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DNS Servers

AllStarLink's DNS-based node lookup issues queries to Amazon's Route53 servers that are synchronized to the node registration database. This allows clients to retrieve node information such as IP addresses and IAX ports.

DNS Node Lookup

The nodes.allstarlink.org domain name is populated with SRV, TXT and A records for every active node in the system.

NOTE: The DNS records for a node will remain available for a period of time after a node is no longer active.

SRV Record

The SRV records return the IAX port of the server.

A query such as:

dig SRV _iax._udp.<nodenumber>.nodes.allstarlink.org

will return a record for a node as follows:

_iax._udp.50000.nodes.allstarlink.org. 30 IN SRV 10 10 4569 50000.nodes.allstarlink.org.

where 4569 is the IAX port.

A remote base node will return a record like:

_iax._udp.50000.nodes.allstarlink.org. 30 IN SRV 10 10 4569 50000.remotebase.nodes.allstarlink.org.

A Record

The A records will return the IP address of the IAX server or the proxy IP, if defined.

A query such as:

dig <nodenumber>.nodes.allstarlink.org

and

dig <nodenumber>.remotebase.nodes.allstarlink.org

will return:

2000.nodes.allstarlink.org. 60  IN  A   162.248.93.134

TXT Record

The TXT record is used for debugging purposes with a query below:

dig TXT <nodenumber>.nodes.allstarlink.org

will return:

"NN=50000" "IP=44.98.248.144" "PT=4569"

Where:

  • NN is the node number
  • IP is the IP address of the node
  • PT is the IAX port

Note: earlier (pre Dec 2025) versions of the TXT record also included values for RT (last update registration time), RB (remote base), PIP (proxy IP), and RH (registration server).

asl-node-lookup

On ASL3 systems, the asl-node-lookup command can also be used to query the DNS servers for information about a node.