On Tue, Sep 18, 2001 at 02:28:23PM -0500, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote:
> the simple way to check if there's a DNS server at least listening; is to
> telnet to port 53.

That may work for DNS servers that are allowing zone transfers, but most
of DNS is run using UDP.  How do you telnet to a UDP port?  You don't.  

You could use dig and specify the server like so:

# dig @1.2.3.4 host A

Nate