DNS and Reverse DNS Tool

• Starting the DNS and Reverse DNS Tool
  
• Command Panel
  
• The Use of Mouse Buttons on the Text Box
  

Starting the DNS and Reverse DNS Tool

This name resolution tool allows us to do a name resolution to a domain name or the reverse process to an IP address. Which means that to a given domain name it will give us the IP address associated to that domain, and that IP address would be given to us by the DNS servers used by our current connection, and if we put an IP address on the box, the software will do the reverse process, a reverse DNS, asking the DNS servers if there is any domain name which has as an associated IP address the one that we've written, to give us an answer. This way, we can see if there are domain names associated to some IP addresses easily.

When being opened, this tool will automatically do the name resolution of the domain name given, or the reverse DNS of the IP address given, being that the user can do other operations with other domains or addresses later just by changing the value on the text field and submitting it.

Lets study the several functionalities of this tool below.

Command Panel

In this panel near the top of the window we only have two controls, a text box and a button, which are described here:

• Domain Name or IP Address - It's on this box that we can write the domain name or IP address from which we want to see their associated IP address or do a reverse DNS to it. During the time when we're writing something on the text field, the software will be always trying to obtain the correct address which we're writing, even if it might contain errors, and filter any IP address or domain name from it in real time. If we paste there an IP address, or even two of them in the same line by mistake, as for example "http://www.networkpinger.com/blablabla/", we would have "http://www.networkpinger.com/blablabla/http://www.networkpinger.com/blablabla/" in the text field, and the software would automatically extract from it the correct address as we can see below:

  

  As we can see on the image above, the software was trying to find something valid through all those characters contained on the two addresses together, and to get the correct domain from them, in this case the networkpinger.com. Of course that, if two different domain names exist, the software will have to choose one which could be other than the one the user wanted, and it could even be unable to detect the correct address, but this functionality is very useful for those who may wish to simply copy an entire address from a website and put it on the software and let the software filter the domain or IP address inside of it. By filtering the IP address or domain name, the filtered address or domain would be written on the right top corner of the text box below the input field, and this way the user would always know what has been filtered by the software from the user inserted text, and in the case that nothing appears there on the corner, it would mean that no domain name or IP address was detected from what the user has inserted on the input field, and the Resolve button would become unavailable, and if something valid is detected, that button would be available to be clicked upon.

• Resolve - This is the button that executes the Name Resolution command over what has been written on the input box whether it is a domain name or an IP address. After filtering, as it was described above, if the software is able to detect some domain name or IP address inside the text that the user has inserted, then as it was written above this button would become available to be clicked upon, and if not, it would become unavailable. The same way, the user could click on the Enter key when inside the "Domain Name or IP Address" box also, but anyway it would only return valid results if it had a valid domain name or IP address detected by the software. This button will be unavailable also when the software is executing a name resolution request, to avoid that the user clicks on it before the former name resolution has ended.

The Use of Mouse Buttons on the Text Box

When the Network Pinger software was being developed, it was intended to maintain a close relationship with the former command line tools and for that reason it was decided to maintain a text console on all the windows possible, only for the user to be more familiar with the tools and to be easier to read the results as well as to introduce new users to the world of the command line shells and their text mode commands. At the same time, they are used also to show what would be seen when an user decides to save a report of that command's results on a file or when a user decides to print a report.

This text box is used not only to give us an easy visualization of results, as well as to make a certain interaction between the user and this tool's results possible, and that is made through the toolbars, the menus, as well as the use of the mouse as we'll see below.

It's important to know that in this text box we can do lots of things with just a simple left click of our mouse over any word. If we click on any word with our mouse's left button, the software will select that entire word automatically, and then if we click with the right button over that selection, we we'll get a menu with several options on tools that we can apply to the host that we've just selected, or our own customizable commands that we could apply to any word that we select on certain conditions. If we select a group of words, and then click on that selection with the right mouse button, the software will automatically search for the first host inside that selected text, or the first word in it, and it will be that the one to be used on the menu commands and options when we click with our mouse's right button on the selection. For more information it will be best to check the help page on Software Buttons and Menus.