NAMED(8) BIND 9 NAMED(8) NAME named - Internet domain name server SYNOPSIS named [ [-4] | [-6] ] [-c config-file] [-C] [-d debug-level] [-D string] [-E engine-name] [-f] [-g] [-L logfile] [-M option] [-m flag] [-n #cpus] [-p port] [-s] [-t directory] [-u user] [-v] [-V] ] DESCRIPTION named is a Domain Name System (DNS) server, part of the BIND 9 distribution from ISC. For more information on the DNS, see RFC 1033, RFC 1034, and RFC 1035. When invoked without arguments, named reads the default configuration file /usr/local/etc/namedb/named.conf, reads any initial data, and listens for queries. OPTIONS -4 This option tells named to use only IPv4, even if the host machine is capable of IPv6. -4 and -6 are mutually exclusive. -6 This option tells named to use only IPv6, even if the host machine is capable of IPv4. -4 and -6 are mutually exclusive. -c config-file This option tells named to use config-file as its configuration file instead of the default, /usr/local/etc/namedb/named.conf. To ensure that the configuration file can be reloaded 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 path- name. -C This option prints out the default built-in configuration and exits. NOTE: This is for debugging purposes only and is not an accurate representation of the actual configuration used by named at runtime. -d debug-level This option sets the daemon's debug level to debug-level. Debugging traces from named become more verbose as the debug level increases. -D string This option specifies a string that is used to identify a instance of named in a process listing. The contents of string are not exam- ined. -E engine-name When applicable, this option specifies the hardware to use for cryp- tographic operations, such as a secure key store used for signing. When BIND 9 is built with OpenSSL, this needs to be set to the OpenSSL engine identifier that drives the cryptographic accelerator or hardware service module (usually pkcs11). -f This option runs the server in the foreground (i.e., do not daemo- nize). -F This options turns on FIPS (US Federal Information Processing Stan- dards) mode if the underlying crytographic library supports running in FIPS mode. -g This option runs the server in the foreground and forces all logging to stderr. -L logfile This option sets the log to the file logfile by default, instead of the system log. -M option This option sets the default (comma-separated) memory context op- tions. The possible flags are: * fill: fill blocks of memory with tag values when they are allo- cated or freed, to assist debugging of memory problems; this is the implicit default if named has been compiled with --enable-de- veloper. * nofill: disable the behavior enabled by fill; this is the implicit default unless named has been compiled with --enable-developer. -m flag This option turns on memory usage debugging flags. Possible flags are usage, trace and record. These correspond to the ISC_MEM_DE- BUGXXXX flags described in <isc/mem.h>. -n #cpus This option creates #cpus worker threads to take advantage of multi- ple CPUs. If not specified, named tries to determine the number of CPUs present and creates one thread per CPU. If it is unable to de- termine the number of CPUs, a single worker thread is created. -p value This option specifies the port(s) on which the server will listen for queries. If value is of the form <portnum> or dns=<portnum>, the server will listen for DNS queries on portnum; if not not specified, the default is port 53. If value is of the form tls=<portnum>, the server will listen for TLS queries on portnum; the default is 853. If value is of the form https=<portnum>, the server will listen for HTTPS queries on portnum; the default is 443. If value is of the form http=<portnum>, the server will listen for HTTP queries on portnum; the default is 80. -s This option writes memory usage statistics to stdout on exit. NOTE: This option is mainly of interest to BIND 9 developers and may be re- moved or changed in a future release. -t directory This option tells named to 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 chroot- ing a process running as root doesn't enhance security on most systems; the way chroot is defined allows a process with root privileges to es- cape a chroot jail. -U #listeners This option has been removed. Attempts to use it now result in a warning. -u user This option sets the setuid to user after completing privileged op- erations, 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 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. -v This option reports the version number and exits. -V This option reports the version number, build options, supported cryptographics algorithms, and exits. -X lock-file This option has been removed and using it will cause a fatal error. SIGNALS In routine operation, signals should not be used to control the nameserver; rndc should be used instead. SIGHUP This signal forces a reload of the server. SIGINT, SIGTERM These signals 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 Reference Man- ual. 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 per- missions, the umask should be set explicitly in the script used to start the named process. FILES /usr/local/etc/namedb/named.conf The default configuration file. /var/run/named.pid The default process-id file. SEE ALSO RFC 1033, RFC 1034, RFC 1035, named-checkconf(8), named-checkzone(8), rndc(8), named.conf(5), BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual. AUTHOR Internet Systems Consortium COPYRIGHT 2026, Internet Systems Consortium 9.20.27 2026-08-05 NAMED(8)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | SIGNALS | CONFIGURATION | FILES | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | COPYRIGHT
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