FIRNDC.CONFFR(5)              BIND9              FIRNDC.CONFFR(5)



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 three 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.

       After the server keyword, the server statement includes a
       string which is the hostname or address for a name server.
       The statement has two possible clauses: key and port. The
       key name must match the name of a key statement in the
       file. The port number specifies the port to connect to.

       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;
             };
             key samplekey {
               algorithm       hmac-md5;
               secret          "c3Ryb25nIGVub3VnaCBmb3IgYSBtYW4gYnV0IG1hZGUgZm9yIGEgd29tYW4K";
             };

       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.

       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



BIND9                     June 30, 2000          FIRNDC.CONFFR(5)