Compare data from a BIND zone file to data returned by an authoritative DNS server.

Use this tool to verify the data being returned by an authoritative DNS server matches the data in a zone file.

It is very helpful when migrating from one DNS server to another to be able to verify that all records imported correctly.

In my case, I used this tool to help me migrate multiple domains from Windows 2000 DNS and GoDaddy DNS (which both export BIND zone files) into Amazon's Route53 DNS service. With this tool, I could confidently prove that all records properly imported into Route53 before changing the whois records for each domain.

UPDATED (7/11/2013): Cleaned up the script and output a bit and refactored a few things while migrating a set of domains from Ziergo to Dyn.

pip install git+http://github.com/joemiller/dns_compare.git#egg=dns_compare

Basic operation:

$ dns_compare -z example.com --file example.com.zone --server 10.1.1.1
............................................X
(MIS-MATCH) query: nss4.example.com.
 Expected:  300 IN A 142.229.40.28
 Received:  900 IN A 142.229.40.28
...X
(MIS-MATCH) query: www.example.com.
 Expected:  200 IN A 91.139.129.128
 Received:  900 IN A 91.139.129.128
X
(MIS-MATCH) query: www.example.com.
 Expected:  300 IN AAAA 2001:4800:1078:2256:78C8:1542:FF04:6BCB
 Received:  900 IN AAAA 2001:4800:1078:2256:78c8:1542:ff04:6bcb
......................done

Results:
Matches:      69
Mis-matches:  3

Verbose:

$ dns_compare -z example.com --file example.com.zone --server 10.1.1.1 --verbose
----
(Match) query: www.example.com. ...
Expected:  0 IN CNAME example.com.
Received:  0 IN CNAME example.com.
----
(MIS-MATCH) query: example.com. ...
Expected:  60 IN A 10.0.0.1
Got     :  60 IN A 10.0.0.20

By default, SOA and NS records are ignored because these records are likely to change when migrating a zone between DNS services.. Specify --soa or --ns option, respectively, to enable checking of SOA and NS records.

Comparing TTLs can be disabled with -t option. This is useful when transferring DNS to a provider that offers only specific TTL values.

• Print separate count of NXDOMAIN in results?

Joe Miller (http://github.com/joemiller) (http://joemiller.me) (https://twitter.com/miller_joe)