DNS: How to Dig thru the right domain name from the TLD?

Question

I'd like to query the DNS records until get the right domain name.

For instance, given www.subdomain.site.com.br, be able to dig from .br until site.com.br.

Which is the most (protocol-speaking) way to achieve that? An recipe using dig/nslookup would be best.

Thanks.

Answer 1

dig www.mysite.domain.com @a.root-servers.net

you'll get the next level from there. Just replace the portion after the '@' and keep recursing until you query a server that gives an answer rather than additional information

Answer 2

dig +trace www.subdomain.site.com.br

will show you exactly what happens.