Can you show me an example of using DNS dig commands in a Python script

Question

I'm trying to incorporate DNS queries into a Python script for a project involving network security analysis. I’ve been using the dig command from the terminal to retrieve DNS records, but I’d like to automate this process through Python.

How can I use the subprocess module to run dig commands within my Python script and then parse the output for further analysis? If there’s a more Pythonic way to perform DNS queries (without shelling out to dig), I’d love to see an example of that as well!

Answer 1

You can run shell commands like dig from within a Python script using the subprocess module.

import subprocess

def dig_query(domain):
    result = subprocess.run(['dig', domain, '+short'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    return result.stdout.decode('utf-8')

domain = 'example.com'
output = dig_query(domain)
print(output)

Rather than using subprocess, you can use Python libraries like dnspython to perform DNS queries directly:

import dns.resolver

def query_dns(domain):
    result = dns.resolver.resolve(domain, 'A')
    for ipval in result:
        print('IP:', ipval.to_text())

query_dns('example.com')

Comments

Great examples! I’m curious—when would you recommend using subprocess with dig over a library like dnspython? Are there specific use cases where one is better than the other?