How to view DNS cache in OSX?
mDNSResponder (multicast DNS daemon) SIGINFO signal can dump a snapshot summary of the internal state to /var/log/system.log
, including the cache details. To do this:
Keep system log opened in one terminal:
tail -f /private/var/log/system.log
Send a SIGINFO signal to mDNSResponder from another terminal:
sudo killall -INFO mDNSResponder
Then check the logs in first terminal, you would be able to see cache dump:
mDNSResponder[98]: ------------ Cache -------------
mDNSResponder[98]: Slt Q TTL if U Type rdlen
mDNSResponder[98]: 52 1827 -U- CNAME 17 www.sublimetext.com. CNAME sublimetext.com.
...
...
mDNSResponder[98]: Cache currently contains 154 entities; 3 referenced by active questions
(For more info: man mDNSResponder
)
As @PrasseethaKR and @kjagiello point out, on High Siera mDNSResponer has moved from syslog
to log
. In addition, your DNS lookup messages are now considered private and will show as <private>
in both Console and log stream
by default.
To view your DNS lookups on High Sierra open an Terminal and run:
sudo log config --mode "private_data:on"
log stream --predicate 'process == "mDNSResponder"' --info
To go back to using private just run the following command.
sudo log config --mode "private_data:off"
Cheers!