NAMED(8) BIND9 NAMED(8)
NAME
named - Internet domain name server
SYNOPSIS
named [[-4] | [-6]] [-c config-file] [-d debug-level] [-D string]
[-E engine-name] [-f] [-g] [-L logfile] [-M option] [-m flag]
[-n #cpus] [-p port] [-s] [-S #max-socks] [-t directory]
[-U #listeners] [-u user] [-v] [-V] [-X lock-file]
[-x cache-file]
DESCRIPTION
named is a Domain Name System (DNS) server, part of the BIND 9
distribution from ISC. For more information on the DNS, see RFCs 1033,
1034, and 1035.
When invoked without arguments, named will read the default
configuration file /etc/named.conf, read any initial data, and listen
for queries.
OPTIONS
-4
Use IPv4 only even if the host machine is capable of IPv6. -4 and
-6 are mutually exclusive.
-6
Use IPv6 only even if the host machine is capable of IPv4. -4 and
-6 are mutually exclusive.
-c config-file
Use config-file as the configuration file instead of the default,
/etc/named.conf. To ensure that reloading the configuration file
continues to work after the server has changed its working
directory due to to a possible directory option in the
configuration file, config-file should be an absolute pathname.
-d debug-level
Set the daemon's debug level to debug-level. Debugging traces from
named become more verbose as the debug level increases.
-D string
Specifies a string that is used to identify a instance of named in
a process listing. The contents of string are not examined.
-E engine-name
When applicable, specifies the hardware to use for cryptographic
operations, such as a secure key store used for signing.
When BIND is built with OpenSSL PKCS#11 support, this defaults to
the string "pkcs11", which identifies an OpenSSL engine that can
drive a cryptographic accelerator or hardware service module. When
BIND is built with native PKCS#11 cryptography
(--enable-native-pkcs11), it defaults to the path of the PKCS#11
provider library specified via "--with-pkcs11".
-f
Run the server in the foreground (i.e. do not daemonize).
-g
Run the server in the foreground and force all logging to stderr.
-L logfile
Log to the file logfile by default instead of the system log.
-M option
Sets the default memory context options. Currently the only
supported option is external, which causes the internal memory
manager to be bypassed in favor of system-provided memory
allocation functions.
-m flag
Turn on memory usage debugging flags. Possible flags are usage,
trace, record, size, and mctx. These correspond to the
ISC_MEM_DEBUGXXXX flags described in <isc/mem.h>.
-n #cpus
Create #cpus worker threads to take advantage of multiple CPUs. If
not specified, named will try to determine the number of CPUs
present and create one thread per CPU. If it is unable to determine
the number of CPUs, a single worker thread will be created.
-p port
Listen for queries on port port. If not specified, the default is
port 53.
-s
Write memory usage statistics to stdout on exit.
Note
This option is mainly of interest to BIND 9 developers and may
be removed or changed in a future release.
-S #max-socks
Allow named to use up to #max-socks sockets. The default value is
4096 on systems built with default configuration options, and 21000
on systems built with "configure --with-tuning=large".
Warning
This option should be unnecessary for the vast majority of
users. The use of this option could even be harmful because the
specified value may exceed the limitation of the underlying
system API. It is therefore set only when the default
configuration causes exhaustion of file descriptors and the
operational environment is known to support the specified
number of sockets. Note also that the actual maximum number is
normally a little fewer than the specified value because named
reserves some file descriptors for its internal use.
-t directory
Chroot to directory after processing the command line arguments,
but before reading the configuration file.
Warning
This option should be used in conjunction with the -u option,
as chrooting a process running as root doesn't enhance security
on most systems; the way chroot(2) is defined allows a process
with root privileges to escape a chroot jail.
-U #listeners
Use #listeners worker threads to listen for incoming UDP packets on
each address. If not specified, named will calculate a default
value based on the number of detected CPUs: 1 for 1 CPU, and the
number of detected CPUs minus one for machines with more than 1
CPU. This cannot be increased to a value higher than the number of
CPUs. If -n has been set to a higher value than the number of
detected CPUs, then -U may be increased as high as that value, but
no higher. On Windows, the number of UDP listeners is hardwired to
1 and this option has no effect.
-u user
Setuid to user after completing privileged operations, such as
creating sockets that listen on privileged ports.
Note
On Linux, named uses the kernel's capability mechanism to drop
all root privileges except the ability to bind(2) to a
privileged port and set process resource limits. Unfortunately,
this means that the -u option only works when named is run on
kernel 2.2.18 or later, or kernel 2.3.99-pre3 or later, since
previous kernels did not allow privileges to be retained after
setuid(2).
-v
Report the version number and exit.
-V
Report the version number and build options, and exit.
-X lock-file
Acquire a lock on the specified file at runtime; this helps to
prevent duplicate named instances from running simultaneously. Use
of this option overrides the lock-file option in named.conf. If set
to none, the lock file check is disabled.
-x cache-file
Load data from cache-file into the cache of the default view.
Warning
This option must not be used. It is only of interest to BIND 9
developers and may be removed or changed in a future release.
SIGNALS
In routine operation, signals should not be used to control the
nameserver; rndc should be used instead.
SIGHUP
Force a reload of the server.
SIGINT, SIGTERM
Shut down the server.
The result of sending any other signals to the server is undefined.
CONFIGURATION
The named configuration file is too complex to describe in detail here.
A complete description is provided in the BIND 9 Administrator
Reference Manual.
named inherits the umask (file creation mode mask) from the parent
process. If files created by named, such as journal files, need to have
custom permissions, the umask should be set explicitly in the script
used to start the named process.
FILES
/etc/named.conf
The default configuration file.
/var/run/named/named.pid
The default process-id file.
NOTES
Red Hat SELinux BIND Security Profile:
By default, Red Hat ships BIND with the most secure SELinux policy that
will not prevent normal BIND operation and will prevent exploitation of
all known BIND security vulnerabilities . See the selinux(8) man page
for information about SElinux.
It is not necessary to run named in a chroot environment if the Red Hat
SELinux policy for named is enabled. When enabled, this policy is far
more secure than a chroot environment. Users are recommended to enable
SELinux and remove the bind-chroot package.
With this extra security comes some restrictions:
By default, the SELinux policy does not allow named to write any master
zone database files. Only the root user may create files in the
$ROOTDIR/var/named zone database file directory (the options {
"directory" } option), where $ROOTDIR is set in /etc/sysconfig/named.
The "named" group must be granted read privelege to these files in
order for named to be enabled to read them.
Any file created in the zone database file directory is automatically
assigned the SELinux file context named_zone_t .
By default, SELinux prevents any role from modifying named_zone_t
files; this means that files in the zone database directory cannot be
modified by dynamic DNS (DDNS) updates or zone transfers.
The Red Hat BIND distribution and SELinux policy creates three
directories where named is allowed to create and modify files:
/var/named/slaves, /var/named/dynamic /var/named/data. By placing files
you want named to modify, such as slave or DDNS updateable zone files
and database / statistics dump files in these directories, named will
work normally and no further operator action is required. Files in
these directories are automatically assigned the 'named_cache_t' file
context, which SELinux allows named to write.
Red Hat BIND SDB support:
Red Hat ships named with compiled in Simplified Database Backend
modules that ISC provides in the "contrib/sdb" directory. Install bind-
sdb package if you want use them
The SDB modules for LDAP, PostGreSQL, DirDB and SQLite are compiled
into named-sdb.
See the documentation for the various SDB modules in
/usr/share/doc/bind-sdb-*/ .
SEE ALSO
RFC 1033, RFC 1034, RFC 1035, named-checkconf(8), named-checkzone(8),
rndc(8), lwresd(8), named.conf(5), BIND 9 Administrator Reference
Manual.
AUTHOR
Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2003-2009, 2011, 2013-2018 Internet Systems
Consortium, Inc. ("ISC")
ISC 2014-02-19 NAMED(8)