Server Configuration and Data File Names

To function correctly, the in.named daemon requires a configuration file and four data files.

Configuration File

The master server configuration file is /etc/named.conf. The configuration file contains a list of domain names and the file names containing host information. See The named.conf File for additional information on the named.conf file.

Names of DNS Data Files

If you are internally consistent, you can name the zone data files anything you want. This flexibility might lead to some confusion when working at different sites or referring to different DNS manuals and books.

For example, the file names used in Sun manuals and at most many Solaris sites vary from those used in the book DNS and BIND published by O'Reilly & Associates and both of those nomenclatures have some differences from that used in the public-domain Name Server Operations Guide for BIND.

In addition, this manual and other DNS documentation use generic names that identify a file's main purpose, and specific example names for that file in code samples. For example, this manual uses the generic name hosts when describing the function and role of that file, and the example names db.doc and db.sales in code samples.

The required data files are the following.

• /var/named/named.ca See The named.ca File for additional information on the named.ca file. As long as you are internally consistent, you can name this file anything you want.

• /var/named/hosts See The hosts File for additional information on hosts files.

  The name hosts is a generic name indicating the file's purpose and content. But to avoid confusion with /etc/hosts, you should name this file something other than hosts. The most common naming convention is db.domainname. Thus, the hosts file for the doc.com domain would be called db.doc.

  If you have more than one zone, each zone must have its own hosts file and each of these zone hosts files must have a unique name. For example, if your DNS domain is divided into doc.com and sales.doc.com zones, you could name one hosts file db.doc and the other db.sales.

• /var/named/hosts.rev See The hosts.rev File for additional information on the hosts.rev file.

  The name hosts.rev is a generic name indicating the file's purpose and content. If you have more than one zone, each zone must have its own hosts.rev file and each of these zone hosts.rev files must have a unique name. For example, if your DNS domain is divided into doc.com and sales.doc.com zones, you could name one hosts.rev file doc.rev and the other sales.rev.

• /var/named/named.local See The named.local File and for additional information on the named.local file. As long as you are internally consistent, you can name this file anything you want.

$INCLUDE Files

An include file is any file named in an $INCLUDE() statement in a DNS data file. $INCLUDE files can be used to separate different types of data into multiple files for your convenience. See $INCLUDE Files.

For reference purposes, the following table compares BIND file names from the above mentioned sources.