SRV Record Lookup

What is an SRV record?

Reviewed by Prabath Thalangama · Last updated October 23, 2026

An SRV record tells clients which host and port provide a service, with a priority and a weight for failover and load sharing. It lives on a name of the form _service._protocol.domain, such as _sip._tcp.example.com. This lookup shows the priority, weight, port and target host for each record.

SRV records are used by SIP and VoIP, XMPP, LDAP and Active Directory domain controllers (_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs), Microsoft 365 (_sipfederationtls._tcp), Minecraft and many other protocols that let clients discover servers automatically.

The target must be a host name with its own A or AAAA records, not an IP address and not a CNAME.

How do I look up an SRV record?

Enter the full service name, for example _sip._tcp.example.com or _xmpp-client._tcp.example.com.
Check that each target host and port matches a server that runs the service.

How to read the results

priority: Lower is preferred. Clients use higher numbers only when every lower-priority target fails.
weight: Relative share of traffic among targets with the same priority.
port: The TCP or UDP port the service listens on.
value: The target host name. A single "." means the service is deliberately not available.

Common SRV problems

No records found

The name is missing the underscore labels or uses the wrong protocol. It must be _service._tcp or _service._udp followed by the domain.

Client connects to the wrong host

A lower-priority number wins. Check the priorities, and that the target's A record points where you expect.

Examples and command-line equivalents

Look up SRV records

dig +short SRV _sip._tcp.example.com
nslookup -type=SRV _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.example.com

SRV in a BIND zone file

_sip._tcp.example.com.  3600 IN SRV 10 60 5060 sip1.example.com.
_sip._tcp.example.com.  3600 IN SRV 10 40 5060 sip2.example.com.

Frequently asked questions

Can an SRV target be an IP address?

No. RFC 2782 requires a host name with A or AAAA records. Many clients reject targets that are CNAMEs as well.

Do browsers use SRV records?

No. Web browsers ignore SRV for HTTP and HTTPS; they use A, AAAA and the newer HTTPS record type instead.