Although I don't have my requirements completely mapped out yet, I want to see if there's a tool available to do what I think I want. I want to give a DNS zone name and an network address to the tool and have the tool tell me if what's at port 53 of that address returns an authoritative answer for the SOA RR. By "network address" I mean IP, v4 now and later, v6 now *and/or* later. By "give" - the format is negotiable, but I will be starting from a list that associates not only my notion of the authoritative servers and a registration record I have. By "authoritative answer" I expect to see the RCODE=0, AA flag=1, and in the answer section (one SOA, no CNAME please) I want the tool to make a decent effort at UDP congestion handling, i.e., a few retries if there is no answer. I want to be able to call the tool repeatedly and possibly in parallel. I want the tool to return the result in a way I can easily parse with something as stupid as a computer. ;) I mention this because I want a simplified result for use in my testing, as opposed to the next request. I want the tool to return me all header fields and answer section so I can feed this to a diagnosis tool and a stat collector - returned in a way I can send to a different analysis procedure. There are a lot of things I don't want the tool to do. I don't care about the contents of the SOA record's RDATA. no responsible party testing, timing parameters no serial number test I don't care about any other record type. no NS consistency test I don't care about any other aspect of network operations no smtp probing Well, I care, but they are beyond my current mission scope. PS - Comments on my "I wants" and I don't wants" are welcome. ;) -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Edward Lewis +1-703-227-9854 ARIN Research Engineer ...as graceful as a blindfolded bull in a china shop...