How to Install and Use the Dog DNS Command-Line Tool on Ubuntu

Overview

Dog is a Rust‑written command‑line DNS client similar to dig. It supports DNS‑over‑TLS, DNS‑over‑HTTPS, and can output results in JSON format.

System Environment

Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS

Installation

Dog requires rustc version ≥ 1.45.0. The default apt version is too old, so install the necessary tools and a newer Rust toolchain manually. sudo apt install -y cargo libssl-dev Set Rust mirror to a faster source and install Rust:

export RUSTUP_DIST_SERVER=https://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/rust-static
export RUSTUP_UPDATE_ROOT=https://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/rust-static/rustup
curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

Load the Cargo environment and verify the Rust compiler:

source $HOME/.cargo/env
rustc --version

Download and Build Dog

Fetch the source archive from GitHub and extract it:

wget https://github.com/ogham/dog/archive/v0.1.0.tar.gz
tar xvf v0.1.0.tar.gz

Enter the source directory and compile:

cd dog-0.1.0/
cargo build
cargo test

To speed up crate downloads, create ~/.cargo/config with a faster mirror (example for TUNA, USTC, SJTU, etc.):

[source.crates-io]
registry = "https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
replace-with = 'sjtu'

[source.tuna]
registry = "https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/git/crates.io-index.git"

[source.ustc]
registry = "git://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/crates.io-index"

[source.sjtu]
registry = "https://mirrors.sjtug.sjtu.edu.cn/git/crates.io-index"

[source.rustcc]
registry = "git://crates.rustcc.cn/crates.io-index"

Re‑run the build after editing the config:

cargo build
cargo test

Copy the resulting binary to a directory in $PATH so it can be run from anywhere:

sudo cp -p ~/dog-0.1.0/target/debug/dog /usr/local/bin

Verify Installation

dog --version

Output shows the version and build date, confirming the tool works.

Command Completion

Enable Bash completion by sourcing the provided script:

source ~/dog-0.1.0/completions/dog.bash

Using Dog

Query an A record (e.g., www.baidu.com): dog www.baidu.com Result includes CNAME and A records with TTLs.

Query NS records for a domain: dog aliyun.com NS Query with a specific DNS server (e.g., Google’s 1.1.1.1) and request MX records: dog google.com MX @1.1.1.1 JSON output for an A record query: dog A www.baidu.com -J The command returns a JSON object containing answers, authorities, and queries.

Help

dog --help

Displays all available options and sub‑commands.