard to google, hard to remember and easy to mix up. If you want to use one letter on the CLI, just use an alias. alias m=make

140 points by natesales 4y ago

Let me agree with the comments so far: Cool tool, not cool enough to take a 1-char name by default.

Nice tool and nice interface. It's a shame that (and to no one's fault) we tend to rely on POSIX standard tools (or at least ones we can expect). I do it too since I like to know that that new machine I'm logged into has what I want. The big exception is for personal scripts where I'd only run them on my own machine since I have full control. Very nice looking personal tool though.

ondra 4y ago

Could be useful, but not _that_ useful for me to consider polluting my global shell namespace with this name.

bejelentkezni 4y ago
What do you anticipate being the problem? I have several single-letter commands myself.
- CorrodeXY 4y ago
  Its probably pretty common to use q for one of those commands. It is also easy to accidentally enter an errant q into the shell. Call it qdns?
  - itake 4y ago
    IMHO, it should follow `jq`: `dnsq`: adjective noun
- geocar 4y ago
  I already have a `q`, and frankly it's useful to me, so this piece of software will never be called `q` on any of my systems. I suspect a lot of people have locked up all the single-letter aliases too, and I believe almost all of them would have the same position. There's other tools for doing DNS diagnostics that are already installed on every system in the world. If I learn this one, I will have to take responsibility for maintaining the fact that I have to give it another name, and distribute that to other systems -- I won't be able to use this tool in a script, because I'll have to make sure the name is configurable for everyone else just like me. Now I will not even give this software a chance because all of that seems so obvious to me, and the cuteness of the name such a display of fetishism (which usually detracts from quality in my experience) has me starting with an extremely low opinion and I haven't even made it to the github page yet. This software would have to be really good to overcome that. Is it? I anticipate that being the big problem with choosing such a high-value single-letter name for something with such a narrow use-case. It just seems smarter to learn the tools that are already there. Heck, "c" can do everything and it doesn't even have the gall to do this; I think "cc" is a much better name, and whilst there are still a fair number of two-letter combinations that aren't used, I think I probably compile more C programs than do DNS diagnostics so maybe three or more letters would be better (if you buy the idea that huffman-coding your names is a good idea-- and I do)

itake 4y ago

9k stars and 5yrs old: https://github.com/harelba/q https://github.com/harelba/q Why not call it like dnsq or dq like jq (https://stedolan.github.io/jq/ https://stedolan.github.io/jq/) did?

rytill 4y ago
You can’t just claim a letter and expect no one else to ever make a thing that is named that letter. Except C.
- itake 4y ago
  From a trademark perspective, that is exactly how it works: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/laws/dates-use-1 https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/laws/dates-use-1 From a "I can only have one cli alias to q" perspective, then I am sticking with SQL "q" cmd, b/c its more useful and I have been using it longer than this one.
- WhyNotHugo 4y ago
  I use a lot of single-letter aliases, so I'd really prefer applications avoid using single-letter names, and reverse that specifically for user-local aliases.
stormbrew 4y ago
There's already a thing called `dnsq`, it's part of the djbdns suite (along with dnsqr for recursive queries). I actually miss it, now that pretty much all of djb's tools have fallen out of both fashion and maintenance, it was a much better -- and simpler -- tool than dig or nslookup.

bzxcvbn 4y ago

You are actively rooting against your tool/docs being discoverable by search engines, aren't you?

LeoPanthera 4y ago

See also "dog" which I've been using for a while, works well. https://github.com/ogham/dog https://github.com/ogham/dog I actually already have a "q" alias, I think single-letter aliases are probably quite common. Are there many other well-known utilities with a single-letter name? Edit: Turns out I have one installed, "z", a universal archiver front-end. https://legacy.cs.indiana.edu/~kinzler/z/ https://legacy.cs.indiana.edu/~kinzler/z/

jedisct1 4y ago
I use doggo, a better version written in Go: https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo
dustyharddrive 4y ago
I use a “z” as well, but it’s a global cd tool. https://github.com/rupa/z/ https://github.com/rupa/z/
- memorable 4y ago
  I use Zoxide[0], which incidentally also uses "z" as its main command, and it's also a "cd" tool. [0]: https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide
joshbaptiste 4y ago
Grr.. the latest dog binary release gives me "GLIBC_2.32 not found" errors on x64 Linux..
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  A version might be on your repo - it's in the Homebrew repo on Macs.
kevincox 4y ago
It definitely makes sense for me to reserve 1-letter commands for the user.

srazzaque 4y ago

Interesting tool. Though I'm not sure KDB+ users will be happy with the name.

kelvinko 4y ago

Nice work! convenient to use!~

SuperSandro2000 4y ago

kdig anyone?

deknos 4y ago

can you PLEASE use a longer word? this is hard to google and bad in an environment. everyone can abbreviate it with their shell if they want to. at least the go people started calling the language golang. for heavens sake.

politician 4y ago
I like that we can generate a unique searchable phrase by the simple trick of pairing a term with its hypernym. "qdnsquerytool"

post-factum 4y ago

Nice, given `dog` seems to be stalled. Why `q` over `doggo` btw?

jedisct1 4y ago
There's already https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo
- post-factum 4y ago
  This was my question: what's the benefit of using `q` over `doggo`? Both are in Go, both seem to give nice colourful results. I'd appreciate having some comparison.

jedisct1 4y ago

No support for dnscrypt, anonymized DNS and the ability to directly enter DNS stamps?

revertmean 4y ago

Agree with others about the name, but I have a suggestion. There (surprisingly!) doesn't seem to be any *nix utility called `qed` so why not go with that? Maybe standing for "query extended dns" or something. You can also riff on "The best DNS query tool by far. QED." and things of that nature. Best grab it before someone else does.

loloquwowndueo 4y ago
Because the “Ed” suffix suggests editor?

tyingq 4y ago

Lots of nice little touches like the ttl in hms format, the --format=pretty/json/raw, etc. Bookmarking for later.

ducktective 4y ago

Thanks! Sorry if this seems obvious, but what is "DNS query tool" useful for?

politician 4y ago
The domain name system is a hierarchical database of records that computers use to associate names ("news.ycombinator.com") with an IP address where the corresponding server is listening for connections. It's like how the post office knows how to get to your house to deliver a letter given only your address. It's a map of addresses. Computers query this system all of the time to figure out where they're going. It's helpful for people to be able to query this system too, if only to help themselves understand where the computers are going to go. People create these records, after all, not the computers that use them.

dschulz 4y ago

Very useful. Just built and installed with the Go tooling. Friendly reminder: you can name the binary WHATEVER YOU WANT in your system. There's absolutely no need to nitpick on the name.

sodality2 4y ago
It's more about the discovery on search engines than in my own system.

monkaiju 4y ago

I wrote dug, a cli tool I made to help visualize DNS propagation but is a great learning tool. Similar to dig and dog, but specifically for querying or watching large numbers of DNS servers at once. https://github.com/unfrl/dug https://github.com/unfrl/dug https://dug.unfrl.com https://dug.unfrl.com

alophawen 4y ago

Can we talk about that name, though? It only brings me associations with the Q-Anon movement. Also, one-letter names is hard to google, hard to remember and easy to mix up. If you want to use one letter on the CLI, just use an alias. alias m=make