Administering the Name Service

The rndc command enables you to administer the named service. The service is administered locally. If the service is configured in the controls section of the /etc/named.conf file, then you can also use the command line to manage named remotely. To prevent unauthorized access to the service, rndc must be configured to listen on the selected port (by default, port 953), and both named and rndc must have access to the same key. To generate a suitable key, use the rndc-confgen command:

sudo rndc-confgen -a

The command creates the /etc/rndc.key file.

Check the status of the named service as follows:

sudo rndc status

number of zones: 3
debug level: 0
xfers running: 0
xfers deferred: 0
soa queries in progress: 0
query logging is OFF
recursive clients: 0/1000
tcp clients: 0/100
server is up and running

If you change the named configuration file or zone files, the rndc reload command instructs named to reload the files:

sudo rndc reload

For more information, see the named(8), rndc(8) and rndc-confgen(8) manual pages.