Sometimes it can be nice to verify that the hostname on your box (printer, raspberry pi, whatever) is resolving to the correct IP-address on the LAN.

Whether it’s published via Avahi, Bonjour or something similar. An mDNS request resolves to.

• IPv4 address 224.0.0.251 or IPv6 address ff02::fb
• UDP port 5353

This can be achieved with dig, example:

~$ dig whatever.local @224.0.0.251 -p 5353

Example output

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;whatever.local. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
whatever.local. 10 IN A 10.13.37.7

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
whatever.local. 10 IN AAAA fe80::;;
whatever.local. 10 IN AAAA fdaa:;;

Happy resolving!