--- title: DNS Wireformat description: Cloudflare respects DNS wireformat as defined in RFC 1035. image: https://developers.cloudflare.com/cf-twitter-card.png --- [Skip to content](#%5Ftop) Was this helpful? YesNo [ Edit page ](https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflare-docs/edit/production/src/content/docs/1.1.1.1/encryption/dns-over-https/make-api-requests/dns-wireformat.mdx) [ Report issue ](https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflare-docs/issues/new/choose) Copy page # DNS Wireformat Cloudflare respects DNS wireformat as defined in [RFC 1035 ↗](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1035.html). To send queries using DNS wireformat, set the header `accept: application/dns-message`, or `content-type: application/dns-message` if using `POST` to indicate the media type of the query. Queries using DNS wireformat can be sent using `POST` or `GET`. ## Using POST When making requests using `POST`, the DNS query is included as the message body of the HTTP request, and the MIME type (see below) is included in the `Content-Type` request header. Cloudflare will use the message body of the HTTP request as sent by the client, so the message body should not be encoded. The following is an example request. The same DNS query for `www.example.com`, using the POST method would be: ``` :method = POST :scheme = https :authority = cloudflare-dns.com :path = /dns-query accept = application/dns-message content-type = application/dns-message content-length = 33 <33 bytes represented by the following hex encoding> 00 00 01 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 77 77 77 07 65 78 61 6d 70 6c 65 03 63 6f 6d 00 00 01 00 01 ``` And would return the answer in wireformat: ``` :status = 200 content-type = application/dns-message content-length = 64 cache-control = max-age=128 <64 bytes represented by the following hex encoding> 00 00 81 80 00 01 00 01 00 00 00 00 03 77 77 77 07 65 78 61 6d 70 6c 65 03 63 6f 6d 00 00 01 00 01 03 77 77 77 07 65 78 61 6d 70 6c 65 03 63 6f 6d 00 00 01 00 01 00 00 00 80 00 04 C0 00 02 01 ``` To try this using cURL, write: Terminal window ``` echo -n 'q80BAAABAAAAAAAAA3d3dwdleGFtcGxlA2NvbQAAAQAB' | base64 --decode | curl --header 'content-type: application/dns-message' --data-binary @- https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query --output - | hexdump ``` ## Using GET When making requests using `GET`, the DNS query is encoded into the URL. The `accept` header can be used to indicate the MIME type (default: `application/dns-message`). Example request: Terminal window ``` curl --header 'accept: application/dns-message' --verbose 'https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query?dns=q80BAAABAAAAAAAAA3d3dwdleGFtcGxlA2NvbQAAAQAB' | hexdump ``` ``` * Using HTTP2, server supports multi-use * Connection state changed (HTTP/2 confirmed) * Copying HTTP/2 data in stream buffer to connection buffer after upgrade: len=0 * Using Stream ID: 1 (easy handle 0x7f968700a400) GET /dns-query?dns=q80BAAABAAAAAAAAA3d3dwdleGFtcGxlA2NvbQAAAQAB HTTP/2 Host: cloudflare-dns.com User-Agent: curl/7.54.0 accept: application/dns-message * Connection state changed (MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS updated)! HTTP/2 200 date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 05:14:02 GMT content-type: application/dns-message content-length: 49 cache-control: max-age=0 set-cookie: \__cfduid=dd1fb65f0185fadf50bbb6cd14ecbc5b01521782042; expires=Sat, 23-Mar-19 05:14:02 GMT; path=/; domain=.cloudflare.com; HttpOnly server: cloudflare-nginx cf-ray: 3ffe69838a418c4c-SFO-DOG { [49 bytes data] 100 49 100 49 0 0 493 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 494 * Connection #0 to host cloudflare-dns.com left intact 0000000 ab cd 81 80 00 01 00 01 00 00 00 00 03 77 77 77 0000010 07 65 78 61 6d 70 6c 65 03 63 6f 6d 00 00 01 00 0000020 01 c0 0c 00 01 00 01 00 00 0a 8b 00 04 5d b8 d8 0000030 22 0000031 ``` ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/directory/","name":"Directory"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/1.1.1.1/","name":"1.1.1.1"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"/1.1.1.1/encryption/","name":"Encryption"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@id":"/1.1.1.1/encryption/dns-over-https/","name":"DNS over HTTPS"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@id":"/1.1.1.1/encryption/dns-over-https/make-api-requests/","name":"Make API requests to 1.1.1.1"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":6,"item":{"@id":"/1.1.1.1/encryption/dns-over-https/make-api-requests/dns-wireformat/","name":"DNS Wireformat"}}]} ```