DNS Monitoring

Check for performance and accuracy of DNS query resolutions from worldwide locations.

DNS Record Types Supported

Our DNS monitoring solution supports the following record types:

A

IPv4 address record that maps a hostname to an IPv4 address.

AAAA

IPv6 address record that maps a hostname to an IPv6 address.

CNAME

Canonical name record that is an alias to another name record.

MX

Mail exchange record defines the message transfer agents for the domain.

NS

Name server record that delegates the authoritative name servers.

PTR

Pointer record points to a canonical record for reverse DNS lookup.

SOA

Start of authority record returns the most authoritative information regarding the domain, mail, and record timing information.

SPF

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a legacy record that is now generally handled in the TXT record.

TXT

Text record can be used for general information as well as Sender Policy Information or other machine-readable information.

DNS Monitoring Alerts and Reports

Receive alerts when errors occur, and access performance reports related to DNS server performance.
If any issues are detected with resolving DNS names, an instant DNS trace is taken that shows the full path of propagation, as well as an instant alert, showing the type of issue and extent of the error. Performance reports are generated showing global resolution speeds.
dns online reporting

Free DNS Monitoring Tools - Why They Aren't Worth the Trouble

DNS monitoring is an essential part of any serious performance and uptime monitoring approach. Slow DNS resolution can result in poor website performance and lead to higher bounce rates, affecting your bottom line and giving your users a bad impression of your website. Free DNS monitoring tools are, without exception, limited in the features they provide and will only give the appearance of monitoring.

Your enterprise and mission-critical websites deserve the best DNS monitoring available. At Dotcom-Monitor, our DNS monitoring solution tests DNS resolution by directly querying specified servers or propagating Internet root servers to resolve a specific Internet address from multiple points around the world. If and when an error occurs, you’ll receive notifications via email and/or SMS based on your preferences and will always have access to performance reports related to DNS server performance, showing global resolutions speeds. Free simply cannot compete.

DNS Performance Monitoring Can Improve Your Business 

Performance and uptime are critical to your business’ success online, and infrastructure monitoring an essential part of this. You and your team can develop and launch the fastest and best websites in the world, but if DNS issues arise, performance can degrade and ultimately affect your users’ experience of your site. It’s well known that milliseconds matter to users, and bounce rates increase with every passing second users are forced to wait for pages to load.

You can get ahead of this and offer your users the very best experience of your websites through professional DNS performance monitoring with Dotcom-Monitor. Our platform allows you to monitor nine essential DNS record types, ranging from A to MX to TXT records. You’ll have access to reports about ongoing performance and will be notified if and when an issue arises, so you can your team can take prompt action to resolve issues, maximize uptime, and perfect performance for your mission-critical websites. Your business, and your users, deserve nothing else.

Frequently Asked Questions

Domain name servers (DNS) are used to translate domain names to IP addresses. If the DNS server that supports your organization is down, multiple services, such as mail servers, web sites, or proxy servers may be unavailable to the outside world.

DNS monitoring provides consistent connectivity to your websites and servers, saving you time when diagnosing DNS issues. DNS monitoring ensures your critical services are always up and running.

Slow DNS resolution can translate to sluggish website performance. Our DNS monitoring solution can test DNS resolution by directly querying specified servers or propagating Internet root servers to resolve a specific Internet address from multiple points around the world.

Device Cached. This is the default option and means the cached name server (NS) address retrieved during monitoring of a previous task (device cache) will initially be used for monitoring. If the device cache does not have the needed address, then an automatic inquiry for the address from root DNS servers will be conducted.

Non-cached. The device cache (cache of preceding tasks) will not be used, so each new execution demands a separate inquiry to DNS root servers.  This is useful for ensuring uniform times since the DNS lookup will be performed each time.

TTL Cached. NS cache formed during monitoring of preceding tasks (device cache) will initially be used for monitoring. If the device cache does not have the needed address, then an automatic inquiry for the address will be conducted from the local DNS server.

External DNS Server. A specified IP address will be considered as a DNS server address and polled for NS data. For example, this is useful in situations where most of your clients use a public caching service.

For more information on DNS mode options, please visit our  Knowledge Base page.

When it comes to DNS errors triggered during web monitoring, it’s not typically easy to quickly identify and understand the exact issue that leads to connection errors.  

Refer to our wiki, where we’ll walk you through how to fix DNS errors step-by-step.

The short answer to this is: yes. DNSSEC is a suite of extensions that improve Domain Name System (DNS) security by verifying that DNS results have not been tampered with. Enterprises can use DNSSEC to prevent attacks related to DNS spoofing, DNS cache poisoning, etc.

When DNS was developed, security was not a top priority. Because of this, when sending a request to an authoritative DNS server, the resolver cannot verify the authenticity of the response sent by name servers to clients. The resolver is only able to check if the response comes from the same IP address to which the original request was sent. DNSSEC helps verify the authenticity of DNS responses through digital signatures for DNS records. You can learn more about DNSSEC validation in this knowledgebase article.

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