Who's That Site?

Here's a cool one. Have you ever needed to find out either a name or an IP address for a particular site?

OK, before you stop reading this tip and head to Amanda's section, just hear me out. This can actually come in handy. For example, if you have a firewall on your computer and are getting info that 209.15.178.71 is trying to get into your computer, you can use this tip to turn those numbers into an actual address.

Or, if you need an IP address for some reason (pay attention if you own your own domain), you can type in the name of the site and uncover its IP address.

Alright, so how do you pull off this digital trick? Easy:

1. Hit the Start Button / Run. Type "Command" in the Run line and hit Enter.

2. You should be looking at a DOS screen. Type the following:

nslookup 65.77.210.139

Then hit Enter.

It should tell you that 65.77.210.139 is the IP for worldstart.com (note that it may spit out your ISP's info first).

Now let's do it backwards! (And you didn't think this could get more exciting!)

Type in:

nslookup www.worldstart.com

Then hit Enter.

It should give you the 65.77.210.139 number (again, it may spit out your current ISP's info first). This is really handy for those who own web sites and have forgotten what their IP address is.

Forget my IP address ... why in the modern world of DNS I never have to remember it

Still, nslookup is useful when I need to verify an IP address for a VPN connection on an external client !

nslookup can go much further as well - if anyone is interested in a domains email server records (mx records) info then try this:

1. Hit the Start Button / Run. Type "Command" in the Run line and hit Enter.

2. Type the following:

nslookup [Enter]
set type=mx [Enter]

3. Now type the domain you are interested in and you should see the mail server address and mx records.

The one with the lowest preference number is the primary mail server etc.