What is the best way to use APIs for DNS footprinting in Node js

Question

In my current project, I’m trying to perform DNS footprinting to map out the public-facing DNS records of a target domain. I’ve read that APIs can be helpful for this, and I’m using Node.js for the application.

Which APIs should I use to gather DNS information, such as A, MX, TXT, and other records? Are there any specific libraries or tools in the Node.js ecosystem that would make this easier? I’m looking for guidance on how to efficiently integrate these APIs into my project for accurate DNS footprinting.

Answer 1

There are several APIs that can help you retrieve DNS records while DNS footprinting in Node.js

Services like ipinfo.io, dnslookup.io, or whoisxmlapi.com provide various DNS record types (A, MX, TXT, etc.).

Consider the following example using Node.js’s built-in dns module:

const dns = require('dns');

dns.resolve('example.com', 'A', (err, addresses) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('A records:', addresses);
});

This uses Node.js's built-in dns module to resolve a domain name to its corresponding IP addresses.

You can consider using libraries like axios for API requests or node-fetch for complex needs:

const axios = require('axios');

axios.get('https://api.dnslookup.io/v1/example.com')
  .then(response => console.log(response.data))
  .catch(error => console.error(error));

This uses the axios library to make an HTTP GET request to an external DNS lookup API to retrieve similar information.

Comments

Great explanation! I’ve worked with the dns module before, but I never thought about using external APIs like dnslookup.io. This will definitely come in handy for more complex DNS footprinting tasks.