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In Mac OS X, how do I check what DNS server I'm currently using (preferably a command line solution)?

System Preferences > Network shows 192.168.1.1, which is my router's address and not the real DNS server.

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migrated from serverfault.com Mar 16 '11 at 3:39

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3 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Your router is acting as a DNS forwarder, you ask your router and your router asks a DNS server for you. You need to login to your router web config to figure out what it's using, or you could just enter so directly into your Network configuration.

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up vote 7 down vote

You could try issuing a 

scutil --dns | grep nameserver\[[0-9]*\]
at the command line. Should give you a list of DNS servers configured on your system.

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that's a great command - it looks like that is the DNS server used by Comcast (my ISP). +1 for a great bonus point and what appears to be a deeper knowledge answer. – mjb Mar 16 '11 at 4:14
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+1 For a command that shows the servers for “multi-client” configurations (e.g. /etc/resolver/…). – Chris Johnsen Mar 16 '11 at 4:37
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up vote 1 down vote

That is the DNS server your mac is using. Your router is running a caching DNS server, and setting itself as the DNS server via DHCP. If you login to your router, you might be able to find out which DNS servers it uses.

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