DNS ANY Record Query

What is DNS ?

DNS (Domain Name System) is a service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Users can easily remember domain names, but he computers understand IP addresses that’s why we need DNS. For example, without this service, you have to type '185.60.216.35' in your browser instead of www.facebook.com to access Facebook. IP - Domain mappings are kept on DNS servers. You can query those matches on securityforeveryone.com

There is two type of IP addresses IPv4, and IPv6. IPv4 address looks like these:

            8.8.8.8
            127.0.0.1
            255.255.255.255
            

IPv6 addressed looks like these (all of them are the same IP):

            ::ffff:808:808
            0:0:0:0:0:ffff:0808:0808
            0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:ffff:0808:0808
            

What is DNS ANY Query

An ANY DNS query is used to get all DNS records available for a specific domain name.

You can query various DNS records (such as a, ns, aaaa, mx, txt) of a domain name one by one, or you can query all records from the DNS server using ANY query. DNS servers usually do not respond to this type of query. There are two reasons for this:

1. No service yet needs all DNS records at the same time :). Why would any person or system want all of the records?
2. Queries of this type are small in size. But the size of the answer is much larger. Therefore, ANY queries are used in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks using fake queries. If you are not managing a DNS server, this is not about you.

How to Do DNS ANY Query

There are multiple ways to do DNS ANY query. The easiest way is to write the domain name on the form above. Also we describe other methods according to OSx, Linux and Windows below.

If you are using a Linux or OS X operating system, open terminal and type dig -t any yourdomain.com. If dns servers does not respond to ANY Query, it would look like that:

dig -t ANY securityforeveryone.com
;; ANSWER SECTION:
securityforeveryone.com. 3788	IN	HINFO	"RFC8482" ""

If your DNS server respond to DNS ANY query it would look like this:

  ;securityforeveryone.com.			IN	ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
securityforeveryone.com.		3560	IN	MX	10 mx1.securityforeveryone.com.
securityforeveryone.com.		3560	IN	MX	20 mx2.securityforeveryone.com.
securityforeveryone.com.		3560	IN	NS	ns1.akam.net.
securityforeveryone.com.		3560	IN	NS	ns1.akam.net.
securityforeveryone.com.		7160	IN	TXT	"v=spf1 ip4:1.1.1.0/24 a mx -all"
securityforeveryone.com.		7160	IN	TXT	"google-site-verification=XXX,YYY"
securityforeveryone.com.		1760	IN	A	8.8.8.8
securityforeveryone.com.		3560	IN	SOA	ns1.securityforeveryone.com. admin.securityforeveryone.com. 2015091959 10800 3600 604800 3600

If you are using Windows open powershell and type Resolve-DnsName -Name yourdomain.com -Type ANY

Some Advice for Common Problems

If you see records like A, NS, MX, TXT in the output of ANY query, it means your server is answering ANY queries. And, it can be used by malicious parties to attack others. Actually, this is not about you if you are not either a hosting provider or a DNS administrator. However, it would be a good idea to warn them.