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Look up DNS records (instant check, not a monitor)

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HostTracker does not have a DNS monitor type: you cannot schedule DNS record checks or get alerts when a record changes. What it has is an on-demand DNS lookup - an instant check that resolves a name from many checkpoints at once and shows what each one sees. Use it while troubleshooting: confirming a DNS change has propagated, checking MX records before a mail move, or ruling DNS out during an outage.

What the lookup shows

Section titled “What the lookup shows”

The host is resolved from each selected checkpoint, and the answer per location lists the records returned. You can ask for these record types: A, AAAA, MX, CNAME and TXT. Without a choice, A and AAAA are queried. A lookup runs once and never alerts.

Run a lookup

Section titled “Run a lookup”
Terminal window
curl -X POST https://api2.host-tracker.com/check \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HT_TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "type": "dns", "url": "example.com", "dnsQuery": ["A", "MX"], "pools": ["allworld"] }'

The answer gives the check’s ids; poll GET /check/{dbId}/{id} until it reports done. An unsupported record type is refused with 422 unknown_enum_value naming the allowed ones.

  • With MCP - run_instant_check(url="example.com", type="dns") starts the lookup and waits for the per-location results (A and AAAA records; use api_request with the body above for other record types).

For ongoing monitoring

Section titled “For ongoing monitoring”

There is no alert on a record change, but these monitors fail when resolution goes wrong:

  • A Website, Ping or Port monitor with Expected IPs Validation (settings.expectedIps) - the check fails when the host resolves to any address not on your list. This is the way to be alerted about a changed or hijacked A/AAAA record.
  • Any of those monitors fails when the name stops resolving at all.
  • A Domain expiry monitor, if the risk is the registration lapsing rather than the records changing.
Section titled “Related”