named.conf.4 (2010 09)

n
named.conf(4) named.conf(4)
(BIND 9.3)
IN The Internet class. This is the default.
IN is correct for the vast major-
ity of cases.
HS, Hesiod This class is named for an information service from MIT’s Project
Athena. It is used to share information about various systems databases,
such as users, groups, printers and so on.
CHAOS Another MIT development is Chaosnet, a LAN protocol created in the
mid-1970s.
type The type of the zone.
type master
The server has a master copy of the data for the zone and will be able to provide authori-
tative answers for it.
type slave A slave zone is a replica of a master zone.
The
masters list specifies one or more IP addresses of master servers that the slave
contacts to update its copy of the zone.
By default, transfers are made from port 53 on the servers; this can be changed for all
servers by specifying a port number before the list of IP addresses, or on a per-server
basis after the IP address. Authentication to the master can also be done with per-server
TSIG keys.
If a file is specified, then the replica will be written to this file whenever the zone is
changed, and reloaded from this file on a server restart. Use of a file is recommended,
since it often speeds server start-up and eliminates a needless waste of bandwidth. If the
database files are very large, it is recommended to place them in different directories.
type stub A stub zone is similar to a slave zone, except that it replicates only the NS records of a
master zone instead of the entire zone.
Stub zones are not a standard part of the DNS; they are a feature specific to the BIND
implementation. Stub zones can be used to eliminate the need for glue NS records in a
parent zone at the expense of maintaining a stub zone entry and a set of name server
addresses in
named.conf.
This usage is not recommended for new configurations, and BIND 9.3 supports it only in
a limited way. In BIND 4/8, zone transfers of a parent zone included the NS records
from stub children of that zone. This meant that, in some cases, users could get away
with configuring child stubs only in the master server for the parent zone. BIND 9 never
mixes together zone data from different zones in this way. Therefore, if a BIND 9 master
serving a parent zone has child stub zones configured, all the slave servers for the parent
zone also need to have the same child stub zones configured.
Stub zones can also be used to force the resolution of a given domain to use a particular
set of authoritative servers. For example, the caching name servers on a private network
using RFC 2157 addressing may be configured with stub zones for
10.in-addr.arpa
to use a set of internal name servers as the authoritative servers for that domain.
type forward
A forward zone can be used to configure forwarding on a per-domain basis. A zone state-
ment of type forward can contain a forward and/or forwarders statement, which
will apply to queries within the domain given by the zone name. If no forwarders
statement is present or an empty list of forwarders is given, then no forwarding will be
done for the domain, canceling the effects of any forwarders in the options statement.
Thus, if you want to use this type of zone to change the behavior of the global forward
option (that is, forward first, then forward only, or vice versa, but want to use
the same servers as set globally), you need to respecify the global forwarders.
type hint The initial set of root name servers is specified using a hint zone. When the server starts
up, it uses the root hints to find a root name server and get the most recent list of root
name servers. If no hint zone is specified for class IN, the server uses a compiled-in
default set of root servers hints. Classes other than IN have no built-in defaults hints.
type delegation-only
This is used to enforce the delegation-only status of infrastructure zones (for example,
COM, NET, ORG). Any answer that is received without a explicit or implicit delegation in
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