NAMED-COMPILEZONE(1) BIND 9 NAMED-COMPILEZONE(1)
NAME
named-compilezone - zone file validity checking or converting tool
SYNOPSIS
named-compilezone [-d] [-h] [-j] [-q] [-v] [-c class] [-C mode] [-f for-
mat] [-F format] [-J filename] [-i mode] [-k mode] [-m mode] [-M mode]
[-n mode] [-l ttl] [-L serial] [-r mode] [-s style] [-S mode] [-t direc-
tory] [-T mode] [-w directory] [-D] [-W mode] {-o filename} {zonename}
{filename}
DESCRIPTION
named-compilezone checks the syntax and integrity of a zone file, and
dumps the zone contents to a specified file in a specified format.
Unlike named-checkzone, zone contents are not strictly checked by de-
fault. If the output is to be used as an actual zone file to be loaded
by named <#std-iscman-named>, then the check levels should be manually
configured to be at least as strict as those specified in the named <#
std-iscman-named> configuration file.
Running named-checkzone on the input prior to compiling will ensure that
the zone compiles with the default requirements of named <#
std-iscman-named>.
OPTIONS
-d This option enables debugging.
-h This option prints the usage summary and exits.
-q This option sets quiet mode, which only sets an exit code to in-
dicate successful or failed completion.
-v This option prints the version of the named-checkzone <#
std-iscman-named-checkzone> program and exits.
-j When loading a zone file, this option tells named <#
std-iscman-named> to read the journal if it exists. The journal
file name is assumed to be the zone file name with the string
.jnl appended.
-J filename
When loading the zone file, this option tells named <#
std-iscman-named> to read the journal from the given file, if it
exists. This implies -j.
-c class
This option specifies the class of the zone. If not specified, IN
is assumed.
-C mode
This option controls check mode on zone files when loading. Pos-
sible modes are check-svcb:fail and check-svcb:ignore.
check-svcb:fail turns on additional checks on _dns SVCB records
and check-svcb:ignore disables these checks. The default is
check-svcb:ignore.
-i mode
This option performs post-load zone integrity checks. Possible
modes are full, full-sibling, local, local-sibling, and none (the
default).
Mode full checks that MX records refer to A or AAAA records (both
in-zone and out-of-zone hostnames). Mode local only checks MX
records which refer to in-zone hostnames.
Mode full checks that SRV records refer to A or AAAA records
(both in-zone and out-of-zone hostnames). Mode local only checks
SRV records which refer to in-zone hostnames.
Mode full checks that delegation NS records refer to A or AAAA
records (both in-zone and out-of-zone hostnames). It also checks
that glue address records in the zone match those advertised by
the child. Mode local only checks NS records which refer to
in-zone hostnames or verifies that some required glue exists,
i.e., when the name server is in a child zone.
Modes full-sibling and local-sibling disable sibling glue checks,
but are otherwise the same as full and local, respectively.
Mode none disables the checks.
-f format
This option specifies the format of the zone file. Possible for-
mats are text (the default), and raw.
-F format
This option specifies the format of the output file specified.
For named-checkzone <#std-iscman-named-checkzone>, this does not
have any effect unless it dumps the zone contents.
Possible formats are text (the default), which is the standard
textual representation of the zone, and raw and raw=N, which
store the zone in a binary format for rapid loading by named <#
std-iscman-named>. raw=N specifies the format version of the raw
zone file: if N is 0, the raw file can be read by any version of
named <#std-iscman-named>; if N is 1, the file can only be read
by release 9.9.0 or higher. The default is 1.
-k mode
This option performs check-names checks with the specified fail-
ure mode. Possible modes are fail, warn, and ignore (the de-
fault).
-l ttl This option sets a maximum permissible TTL for the input file.
Any record with a TTL higher than this value causes the zone to
be rejected. This is similar to using the max-zone-ttl option in
named.conf <#std-iscman-named.conf>.
-L serial
When compiling a zone to raw format, this option sets the "source
serial" value in the header to the specified serial number. This
is expected to be used primarily for testing purposes.
-m mode
This option specifies whether MX records should be checked to see
if they are addresses. Possible modes are fail, warn, and ignore
(the default).
-M mode
This option checks whether a MX record refers to a CNAME. Possi-
ble modes are fail, warn, and ignore (the default).
-n mode
This option specifies whether NS records should be checked to see
if they are addresses. Possible modes are fail, warn, and ignore
(the default).
-o filename
This option writes the zone output to filename. If filename is -,
then the zone output is written to standard output. This is
mandatory for named-compilezone.
-r mode
This option checks for records that are treated as different by
DNSSEC but are semantically equal in plain DNS. Possible modes
are fail, warn, and ignore (the default).
-s style
This option specifies the style of the dumped zone file. Possible
styles are full (the default) and relative. The full format is
most suitable for processing automatically by a separate script.
The relative format is more human-readable and is thus suitable
for editing by hand.
-S mode
This option checks whether an SRV record refers to a CNAME. Pos-
sible modes are fail, warn, and ignore (the default).
-t directory
This option tells named <#std-iscman-named> to chroot to direc-
tory, so that include directives in the configuration file are
processed as if run by a similarly chrooted named <#
std-iscman-named>.
-T mode
This option checks whether Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records
exist and issues a warning if an SPF-formatted TXT record is not
also present. Possible modes are warn and ignore (the default).
-w directory
This option instructs named <#std-iscman-named> to chdir to di-
rectory, so that relative filenames in master file $INCLUDE di-
rectives work. This is similar to the directory clause in
named.conf <#std-iscman-named.conf>.
-D This option dumps the zone file in canonical format. This is al-
ways enabled for named-compilezone.
-W mode
This option specifies whether to check for non-terminal wild-
cards. Non-terminal wildcards are almost always the result of a
failure to understand the wildcard matching algorithm (RFC 4592
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4592.html>). Possible
modes are warn and ignore (the default).
zonename
This indicates the domain name of the zone being checked.
filename
This is the name of the zone file.
RETURN VALUES
named-compilezone returns an exit status of 1 if errors were detected
and 0 otherwise.
SEE ALSO
named(8) <#std-iscman-named>, named-checkconf(8) <#
std-iscman-named-checkconf>, named-checkzone(8) <#
std-iscman-named-checkzone>, RFC 1035 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
html/rfc1035.html>, BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual.
Author
Internet Systems Consortium
Copyright
2026, Internet Systems Consortium
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