1RNDC.CONF(5)                         BIND9                        RNDC.CONF(5)
2
3
4

NAME

6       rndc.conf - rndc configuration file
7

SYNOPSIS

9       rndc.conf
10

DESCRIPTION

12       rndc.conf is the configuration file for rndc, the BIND 9 name server
13       control utility. This file has a similar structure and syntax to
14       named.conf. Statements are enclosed in braces and terminated with a
15       semi-colon. Clauses in the statements are also semi-colon terminated.
16       The usual comment styles are supported:
17
18       C style: /* */
19
20       C++ style: // to end of line
21
22       Unix style: # to end of line
23
24       rndc.conf is much simpler than named.conf. The file uses three
25       statements: an options statement, a server statement and a key
26       statement.
27
28       The options statement contains five clauses. The default-server clause
29       is followed by the name or address of a name server. This host will be
30       used when no name server is given as an argument to rndc. The
31       default-key clause is followed by the name of a key which is identified
32       by a key statement. If no keyid is provided on the rndc command line,
33       and no key clause is found in a matching server statement, this default
34       key will be used to authenticate the server's commands and responses.
35       The default-port clause is followed by the port to connect to on the
36       remote name server. If no port option is provided on the rndc command
37       line, and no port clause is found in a matching server statement, this
38       default port will be used to connect. The default-source-address and
39       default-source-address-v6 clauses which can be used to set the IPv4 and
40       IPv6 source addresses respectively.
41
42       After the server keyword, the server statement includes a string which
43       is the hostname or address for a name server. The statement has three
44       possible clauses: key, port and addresses. The key name must match the
45       name of a key statement in the file. The port number specifies the port
46       to connect to. If an addresses clause is supplied these addresses will
47       be used instead of the server name. Each address can take an optional
48       port. If an source-address or source-address-v6 of supplied then these
49       will be used to specify the IPv4 and IPv6 source addresses
50       respectively.
51
52       The key statement begins with an identifying string, the name of the
53       key. The statement has two clauses.  algorithm identifies the
54       authentication algorithm for rndc to use; currently only HMAC-MD5 (for
55       compatibility), HMAC-SHA1, HMAC-SHA224, HMAC-SHA256 (default),
56       HMAC-SHA384 and HMAC-SHA512 are supported. This is followed by a secret
57       clause which contains the base-64 encoding of the algorithm's
58       authentication key. The base-64 string is enclosed in double quotes.
59
60       There are two common ways to generate the base-64 string for the
61       secret. The BIND 9 program rndc-confgen can be used to generate a
62       random key, or the mmencode program, also known as mimencode, can be
63       used to generate a base-64 string from known input.  mmencode does not
64       ship with BIND 9 but is available on many systems. See the EXAMPLE
65       section for sample command lines for each.
66

EXAMPLE

68                 options {
69                   default-server  localhost;
70                   default-key     samplekey;
71                 };
72
73                 server localhost {
74                   key             samplekey;
75                 };
76
77                 server testserver {
78                   key         testkey;
79                   addresses   { localhost port 5353; };
80                 };
81
82                 key samplekey {
83                   algorithm       hmac-sha256;
84                   secret          "6FMfj43Osz4lyb24OIe2iGEz9lf1llJO+lz";
85                 };
86
87                 key testkey {
88                   algorithm   hmac-sha256;
89                   secret      "R3HI8P6BKw9ZwXwN3VZKuQ==";
90                 };
91
92       In the above example, rndc will by default use the server at localhost
93       (127.0.0.1) and the key called samplekey. Commands to the localhost
94       server will use the samplekey key, which must also be defined in the
95       server's configuration file with the same name and secret. The key
96       statement indicates that samplekey uses the HMAC-SHA256 algorithm and
97       its secret clause contains the base-64 encoding of the HMAC-SHA256
98       secret enclosed in double quotes.
99
100       If rndc -s testserver is used then rndc will connect to server on
101       localhost port 5353 using the key testkey.
102
103       To generate a random secret with rndc-confgen:
104
105       rndc-confgen
106
107       A complete rndc.conf file, including the randomly generated key, will
108       be written to the standard output. Commented-out key and controls
109       statements for named.conf are also printed.
110
111       To generate a base-64 secret with mmencode:
112
113       echo "known plaintext for a secret" | mmencode
114

NAME SERVER CONFIGURATION

116       The name server must be configured to accept rndc connections and to
117       recognize the key specified in the rndc.conf file, using the controls
118       statement in named.conf. See the sections on the controls statement in
119       the BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual for details.
120

SEE ALSO

122       rndc(8), rndc-confgen(8), mmencode(1), BIND 9 Administrator Reference
123       Manual.
124

AUTHOR

126       Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.
127
129       Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2013-2016, 2018 Internet
130       Systems Consortium, Inc. ("ISC")
131
132
133
134ISC                               2013-03-14                      RNDC.CONF(5)
Impressum