DNS Check

probe.dns resolves a DNS name and asserts the answers. The lookups run from the worker executing the flow, so the step verifies what the network around your automation sees: that a device's name resolves at all, that it resolves to the addresses you expect, or that a given resolver serves the right records. No device credentials are involved.

Using It

By default the step resolves each target's own name: every device from the step's target picker is looked up by its hostname (falling back to its management address). Set Name to Resolve to query one explicit name instead — the same question is then asked once per target. Direct-IP targets only make sense together with an explicit Name to Resolve; an IP literal is not a DNS question, and such a target fails with a clear message otherwise.

Record Type picks the query (A by default; AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, and TXT are also available). Resolver optionally directs the query at a specific nameserver IP; when empty the worker's system resolver is used. Expected Values lists answers, one per line, that must all appear in the response — comparison is normalized, so case, trailing dots, and surrounding quotes do not matter, and extra answers beyond the expected ones are fine. With no expected values, any successful resolution passes. Timeout (sec) bounds each attempt (default 5), and Attempts (default 1, up to 10) retries failed lookups with a half-second pause between tries.

Output

The summary reads dns <record type>: N/M lookups OK and is available to later steps as steps.NODE_ID.summary. Metrics record one <device name>_ms resolution latency per successful lookup. Each target adds one transport_meta evidence record named dns_<record type>_<device name> capturing the queried name, record type, resolver (system when none was set), the normalized answers, any missing expected values, and the error text when resolution failed.

When It Fails

The step fails when no target devices or IPs are configured. A target fails when the lookup errors (NXDOMAIN, refusal, or timeout — the timeout applies per attempt, not to the step as a whole), when any Expected Value is missing from the answers, when the target has no name to resolve, or when it is a direct-IP target without an explicit Name to Resolve. One failing target fails the whole step, with the per-target reasons listed in the step error. Evidence is kept for every target that was actually looked up; a target skipped for having no name to resolve appears only in the step error.