How can I display the current DNS servers from the command line under OS X?

Question

I want to display the DNS servers that are used by the current network setup on OS X, from the command line.

Scot · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-05 18:34:53Z

78

There are several ways - here are two:

cat /etc/resolv.conf

-or-

scutil --dns

answered Aug 5 '13 at 18:34

Scot

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1

Its extremely annoying that networksetup -getdnsservers doesn't work for DHCP-assigned DNS servers. I always forget about scutil. The 'sc' stands for System Configuration? It sure doesn't configure much of the system... – Geoff Nixon Sep 10 '16 at 5:46
1

It's also good to note that dig or nslookup don't necessarily give a realistic picture of how the macOS applications resolve domain names from the local system, especially when multiple (domain-specific) DNSes have been configured, such as when using a VPN client for multiple concurrent connections. Instead of nslookup or dig, use dscacheutil -q host -a name somehostname.com to test DNS resolution. It takes into account all configured DNS servers as well as their priority order. – Ville Aug 9 '17 at 21:08
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cat /etc/resolv.conf doesn't seem like a "reliable" solution anymore. This is the notice I get in macOS High Sierra when using it: (sorry for the formatting - comments don't support simple line breaks) # macOS Notice # # This file is not consulted for DNS hostname resolution, address # resolution, or the DNS query routing mechanism used by most # processes on this system. # # To view the DNS configuration used by this system, use: # scutil --dns – PatrikN Apr 4 '18 at 8:43
I like scutil --dns | grep nameserver to just get the DNS servers. – SamAndrew81 Jun 26 '19 at 0:16

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kenorb · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-12 11:27:11Z

3

The following shell command can be useful to list the current DNS entries:

grep nameserver <(scutil --dns)

To filter it out for the script, you can pipe the output into awk '{print $3}' or grep -o "[0-9]\+\.[0-9]\+\.[0-9]\+\.[0-9]\+" command.

answered Oct 24 '17 at 20:31

kenorb

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This is the same as scutil --dns | grep nameserver correct (just different syntax)? – SamAndrew81 Jun 26 '19 at 0:18

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2 Answers 2