rndc.conf
DESCRIPTION
The BIND9 utility for controlling the name server, rndc, has its own con
figuration file /etc/rndc.conf. This file has a similar structure and
syntax to named.conf, the file used to configure the name server. State
ments 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 state
ments: an options statement, a server statement and a key statement.
The options statement contains two 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 -y option is provided on the rndc command line, and no
key clause is found in a a matching server statement, this default key
will be used to authenticate the server's commands and responses.
After the keyword server, the server statement is followed by a string
which is the hostname or address for a name server. The statement has a
single clause, key. The key name must match the name of a key statement
in the file.
The key statement begins with an identifying string, the name of the key.
The statement has two clauses. algorithm identifies the encryption algo
rithm 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 dnssec-keygen(8) can be used to generate a random key,
or the mmencode(1) program, also known as mimencode(1), 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 EXAMPLES section for
sample command lines for each.
Host and key names must be quoted using double quotes if they match a
keyword, such as having a key named "key".
EXAMPLE
options {
default-server localhost;
default-key samplekey;
};
server localhost {
er will use the samplekey key. 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.
To generate a random secret with dnssec-keygen:
$ dnssec-keygen -a hmac-md5 -b 128 -n user rndc
The base-64 string will appear in two files, Krndc.+157.+{random}.key and
Krndc.+157.+{random}.private. After extracting the key to be placed in
the rndc.conf and named.conf key statements, the .key and .private files
can be removed.
To generate a secret from known input with mmenode:
$ echo "known plaintext for a secret" | mmencode
RDNC.CONF(5) BIND9 Programmer's Manual RDNC.CONF(5)
NAME SERVER CONFIGURATION
The name server must be configured to accept rndc connections and to rec
ognize the key specified in the rndc.conf file, using the controls state
ment in named.conf. See the sections on the controls statement in the
BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual for details.
LIMITATIONS
There is currently no way to specify the port for rndc to use. This will
be remedied in future releases by allowing a port clause to the server
statement and a default-port clause to the options statement.
SEE ALSO
rndc(8), dnssec-keygen(8), mmencode(1), "BIND 9 Administrator Refer
ence Manual".
BIND9 Jun 30, 2000 1
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