How to obtain hostname from IP address in Linux?

Today, I fell in need of identifying the host name (also termed as ‘DNS name‘) based on the IP address for one of my Linux Box. My first try was using 'ping -a' command. But that failed to satisfy my requirement.

Image via Wikipedia

If you ever come across the situation where 'ping -a' does not provide you with the host name of the box, then you can try any of the below mentioned methods to satisfy the requirement.

Method 1: Using the 'host' command

One of the simplest way to retrieve host name from IP address is employing the 'host' command provided by GNU/Linux.
Syntax for the host command: $>host <ip-address> <nameserver>
Example:

testhost:~ # host 209.85.231.104
104.231.85.209.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer maa03s01-in-f104.google.com.
testhost:~ #

Method 2: Using the 'nslookup' command

nslookup is a command used to query the Internet Domain Name servers.

Example:
nslookup 209.85.231.104
Server:  72.163.128.140
Address: 72.163.128.140#53

Non-authoritative answer:
104.231.85.209.in-addr.arpa    name = maa03s01-in-f104.google.com.

Authoritative answers can be found from:
231.85.209.in-addr.arpa    nameserver = ns1.google.com.
231.85.209.in-addr.arpa    nameserver = ns3.google.com.
231.85.209.in-addr.arpa    nameserver = ns4.google.com.
231.85.209.in-addr.arpa    nameserver = ns2.google.com.
ns3.google.com    internet address = 216.239.36.10
ns4.google.com    internet address = 216.239.38.10
ns2.google.com    internet address = 216.239.34.10
ns1.google.com    internet address = 216.239.32.10


Method 3: Using the 'dig' command
As per the Linux man page – dig (domain information groper) is a flexible tool for interrogating DNS name servers. It performs DNS lookups and displays the answers that are returned from the name server(s) that were queried.

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