The DNS PTR record is a not-so-popular type. However, in this ocean of DNS records, there are a few of them that you absolutely should know. One of them is exactly the PTR record. You’ve come to the perfect page if you’re wondering why it’s so essential.
The Domain Name System, or DNS, is one of the Internet’s pillars that we utilize every day but don’t realize it. This system is like a telephone directory with the names of people. But instead of a phone, it uses an IP address corresponding to a domain name.
The Domain Name System was created in 1980 by Paul Mockapetris. Until then, to access a website, you had to enter its IP. Since this process is prolonged and we can’t remember every single IP address, Paul invented the DNS system. To this day, it is the backbone of the internet.
Testing if you have properly set a Reverse DNS zone and PTR records inside it is a straightforward task with the built-in tool Dig command. You can see if the IP address matches the domain name with a simple DNS lookup. So let’s get into it.
The Dig command is a built-in command that you can find on any Linux distribution and serves for various DNS lookups, including a Reverse DNS lookup.