dns-bench

Description

This repository provides a DNS benchmarking command-line tool written in Rust. It iterates through a built-in list of public DNS servers as well as automatically detected system DNS servers, measures their response times, and prints a table of sorted results in the console. You can use it to find the fastest DNS server for your location, improving your internet browsing experience. A preview, list of features, and the list of built-in DNS servers are provided below.

Preview

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Features

🚀 Core Features

• Built-in list of public DNS servers
  Includes popular providers like Google, Cloudflare, Quad9, and more.
• Automatic detection of system DNS servers
  Detects and highlights your system's configured DNS servers (Linux, Windows, macOS).
• Multi-threaded benchmarking
  Runs benchmarks in parallel for faster results.

⚙️ Configuration & Flexibility

• Customizable request count, thread count, timeout, and domain
  Fine-tune how many requests, threads, and which domain to test.
• Protocol and IP version selection
  Choose between UDP/TCP and IPv4/IPv6 for both lookup and connection.
• Custom DNS server lists
  Use your own list of DNS servers instead of the built-in set.

📊 Output & Usability

• Multiple output formats
  Human-readable table, JSON, XML, or CSV for easy integration and analysis.
• Configurable table styles
  Choose from various table styles for better readability.
• Save favorite configurations
  Store your preferred settings in a config file for quick reuse.
• Config file management without running benchmarks
  Use subcommands to manage your config independently from benchmarking.

🐳 Platform & Integration

• Docker support
  Run easily in a containerized environment (system DNS detection is skipped in Docker).
• Cross-platform
  Works on Linux, Windows, and macOS.

List of built-in DNS servers

Installation

Which method to choose?

• If you don't have Rust programming language environment installed on your machine, then you can choose between installation from Docker Hub or download the latest Windows executable file.
• If you have Rust programming language environment installed on your machine, then you can choose between installation from crates.io or installation from git repository.
• Installation from git repository is suitable only when you want to use the development version instead of the stable one or the crates.io service is unavailable.

From crates.io using Cargo

Run the following command and wait until the crate is compiled:

$ cargo install dns-bench

Now you can run compiled binary:

$ dns-bench [OPTIONS]

From git repository using Cargo

Run the following command and wait until the crate is compiled:

$ cargo install --git https://github.com/qwerty541/dns-bench.git --tag v0.11.0 dns-bench

Also you can remove tag option to install the latest development version.

Now you can run compiled binary:

$ dns-bench [OPTIONS]

From Docker Hub

Run the following command to pull the image:

$ docker pull qwerty541/dns-bench:latest

Now you can run this tool inside the container:

$ docker run --rm -it --name dns-bench qwerty541/dns-bench:latest

If you want to pass some options, you can do it like this:

$ docker run --rm -it --name dns-bench qwerty541/dns-bench:latest /bin/bash -c "dns-bench --requests 20 --domain microsoft.com --style re-structured-text"

In case you want to use custom servers list, you have to mount the file with custom servers list to the container and pass the path to the file as an argument:

$ docker run --rm -it --name dns-bench --volume /home/alexandr/projects/dns-bench/examples/ipv4-custom-servers-example.txt:/ipv4-custom-servers-example.txt qwerty541/dns-bench:latest /bin/bash -c "dns-bench --custom-servers-file /ipv4-custom-servers-example.txt"

Executable file for Windows

You can download the latest Windows executable file from the releases page.

After downloading, open the command line, navigate to the directory where you saved the file, and run it with the following command:

dns-bench.exe [OPTIONS]

[!WARNING] The Windows executable file is not signed, so you may see a warning when running it. You can ignore this warning if you trust the source of the file. If you want to avoid this warning, you can build the crate from source using Rust programming language environment installed on your machine or use the Docker image as described above.

Command-Line Reference

Options

Below is a list of currently supported options.

Subcommands

Below is a list of currently supported subcommands.

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0, (LICENSE-APACHE or https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.