Which utility can resolve DNS requests that are looked up frequently on the network?

• A. nslookup
• B. ping
• C. dig +trace
• D. curl

Answer: (C)

Understanding how a DNS query traces through the hierarchy helps diagnose why lookups behave the way they do across a network. The dig utility with the trace option walks the DNS resolution from the root servers down to the authoritative servers, showing each step, the servers queried, and the data returned. This end-to-end view is especially helpful for frequent lookups because you can pinpoint where delays or misconfigurations occur, verify which servers are caching results, and see TTL effects. Other tools offer basic resolution or are focused on other protocols—nslookup provides simple queries without the full delegation path, ping checks reachability and may use DNS behind the scenes, and curl is an HTTP client that uses DNS under the hood but doesn’t reveal the DNS resolution steps. Therefore, dig +trace is the best choice for understanding and verifying DNS lookups across the network.