RNDC(8) BIND 9 RNDC(8)
NAME
rndc - name server control utility
SYNOPSIS
rndc [-b source-address] [-c config-file] [-k key-file] [-s server] [-p
port] [-q] [-r] [-V] [-y server_key] [[-4] | [-6]] {command}
DESCRIPTION
rndc controls the operation of a name server. If rndc is invoked with no
command line options or arguments, it prints a short summary of the sup-
ported commands and the available options and their arguments.
rndc communicates with the name server over a TCP connection, sending
commands authenticated with digital signatures. In the current versions
of rndc and named, the only supported authentication algorithms are
HMAC-MD5 (for compatibility), HMAC-SHA1, HMAC-SHA224, HMAC-SHA256 (de-
fault), HMAC-SHA384, and HMAC-SHA512. They use a shared secret on each
end of the connection, which provides TSIG-style authentication for the
command request and the name server's response. All commands sent over
the channel must be signed by a server_key known to the server.
rndc reads a configuration file to determine how to contact the name
server and decide what algorithm and key it should use.
OPTIONS
-4 This option indicates use of IPv4 only.
-6 This option indicates use of IPv6 only.
-b source-address
This option indicates source-address as the source address for
the connection to the server. Multiple instances are permitted,
to allow setting of both the IPv4 and IPv6 source addresses.
-c config-file
This option indicates config-file as the configuration file in-
stead of the default, /etc/bind/rndc.conf.
-k key-file
This option indicates key-file as the key file instead of the de-
fault, /etc/bind/rndc.key. The key in /etc/bind/rndc.key is used
to authenticate commands sent to the server if the config-file
does not exist.
-s server
server is the name or address of the server which matches a
server statement in the configuration file for rndc. If no server
is supplied on the command line, the host named by the de-
fault-server clause in the options statement of the rndc configu-
ration file is used.
-p port
This option instructs BIND 9 to send commands to TCP port port
instead of its default control channel port, 953.
-q This option sets quiet mode, where message text returned by the
server is not printed unless there is an error.
-r This option instructs rndc to print the result code returned by
named after executing the requested command (e.g., ISC_R_SUCCESS,
ISC_R_FAILURE, etc.).
-t timeout
This option sets the idle timeout period for rndc to timeout sec-
onds. The default is 60 seconds, and the maximum settable value
is 86400 seconds (1 day). If set to 0, there is no timeout.
-V This option enables verbose logging.
-y server_key
This option indicates use of the key server_key from the configu-
ration file. For control message validation to succeed,
server_key must be known by named with the same algorithm and se-
cret string. If no server_key is specified, rndc first looks for
a key clause in the server statement of the server being used, or
if no server statement is present for that host, then in the de-
fault-key clause of the options statement. Note that the configu-
ration file contains shared secrets which are used to send au-
thenticated control commands to name servers, and should there-
fore not have general read or write access.
COMMANDS
A list of commands supported by rndc can be seen by running rndc without
arguments.
Currently supported commands are:
addzone zone [class [view]] configuration
This command adds a zone while the server is running. This com-
mand requires the allow-new-zones option to be set to yes. The
configuration string specified on the command line is the zone
configuration text that would ordinarily be placed in named.conf.
The configuration is saved in a file called viewname.nzf (or, if
named is compiled with liblmdb, an LMDB database file called
viewname.nzd). viewname is the name of the view, unless the view
name contains characters that are incompatible with use as a file
name, in which case a cryptographic hash of the view name is used
instead. When named is restarted, the file is loaded into the
view configuration so that zones that were added can persist af-
ter a restart.
This sample addzone command adds the zone example.com to the de-
fault view:
rndc addzone example.com '{ type primary; file "example.com.db";
};'
(Note the brackets around and semi-colon after the zone configu-
ration text.)
See also rndc delzone and rndc modzone.
delzone [-clean] zone [class [view]]
This command deletes a zone while the server is running.
If the -clean argument is specified, the zone's master file (and
journal file, if any) are deleted along with the zone. Without
the -clean option, zone files must be deleted manually. (If the
zone is of type secondary or stub, the files needing to be re-
moved are reported in the output of the rndc delzone command.)
If the zone was originally added via rndc addzone, then it is re-
moved permanently. However, if it was originally configured in
named.conf, then that original configuration remains in place;
when the server is restarted or reconfigured, the zone is recre-
ated. To remove it permanently, it must also be removed from
named.conf.
See also rndc addzone and rndc modzone.
dnssec (-status | -step | -rollover -key id [-alg algorithm] [-when
time] | -checkds [-key id [-alg algorithm]] [-when time] published |
withdrawn)) zone [class [view]]
This command allows you to interact with the "dnssec-policy" of a
given zone.
rndc dnssec -status show the DNSSEC signing state for the speci-
fied zone.
rndc dnssec -step sends a signal to an instance of named for a
zone configured with dnssec-policy in manual mode, telling it to
continue with the operations that had previously been blocked but
logged. This gives the human operator a chance to review the log
messages, understand what will happen next and then, using rndc
dnssec -step, to inform named to proceed to the next stage.
rndc dnssec -rollover allows you to schedule key rollover for a
specific key (overriding the original key lifetime).
rndc dnssec -checkds informs named that the DS for a specified
zone's key-signing key has been confirmed to be published in, or
withdrawn from, the parent zone. This is required in order to
complete a KSK rollover. The -key id and -alg algorithm argu-
ments can be used to specify a particular KSK, if necessary; if
there is only one key acting as a KSK for the zone, these argu-
ments can be omitted. The time of publication or withdrawal for
the DS is set to the current time by default, but can be overrid-
den to a specific time with the argument -when time, where time
is expressed in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS notation.
dnstap (-reopen | -roll [number])
This command closes and re-opens DNSTAP output files.
rndc dnstap -reopen allows the output file to be renamed exter-
nally, so that named can truncate and re-open it.
rndc dnstap -roll causes the output file to be rolled automati-
cally, similar to log files. The most recent output file has ".0"
appended to its name; the previous most recent output file is
moved to ".1", and so on. If number is specified, then the number
of backup log files is limited to that number.
dumpdb [-all | -cache | -zones | -adb | -bad | -expired | -fail] [view
...]
This command dumps the server's caches (default) and/or zones to
the dump file for the specified views. If no view is specified,
all views are dumped. (See the dump-file option in the BIND 9
Administrator Reference Manual.)
fetchlimit [view]
This command dumps a list of servers that are currently being
rate-limited as a result of fetches-per-server settings, and a
list of domain names that are currently being rate-limited as a
result of fetches-per-zone settings.
flush This command flushes the server's cache.
flushname name [view]
This command flushes the given name from the view's DNS cache
and, if applicable, from the view's nameserver address database,
bad server cache, and SERVFAIL cache.
flushtree name [view]
This command flushes the given name, and all of its subdomains,
from the view's DNS cache, address database, bad server cache,
and SERVFAIL cache.
freeze [zone [class [view]]]
This command suspends updates to a dynamic zone. If no zone is
specified, then all zones are suspended. This allows manual edits
to be made to a zone normally updated by dynamic update, and
causes changes in the journal file to be synced into the master
file. All dynamic update attempts are refused while the zone is
frozen.
See also rndc thaw.
halt [-p]
This command stops the server immediately. Recent changes made
through dynamic update or IXFR are not saved to the master files,
but are rolled forward from the journal files when the server is
restarted. If -p is specified, named's process ID is returned.
This allows an external process to determine when named has com-
pleted halting.
See also rndc stop.
skr -import file zone [class [view]]
This command allows you to import a SKR file for the specified
zone, to support offline KSK signing.
loadkeys [zone [class [view]]]
This command fetches all DNSSEC keys for the given zone from the
key directory. If they are within their publication period, they
are merged into the zone's DNSKEY RRset. Unlike rndc sign, how-
ever, the zone is not immediately re-signed by the new keys, but
is allowed to incrementally re-sign over time.
This command requires that the zone be configured with a
dnssec-policy.
managed-keys (status | refresh | sync | destroy) [class [view]]
This command inspects and controls the "managed-keys" database
which handles ]8;;https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5011.html\RFC 5011]8;;\ DNSSEC trust anchor maintenance. If a view
is specified, these commands are applied to that view; otherwise,
they are applied to all views.
• When run with the status keyword, this prints the current sta-
tus of the managed-keys database.
• When run with the refresh keyword, this forces an immediate re-
fresh query to be sent for all the managed keys, updating the
managed-keys database if any new keys are found, without wait-
ing the normal refresh interval.
• When run with the sync keyword, this forces an immediate dump
of the managed-keys database to disk (in the file man-
aged-keys.bind or (viewname.mkeys). This synchronizes the data-
base with its journal file, so that the database's current con-
tents can be inspected visually.
• When run with the destroy keyword, the managed-keys database is
shut down and deleted, and all key maintenance is terminated.
This command should be used only with extreme caution.
Existing keys that are already trusted are not deleted from
memory; DNSSEC validation can continue after this command is
used. However, key maintenance operations cease until named is
restarted or reconfigured, and all existing key maintenance
states are deleted.
Running rndc reconfig or restarting named immediately after
this command causes key maintenance to be reinitialized from
scratch, just as if the server were being started for the first
time. This is primarily intended for testing, but it may also
be used, for example, to jumpstart the acquisition of new keys
in the event of a trust anchor rollover, or as a brute-force
repair for key maintenance problems.
memprof [(on | off | dump)]
This command controls memory profiling. To have any effect, named
must be built with jemalloc, the library have profiling support
enabled and run with the prof:true allocator configuration. (ei-
ther via MALLOC_CONF or /etc/malloc.conf)
The prof_active:false option is recommended to ensure the profil-
ing overhead does not affect named when not needed.
The on and off options will start and stop the jemalloc memory
profiling respectively. When run with the dump option, named
will dump the profile to the working directory. The name will be
chosen automatically by jemalloc.
modzone zone [class [view]] configuration
This command modifies the configuration of a zone while the
server is running. This command requires the allow-new-zones op-
tion to be set to yes. As with addzone, the configuration string
specified on the command line is the zone configuration text that
would ordinarily be placed in named.conf.
If the zone was originally added via rndc addzone, the configura-
tion changes are recorded permanently and are still in effect af-
ter the server is restarted or reconfigured. However, if it was
originally configured in named.conf, then that original configu-
ration remains in place; when the server is restarted or recon-
figured, the zone reverts to its original configuration. To make
the changes permanent, it must also be modified in named.conf.
See also rndc addzone and rndc delzone.
notify zone [class [view]]
This command resends NOTIFY messages for the zone.
notrace
This command sets the server's debugging level to 0.
See also rndc trace.
nta [(-class class | -dump | -force | -remove | -lifetime duration)] do-
main [view]
This command sets a DNSSEC negative trust anchor (NTA) for do-
main, with a lifetime of duration. The default lifetime is con-
figured in named.conf via the nta-lifetime option, and defaults
to one hour. The lifetime cannot exceed one week.
A negative trust anchor selectively disables DNSSEC validation
for zones that are known to be failing because of misconfigura-
tion rather than an attack. When data to be validated is at or
below an active NTA (and above any other configured trust an-
chors), named aborts the DNSSEC validation process and treats the
data as insecure rather than bogus. This continues until the
NTA's lifetime has elapsed.
NTAs persist across restarts of the named server. The NTAs for a
view are saved in a file called name.nta, where name is the name
of the view; if it contains characters that are incompatible with
use as a file name, a cryptographic hash is generated from the
name of the view.
An existing NTA can be removed by using the -remove option.
An NTA's lifetime can be specified with the -lifetime option.
TTL-style suffixes can be used to specify the lifetime in sec-
onds, minutes, or hours. If the specified NTA already exists, its
lifetime is updated to the new value. Setting lifetime to zero is
equivalent to -remove.
If -dump is used, any other arguments are ignored and a list of
existing NTAs is printed. Note that this may include NTAs that
are expired but have not yet been cleaned up.
Normally, named periodically tests to see whether data below an
NTA can now be validated (see the nta-recheck option in the Ad-
ministrator Reference Manual for details). If data can be vali-
dated, then the NTA is regarded as no longer necessary and is al-
lowed to expire early. The -force parameter overrides this behav-
ior and forces an NTA to persist for its entire lifetime, regard-
less of whether data could be validated if the NTA were not
present.
The view class can be specified with -class. The default is class
IN, which is the only class for which DNSSEC is currently sup-
ported.
All of these options can be shortened, i.e., to -l, -r, -d, -f,
and -c.
Unrecognized options are treated as errors. To refer to a domain
or view name that begins with a hyphen, use a double-hyphen (--)
on the command line to indicate the end of options.
querylog [(on | off)]
This command enables or disables query logging. For backward com-
patibility, this command can also be used without an argument to
toggle query logging on and off.
Query logging can also be enabled by explicitly directing the
queries category to a channel in the logging section of
named.conf, or by specifying querylog yes; in the options section
of named.conf.
reconfig
This command reloads the configuration file and loads new zones,
but does not reload existing zone files even if they have
changed. This is faster than a full rndc reload when there is a
large number of zones, because it avoids the need to examine the
modification times of the zone files.
recursing
This command dumps the list of queries named is currently recurs-
ing on, and the list of domains to which iterative queries are
currently being sent.
The first list includes all unique clients that are waiting for
recursion to complete, including the query that is awaiting a re-
sponse and the timestamp (seconds since the Unix epoch) of when
named started processing this client query.
The second list comprises of domains for which there are active
(or recently active) fetches in progress. It reports the number
of active fetches for each domain and the number of queries that
have been passed (allowed) or dropped (spilled) as a result of
the fetches-per-zone limit. (Note: these counters are not cumu-
lative over time; whenever the number of active fetches for a do-
main drops to zero, the counter for that domain is deleted, and
the next time a fetch is sent to that domain, it is recreated
with the counters set to zero).
refresh zone [class [view]]
This command schedules zone maintenance for the given zone.
reload This command reloads the configuration file and zones.
zone [class [view]]
If a zone is specified, this command reloads only the given zone.
If no zone is specified, the reloading happens asynchronously.
reset-stats <counter-name ...>
This command resets the requested statistics counters.
At least one counter name must be provided. Currently the follow-
ing counters are supported: recursive-high-water, tcp-high-water.
responselog [on | off]
This command enables or disables response logging. For backward
compatibility, this command can also be used without an argument
to toggle response logging on and off.
Unlike query logging, response logging cannot be enabled by ex-
plicitly directing the responses category to a channel in the
logging section of named.conf, but it can still be enabled by
specifying responselog yes; in the options section of named.conf.
retransfer [-force] zone [class [view]]
This command retransfers the given secondary zone from the pri-
mary server.
If the zone is configured to use inline-signing, the signed ver-
sion of the zone is discarded; after the retransfer of the un-
signed version is complete, the signed version is regenerated
with new signatures. With the optional -force argument provided
if there is an ongoing zone transfer it will be aborted before a
new zone transfer is scheduled.
scan This command scans the list of available network interfaces for
changes, without performing a full rndc reconfig or waiting for
the interface-interval timer.
secroots [-] [view ...]
This command dumps the security roots (i.e., trust anchors con-
figured via trust-anchors, or the managed-keys or trusted-keys
statements [both deprecated], or dnssec-validation auto) and neg-
ative trust anchors for the specified views. If no view is speci-
fied, all views are dumped. Security roots indicate whether they
are configured as trusted keys, managed keys, or initializing
managed keys (managed keys that have not yet been updated by a
successful key refresh query).
If the first argument is -, then the output is returned via the
rndc response channel and printed to the standard output. Other-
wise, it is written to the secroots dump file, which defaults to
named.secroots, but can be overridden via the secroots-file op-
tion in named.conf.
See also rndc managed-keys.
serve-stale (on | off | reset | status) [class [view]]
This command enables, disables, resets, or reports the current
status of the serving of stale answers as configured in
named.conf.
If serving of stale answers is disabled by rndc-serve-stale off,
then it remains disabled even if named is reloaded or reconfig-
ured. rndc serve-stale reset restores the setting as configured
in named.conf.
rndc serve-stale status reports whether caching and serving of
stale answers is currently enabled or disabled. It also reports
the values of stale-answer-ttl and max-stale-ttl.
showzone zone [class [view]]
If the server is configured with allow-new-zones set to yes, then
this command prints the configuration of a running zone.
See also rndc addzone, rndc modzone. and rndc delzone.
sign zone [class [view]]
This command fetches all DNSSEC keys for the given zone from the
key directory (see the key-directory option in the BIND 9 Admin-
istrator Reference Manual). If they are within their publication
period, they are merged into the zone's DNSKEY RRset. If the
DNSKEY RRset is changed, then the zone is automatically re-signed
with the new key set. This will replace signatures of inactive
keys with signatures from active keys, and update signatures that
expire within the refresh interval.
This command requires that the zone be configured with a
dnssec-policy.
See also rndc loadkeys.
signing [(-list | -clear keyid/algorithm | -clear all | -nsec3param (pa-
rameters | none) | -serial value) zone [class [view]]
This command lists, edits, or removes the DNSSEC signing-state
records for the specified zone. The status of ongoing DNSSEC op-
erations, such as signing or generating NSEC3 chains, is stored
in the zone in the form of DNS resource records of type sig-sign-
ing-type. rndc signing -list converts these records into a hu-
man-readable form, indicating which keys are currently signing or
have finished signing the zone, and which NSEC3 chains are being
created or removed.
rndc signing -clear can remove a single key (specified in the
same format that rndc signing -list uses to display it), or all
keys. In either case, only completed keys are removed; any record
indicating that a key has not yet finished signing the zone is
retained.
rndc signing -nsec3param sets the NSEC3 parameters for a zone.
This is the only supported mechanism for using NSEC3 with in-
line-signing zones. Parameters are specified in the same format
as an NSEC3PARAM resource record: hash algorithm, flags, itera-
tions, and salt, in that order.
Currently, the only defined value for hash algorithm is 1, repre-
senting SHA-1. The flags may be set to 0 or 1, depending on
whether the opt-out bit in the NSEC3 chain should be set. itera-
tions defines the number of additional times to apply the algo-
rithm when generating an NSEC3 hash. The salt is a string of data
expressed in hexadecimal, a hyphen (-) if no salt is to be used,
or the keyword auto, which causes named to generate a random
64-bit salt.
The only recommended configuration is rndc signing -nsec3param 1
0 0 - zone, i.e. no salt, no additional iterations, no opt-out.
WARNING:
Do not use extra iterations, salt, or opt-out unless all their
implications are fully understood. A higher number of itera-
tions causes interoperability problems and opens servers to
CPU-exhausting DoS attacks.
rndc signing -nsec3param none removes an existing NSEC3 chain and
replaces it with NSEC.
rndc signing -serial value sets the serial number of the zone to
value. If the value would cause the serial number to go back-
wards, it is rejected. The primary use of this parameter is to
set the serial number on inline signed zones.
stats This command writes server statistics to the statistics file.
(See the statistics-file option in the BIND 9 Administrator Ref-
erence Manual.)
status This command displays the status of the server. Note that the
number of zones includes the internal bind/CH zone and the de-
fault ./IN hint zone, if there is no explicit root zone config-
ured.
stop -p
This command stops the server, making sure any recent changes
made through dynamic update or IXFR are first saved to the master
files of the updated zones. If -p is specified, named's process
ID is returned. This allows an external process to determine
when named has completed stopping.
See also rndc halt.
sync -clean [zone [class [view]]]
This command syncs changes in the journal file for a dynamic zone
to the master file. If the "-clean" option is specified, the
journal file is also removed. If no zone is specified, then all
zones are synced.
tcp-timeouts [initial idle keepalive advertised]
When called without arguments, this command displays the current
values of the tcp-initial-timeout, tcp-idle-timeout,
tcp-keepalive-timeout, and tcp-advertised-timeout options. When
called with arguments, these values are updated. This allows an
administrator to make rapid adjustments when under a de-
nial-of-service (DoS) attack. See the descriptions of these op-
tions in the BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual for details of
their use.
thaw [zone [class [view]]]
This command enables updates to a frozen dynamic zone. If no zone
is specified, then all frozen zones are enabled. This causes the
server to reload the zone from disk, and re-enables dynamic up-
dates after the load has completed. After a zone is thawed, dy-
namic updates are no longer refused. If the zone has changed and
the ixfr-from-differences option is in use, the journal file is
updated to reflect changes in the zone. Otherwise, if the zone
has changed, any existing journal file is removed. If no zone is
specified, the reloading happens asynchronously.
See also rndc freeze.
trace [level]
If no level is specified, this command increments the server's
debugging level by one.
level If specified, this command sets the server's debugging
level to the provided value.
See also rndc notrace.
validation (on | off | status) [view ...]
This command enables, disables, or checks the current status of
DNSSEC validation. By default, validation is enabled.
The cache is flushed when validation is turned on or off to avoid
using data that might differ between states.
zonestatus zone [class [view]]
This command displays the current status of the given zone, in-
cluding the master file name and any include files from which it
was loaded, when it was most recently loaded, the current serial
number, the number of nodes, whether the zone supports dynamic
updates, whether the zone is DNSSEC signed, whether it uses auto-
matic DNSSEC key management or inline signing, and the scheduled
refresh or expiry times for the zone.
See also rndc showzone.
rndc commands that specify zone names, such as reload retransfer, or
zonestatus, can be ambiguous when applied to zones of type redirect.
Redirect zones are always called ., and can be confused with zones of
type hint or with secondary copies of the root zone. To specify a redi-
rect zone, use the special zone name -redirect, without a trailing pe-
riod. (With a trailing period, this would specify a zone called "-redi-
rect".)
LIMITATIONS
There is currently no way to provide the shared secret for a server_key
without using the configuration file.
Several error messages could be clearer.
SEE ALSO
rndc.conf(5), rndc-confgen(8), named(8), named.conf(5), BIND 9 Adminis-
trator Reference Manual.
AUTHOR
Internet Systems Consortium
COPYRIGHT
2026, Internet Systems Consortium
9.20.18-1~deb13u1-Debian 2026-01-09 RNDC(8)
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