NAME
rndc.conf - rndc configuration file
SYNOPSIS
rndc.conf
DESCRIPTION
rndc.conf
is the configuration file for
rndc, the BIND 9 name server control utility. This file has a similar structure and syntax to
named.conf. Statements are enclosed in braces and terminated with a semi-colon. Clauses in the statements are also semi-colon terminated. The usual comment styles are supported:
C style: /* */
C++ style: // to end of line
Unix style: # to end of line
rndc.conf
is much simpler than
named.conf. The file uses three statements: an options statement, a server statement and a key statement.
The
options
statement contains five clauses. The
default-server
clause is followed by the name or address of a name server. This host will be used when no name server is given as an argument to
rndc. The
default-key
clause is followed by the name of a key which is identified by a
key
statement. If no
keyid
is provided on the rndc command line, and no
key
clause is found in a matching
server
statement, this default key will be used to authenticate the server's commands and responses. The
default-port
clause is followed by the port to connect to on the remote name server. If no
port
option is provided on the rndc command line, and no
port
clause is found in a matching
server
statement, this default port will be used to connect. The
default-source-address
and
default-source-address-v6
clauses which can be used to set the IPv4 and IPv6 source addresses respectively.
After the
server
keyword, the server statement includes a string which is the hostname or address for a name server. The statement has three possible clauses:
key,
port
and
addresses. The key name must match the name of a key statement in the file. The port number specifies the port to connect to. If an
addresses
clause is supplied these addresses will be used instead of the server name. Each address can take a optional port. If an
source-address
or
source-address-v6
of supplied then these will be used to specify the IPv4 and IPv6 source addresses respectively.
The
key
statement begins with an identifying string, the name of the key. The statement has two clauses.
algorithm
identifies the encryption algorithm for
rndc
to use; currently only HMAC-MD5 is supported. This is followed by a secret clause which contains the base-64 encoding of the algorithm's encryption key. The base-64 string is enclosed in double quotes.
There are two common ways to generate the base-64 string for the secret. The BIND 9 program
rndc-confgen
can be used to generate a random key, or the
mmencode
program, also known as
mimencode, can be used to generate a base-64 string from known input.
mmencode
does not ship with BIND 9 but is available on many systems. See the EXAMPLE section for sample command lines for each.
EXAMPLE
options {
default-server localhost;
default-key samplekey;
};
server localhost {
key samplekey;
};
server testserver {
key testkey;
addresses { localhost port 5353; };
};
key samplekey {
algorithm hmac-md5;
secret "6FMfj43Osz4lyb24OIe2iGEz9lf1llJO+lz";
};
key testkey {
algorithm hmac-md5;
secret "R3HI8P6BKw9ZwXwN3VZKuQ==";
}
In the above example,
rndc
will by default use the server at localhost (127.0.0.1) and the key called samplekey. Commands to the localhost server will use the samplekey key, which must also be defined in the server's configuration file with the same name and secret. The key statement indicates that samplekey uses the HMAC-MD5 algorithm and its secret clause contains the base-64 encoding of the HMAC-MD5 secret enclosed in double quotes.
If
rndc -s testserver
is used then
rndc
will connect to server on localhost port 5353 using the key testkey.
To generate a random secret with
rndc-confgen:
rndc-confgen
A complete
rndc.conf
file, including the randomly generated key, will be written to the standard output. Commented out
key
and
controls
statements for
named.conf
are also printed.
To generate a base-64 secret with
mmencode:
echo "known plaintext for a secret" | mmencode
NAME SERVER CONFIGURATION
The name server must be configured to accept rndc connections and to recognize the key specified in the
rndc.conf
file, using the controls statement in
named.conf. See the sections on the
controls
statement in the BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual for details.
SEE ALSO
rndc(8),
rndc-confgen(8),
mmencode(1),
BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual.
AUTHOR
Internet Systems Consortium
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2004, 2005, 2007 Internet Systems Consortium, Inc. ("ISC")
Copyright 2000, 2001 Internet Software Consortium.