> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://playbook.sidthoviti.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://playbook.sidthoviti.com/network-pentesting/information-gathering.md).

# Information Gathering

## DNS Enumeration

### Passive Info Gathering

* **WHOIS** (Extract IP, Servers, DNS, Registrar, Company, Emails, etc)

```
whois <target.com /  $IP>
https://whois.icann.org/en
http://who.is/
http://whois.domaintools.com/
https://whois.net/
```

### Active Info Gathering

* **DNS Lookup** (Extract DNS records like NS, MX, PTR, CNAME, SOA, AAAA.

```
host target.com
nslookup target.com
nslookup -type= <NS,MX,PTR,A,CNAME,SOA> target.com 
//Interactive Mode
nslookup
>set q=<ns,mx,ptr,a,cname,soa>
>target.com
dig target.com +short
dig target.com any
dig target.com <NS,MX,PTR,A,CNAME,SOA>
fierce -dns target.com
fierce -dns target.com --dnsserver <DNS Server>
dnsmap target.com
dnsrecon -d target.com
dmitry -iwnse target.com
```

* **Zone Transfers** (Exploit misconfigurations by pretending to be slave to master DNS server which passes a copy of part of database and give out network info/topology, etc.)

```
nslookup
>server target.com
>ls -d target.com

dig axfr @$IP target.com
dig axfr @$IP target.com -t AXFR +nocookie
dnsenum target.com
dnsenum -f hosts.txt target.com 
host  -l target.com <dns_server>
host -t axfr target.com $IP      //-t: type
dnsrecon -d target.com -t axfr
```

* Reverse Lookup (Find Netblocks, Owner, Organization)

```
http://viewdns.info/
whois -h target.com
host -l target.com
dnsrecon -r <range of IP's>
```

* IPv6 Enumeration

```
dnsdict6 target.com
```


---

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