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DNS

nslookup vs. ping

On many operating systems, nslookup uses its own implementation whereas ping and other services go through the OS-specific stack. This results in potentially different results for ip-to-name resolution

Mac OS

Both nslookup and dig are actually third-party tools by ISC (which also make BIND). The ISC tools rely on /etc/resolv.conf.

To use an “Apple-native” command for DNS lookups, try dscacheutil:

  dscacheutil -q host -a name www.apple.com

You can see the DNS settings macOS is using with:

  scutil --dns