Why can host and nslookup resolve a name but dig cannot?

Can anyone tell me why this is happening? I can resolve a hostname using host and/or nslookup but forward lookups do not work with dig; reverse lookups do:

musashixxx@box:~$ host someserver
someserver.somenet.internal has address 192.168.0.252
musashixxx@box:~$ host 192.168.0.252
252.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer someserver.somenet.internal.
musashixxx@box:~$ nslookup someserver
Server:     192.168.0.253
Address:    192.168.0.253#53

Name:   someserver.somenet.internal
Address: 192.168.0.252
musashixxx@box:~$ nslookup 192.168.0.252
Server:     192.168.0.253
Address:    192.168.0.253#53

252.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa  name = someserver.somenet.internal.

musashixxx@box:~$ dig someserver

; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> someserver
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 55306
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;someserver.            IN  A

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.0.253#53(192.168.0.253)
;; WHEN: Wed Oct  3 15:47:38 2012
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 27

musashixxx@box:~$ dig -x 192.168.0.252

; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> -x 192.168.0.252
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 28126
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;252.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa.    IN  PTR

;; ANSWER SECTION:
252.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. 3600 IN PTR someserver.somenet.internal.

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.0.253#53(192.168.0.253)
;; WHEN: Wed Oct  3 15:49:11 2012
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 86

Here's what my resolv.conf looks like:

nameserver 192.168.0.253
search somenet.internal

Is this behavior normal? Any thoughts?

Solution 1:

It's the default behaviour of dig not to use the search-option.

From the manual page:

   +[no]search
       Use [do not use] the search list defined by the searchlist or
       domain directive in resolv.conf (if any). The search list is not
       used by default.

Edit: Just add +search to make it work, like dig +search myhost.

Solution 2:

In my case, it is a bug in Microsoft DNS Server, where it returns FORMERR response (request format error) for requests with EDNS Cookie option set. Newer versions of dig (9.11 and up) use dns-cookies by default. This can be prevented by +nocookie or +noedns flag to dig:

$ dig +nocookie DOMAIN @SERVER

Source: https://kevinlocke.name/bits/2017/01/20/formerr-from-microsoft-dns-server-for-dig/

Why can host and nslookup resolve a name but dig cannot?

Solution 1:

Solution 2:

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