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.

Same question: superuser.com/questions/258151/…
– Ricardo
May 11, 2021 at 23:08 — Ricardo, May 11, 2021 at 23:08

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

110

There are several ways - here are two:

cat /etc/resolv.conf

-or-

scutil --dns

answered Aug 5, 2013 at 18:34

Scot

7,5854 gold badges38 silver badges46 bronze badges

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, 2016 at 5:46
2

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, 2017 at 21:08
6

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, 2018 at 8:43
1

I like scutil --dns | grep nameserver to just get the DNS servers.
– SamAndrew81
Jun 26, 2019 at 0:16

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

5

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, 2017 at 20:31

kenorb

11.9k15 gold badges79 silver badges137 bronze badges

7

This is the same as scutil --dns | grep nameserver correct (just different syntax)?
– SamAndrew81
Jun 26, 2019 at 0:18
1

@SamAndrew81 correct same
– slm
May 6, 2021 at 16:47

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estani · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-25 10:17:36Z

-1

To get all into a comma separated line:

scutil --dns | sed -n '/nameserver/ { s/^.* : \(.*\)/\1/p; }' | sort -u | paste -s -d',' -

answered Jul 25 at 10:17

estani

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grep is much simpler why use the complex regexp?
– mmmmmm
Jul 25 at 10:50
Which complex regex? I would differ that dots and starts are a complex regex... in any case this returns the IPs separated by commas, grep cannot extract those values, it just select lines. Or am I missing something?
– estani
Jul 26 at 10:16
Any regex including \ is complex to me and I suspect most programmers. ANyway it is more complex in this case than grep. The OP only wants to display the IPs so why go more complex
– mmmmmm
Jul 26 at 10:42
ok. '\' is an escape sequence, not part of the regex, but part of sed. The title of my answer already states what this does, which is what I needed (and anyone doing anything with the IP afterwards within the same shell). I'm sorry you don't like that I shared.
– estani
Jul 26 at 13:00
that is my point to enter a regex you need to escape characters. How can you enter in a script just the regex. You can't separate the two you can only deal with the presentation on the screen. Even then it is just odd characters
– mmmmmm
Jul 26 at 19:27

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3 Answers 3