About DNS Toolbox

Why this site exists

Most free DNS and email tools fall into one of two groups. Some return raw data and leave you to interpret it, under pressure, while mail is bouncing. Others explain results well, but every explanation ends in a sales pitch for a monitoring or DMARC subscription.

DNS Toolbox is meant to be the third option: checks that tell you what a result means and exactly what to change, written by someone who does this work, with nothing to sell you. It's paid for by clearly labelled advertising, kept away from the tools themselves.

Who writes it

I'm James Bayliss, an IT manager. My path into IT ran through operations rather than a lab. I started my career working for MSPs in IT support, then worked as a senior systems administrator, a datacenter engineer, a technical systems manager and a principal solutions architect, before taking on my current role leading an IT department.

Along the way I've handled the problems this site is built around: mail that lands in spam after a migration, SPF records that quietly broke when one more vendor was added, IPs that ended up on blocklists, and DNS changes that "didn't work". I wrote these tools and guides to give other admins the explanations I wanted when I was the one on the call.

I hold a B.S. in Information Technology with a Cloud Computing emphasis from Western Governors University, and I'm completing an M.S. in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance there, expected in 2027.

How it's run

• Independent. No vendor sponsors or reviews the content, and no tool steers you towards a product.
• Corrections welcome. If a guide or a result is wrong, tell me. Confirmed corrections are made promptly, and significant ones are noted on the page.
• Your lookups aren't kept. Domains and IPs you check are used to run the check and then discarded. See how the checks work and the privacy policy.

Contact

Use the contact form for corrections, suggestions and questions. For professional contact, LinkedIn.