community.general.dig lookup – query DNS using the dnspython library

Note

This lookup plugin is part of the community.general collection (version 5.8.3).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.general. You need further requirements to be able to use this lookup plugin, see Requirements for details.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.general.dig.

Synopsis

  • The dig lookup runs queries against DNS servers to retrieve DNS records for a specific name (FQDN - fully qualified domain name). It is possible to lookup any DNS record in this manner.

  • There is a couple of different syntaxes that can be used to specify what record should be retrieved, and for which name. It is also possible to explicitly specify the DNS server(s) to use for lookups.

  • In its simplest form, the dig lookup plugin can be used to retrieve an IPv4 address (DNS A record) associated with FQDN

  • In addition to (default) A record, it is also possible to specify a different record type that should be queried. This can be done by either passing-in additional parameter of format qtype=TYPE to the dig lookup, or by appending /TYPE to the FQDN being queried.

  • If multiple values are associated with the requested record, the results will be returned as a comma-separated list. In such cases you may want to pass option wantlist=True to the plugin, which will result in the record values being returned as a list over which you can iterate later on.

  • By default, the lookup will rely on system-wide configured DNS servers for performing the query. It is also possible to explicitly specify DNS servers to query using the @DNS_SERVER_1,DNS_SERVER_2,…,DNS_SERVER_N notation. This needs to be passed-in as an additional parameter to the lookup

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the local controller node that executes this lookup.

Terms

Parameter

Comments

Terms

string

Domain(s) to query.

Keyword parameters

This describes keyword parameters of the lookup. These are the values key1=value1, key2=value2 and so on in the following examples: lookup('community.general.dig', key1=value1, key2=value2, ...) and query('community.general.dig', key1=value1, key2=value2, ...)

Parameter

Comments

fail_on_error

boolean

added in community.general 5.4.0

Abort execution on lookup errors.

The default for this option will likely change to true in the future. The current default, false, is used for backwards compatibility, and will result in empty strings or the string NXDOMAIN in the result in case of errors.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

flat

string

If 0 each record is returned as a dictionary, otherwise a string.

Default: 1

qtype

string

Record type to query.

DLV is deprecated and will be removed in community.general 6.0.0.

Choices:

  • "A" ← (default)

  • "ALL"

  • "AAAA"

  • "CNAME"

  • "DNAME"

  • "DLV"

  • "DNSKEY"

  • "DS"

  • "HINFO"

  • "LOC"

  • "MX"

  • "NAPTR"

  • "NS"

  • "NSEC3PARAM"

  • "PTR"

  • "RP"

  • "RRSIG"

  • "SOA"

  • "SPF"

  • "SRV"

  • "SSHFP"

  • "TLSA"

  • "TXT"

retry_servfail

boolean

added in community.general 3.6.0

Retry a nameserver if it returns SERVFAIL.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

Notes

Note

  • When keyword and positional parameters are used together, positional parameters must be listed before keyword parameters: lookup('community.general.dig', term1, term2, key1=value1, key2=value2) and query('community.general.dig', term1, term2, key1=value1, key2=value2)

  • ALL is not a record per-se, merely the listed fields are available for any record results you retrieve in the form of a dictionary.

  • While the ‘dig’ lookup plugin supports anything which dnspython supports out of the box, only a subset can be converted into a dictionary.

  • If you need to obtain the AAAA record (IPv6 address), you must specify the record type explicitly. Syntax for specifying the record type is shown in the examples below.

  • The trailing dot in most of the examples listed is purely optional, but is specified for completeness/correctness sake.

Examples

- name: Simple A record (IPV4 address) lookup for example.com
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "{{ lookup('community.general.dig', 'example.com.')}}"

- name: "The TXT record for example.org."
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "{{ lookup('community.general.dig', 'example.org.', 'qtype=TXT') }}"

- name: "The TXT record for example.org, alternative syntax."
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "{{ lookup('community.general.dig', 'example.org./TXT') }}"

- name: use in a loop
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "MX record for gmail.com {{ item }}"
  with_items: "{{ lookup('community.general.dig', 'gmail.com./MX', wantlist=True) }}"

- ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "Reverse DNS for 192.0.2.5 is {{ lookup('community.general.dig', '192.0.2.5/PTR') }}"
- ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "Reverse DNS for 192.0.2.5 is {{ lookup('community.general.dig', '5.2.0.192.in-addr.arpa./PTR') }}"
- ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "Reverse DNS for 192.0.2.5 is {{ lookup('community.general.dig', '5.2.0.192.in-addr.arpa.', 'qtype=PTR') }}"
- ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "Querying 198.51.100.23 for IPv4 address for example.com. produces {{ lookup('dig', 'example.com', '@198.51.100.23') }}"

- ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "XMPP service for gmail.com. is available at {{ item.target }} on port {{ item.port }}"
  with_items: "{{ lookup('community.general.dig', '_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com./SRV', 'flat=0', wantlist=True) }}"

- name: Retry nameservers that return SERVFAIL
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "{{ lookup('community.general.dig', 'example.org./A', 'retry_servfail=True') }}"

Return Value

Key

Description

Return value

list / elements=any

List of composed strings or dictionaries with key and value If a dictionary, fields shows the keys returned depending on query type

Returned: success

A

string

address

Returned: success

AAAA

string

address

Returned: success

ALL

string

owner, ttl, type

Returned: success

CNAME

string

target

Returned: success

DLV

string

algorithm, digest_type, key_tag, digest

Returned: success

DNAME

string

target

Returned: success

DNSKEY

string

flags, algorithm, protocol, key

Returned: success

DS

string

algorithm, digest_type, key_tag, digest

Returned: success

HINFO

string

cpu, os

Returned: success

LOC

string

latitude, longitude, altitude, size, horizontal_precision, vertical_precision

Returned: success

MX

string

preference, exchange

Returned: success

NAPTR

string

order, preference, flags, service, regexp, replacement

Returned: success

NS

string

target

Returned: success

NSEC3PARAM

string

algorithm, flags, iterations, salt

Returned: success

PTR

string

target

Returned: success

RP

string

mbox, txt

Returned: success

SOA

string

mname, rname, serial, refresh, retry, expire, minimum

Returned: success

SPF

string

strings

Returned: success

SRV

string

priority, weight, port, target

Returned: success

SSHFP

string

algorithm, fp_type, fingerprint

Returned: success

TLSA

string

usage, selector, mtype, cert

Returned: success

TXT

string

strings

Returned: success

Authors

  • Jan-Piet Mens (@jpmens) <jpmens(at)gmail.com>

Hint

Configuration entries for each entry type have a low to high priority order. For example, a variable that is lower in the list will override a variable that is higher up.