A completely new version of 'host', a nameserver query utility
a la 'nslookup' and 'dig', but much more versatile and robust.

Among the new features are:
o Extensive error checking.
o Optionally (very) verbose output and debugging info.
o Checking for extraneous conditions during zone listings
such as non-authoritative glue records and lame delegations.
o Checking for illegal characters in certain domain names.
o Verify that some host-related domain names are canonical.
o Perform ttl consistency checking during zone listings.
o Recursive traversion of delegated zones up to a given level.
o Maintaining of resource record and host count statistics.
o Option to check reverse mappings of host addresses.
o Option to compare SOA records at the primary and secondary
nameservers of a zone to check for anomalies such as
out-of-sync serial numbers, and other discrepancies.
o Recognition of the new RR types as defined by RFC 1183/1348.
o Basic NSAP support according to RFC 1637.
o Implement PX/GPOS RR types as defined by RFC 1664/1712.
o Implement LOC RR type as defined by RFC 1876.
o Recognize AAAA RR type as defined by RFC 1884/1886.
o Support for new RR types KEY/SIG/NXT/SRV (still in draft).
o Support for RR type NAPTR. Recognize EID/NIMLOC/ATMA.
o Support for RR type KX. Recognize CERT.
o Allow multiple arguments on command line or from stdin.
o Configurable default options via an environment variable.
o Anticipate non-BIND behaviour during zone listings.
And many more; see the manual page, the RELEASE NOTES, and
the extensively documented code for details.

You want to link with a BIND 4.9.3 (or newer) resolver library.
But it is backward compatible with 4.8.3 and even with 4.8.2.
In order to make queries about toplevel domains, the "domain"
directive should *not* be present in the nameserver boot file.

It runs at least on the following platforms:
HP/HPUX, SGI/IRIX, IBM/AIX, SUN/SunOS, SUN/Solaris,
DEC/Ultrix, DEC/Alpha, Apollo/DomainOS, NeXT/MACH,
BSDI/4.4BSD, SCO/ODT3, SCO/OS5, Linux, Cray/Unicos
BIND 8.1.*, BIND 4.9.*, BIND 4.8.3, BIND 4.8.2

On non-unix platforms it runs on:
Windows-NT, Windows-95
To compile, you need the NT port of BIND 4.9.*
A pre-compiled executable is available as host_YYMMDD.exe.Z
It expects a resolv.conf file in the %windir% directory.