Difference Nslookup vs. ping -a

Question

We are trying to setup reverse look-up zones in our Windows environment. Prior to setting up the zones, nslookup would fail to resolve an IP to hostname. Oddly ping -a would resolve a hostname. Does ping -a use a different method such as netbios to resolve a hostname?

Answer 1

nslookup consults only the DNS server configured, while ping -a uses additional methods like NETBIOS to resolve the name. If both computers are in the same network segment, they use broadcast messages to exchange host names without a DNS server, so ping -a works and nslookup doesnot.