named(8)



NAMED(8)                            BIND 9                            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  distri-
       bution  from  ISC.  For  more information on the DNS, see RFC 1033, RFC
       1034, and RFC 1035.

       When invoked without arguments, named will read the default  configura-
       tion  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  de-
              fault,  /etc/named.conf. To ensure that reloading the configura-
              tion 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 mod-
              ule. When BIND is built with native PKCS#11 cryptography  (--en-
              able-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. If set to external,
              this causes the internal memory manager to be bypassed in  favor
              of  system-provided memory allocation functions. If set to fill,
              blocks of memory will be filled with tag values  when  allocated
              or  freed,  to assist debugging of memory problems. (nofill dis-
              ables this behavior, and is the default unless  named  has  been
              compiled with developer options.)

       -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 deter-
              mine 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  21000  on  systems built with default configuration options,
              and 4096 on systems built with "configure --with-tuning=small".

       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 sup-
          port the specified number of sockets. Note also that the actual max-
          imum number is normally a little fewer than the specified value  be-
          cause 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 ch-
          rooting  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  de-
              fault  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 listen-
              ers 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  de-
          velopers and may be removed or changed in a future release.

SIGNALS
       In  routine  operation, signals should not be used to control the name-
       server; 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 Refer-
       ence 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.

SEE ALSO
       RFC  1033,  RFC 1034, RFC 1035, named-checkconf(8), named-checkzone(8),
       rndc(8), :manpage:`named.conf(5), BIND 9 Administrator  Reference  Man-
       ual.

AUTHOR
       Internet Systems Consortium

COPYRIGHT
       2020, Internet Systems Consortium

9.16.8-Debian                     2020-10-13                          NAMED(8)

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