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NAMED-RRCHECKER(1) BIND 9 NAMED-RRCHECKER(1) NAME named-rrchecker - syntax checker for individual DNS resource records SYNOPSIS named-rrchecker [-h] [-o origin] [-p] [-u] [-C] [-T] [-P] DESCRIPTION named-rrchecker reads a single DNS resource record (RR) from standard input and checks whether it is syntactically correct. The input format is a minimal subset of the DNS zone file format. The entire input must be: CLASS TYPE RDATA • Input must not start with an owner (domain) name • The CLASS field is mandatory (typically IN). • The TTL field must not be present. • RDATA format is specific to each RRTYPE. • Leading and trailing whitespace in each field is ignored. Format details can be found in RFC 1035 Section 5.1 <https:// datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1035.html#section-5.1> under <rr> specification. RFC 3597 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3597 .html> format is also accepted in any of the input fields. See Exam- ples. OPTIONS -o origin This option specifies the origin to be used when interpreting names in the record: it defaults to root (.). The specified ori- gin is always taken as an absolute name. -p This option prints out the resulting record in canonical form. If there is no canonical form defined, the record is printed in RFC 3597 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3597.html> unknown record format. -u This option prints out the resulting record in RFC 3597 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3597.html> unknown record format. -C, -T, -P These options do not read input. They print out known classes, standard types, and private type mnemonics. Each item is printed on a separate line. The resulting list of private types may be empty -h This option prints out the help menu. EXAMPLES Pay close attention to the echo command line options -e and -n, as they affect whitespace in the input to named-rrchecker. echo -n 'IN A 192.0.2.1' | named-rrchecker • Valid input is in RFC 1035 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/ html/rfc1035.html> format with no newline at the end of the input. • Return code 0. echo -e '\n \n IN\tA 192.0.2.1 \t \n\n ' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid input with leading and trailing whitespace. • Output: IN A 192.0.2.1 • Leading and trailing whitespace is not part of the output. Relative names and origin echo 'IN CNAME target' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid input with a relative name as the CNAME target. • Output: IN CNAME target. • Relative name target from the input is converted to an ab- solute name using the default origin . (root). echo 'IN CNAME target' | named-rrchecker -p -o origin.test • Valid input with a relative name as the CNAME target. • Output: IN CNAME target.origin.test. • Relative name target from the input is converted to an ab- solute name using the specified origin origin.test echo 'IN CNAME target.' | named-rrchecker -p -o origin.test • Valid input with an absolute name as the CNAME target. • Output: IN CNAME target. • The specified origin has no influence if target from the input is already absolute. Special characters Special characters allowed in zone files by RFC 1035 Section 5.1 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1035.html#section-5.1> are accepted. echo 'IN CNAME t\097r\get\.' | named-rrchecker -p -o origin.test • Valid input with backslash escapes. • Output: IN CNAME target\..origin.test. • \097 denotes an ASCII value in decimal, which, in this exam- ple, is the character a. • \g is converted to a plain g because the g character does not have a special meaning and so the \ prefix does nothing in this case. • \. denotes a literal ASCII dot (here as a part of the CNAME target name). Special meaning of . as the DNS label separator was disabled by the preceding \ prefix. echo 'IN CNAME @' | named-rrchecker -p -o origin.test • Valid input with @ used as a reference to the specified ori- gin. • Output: IN CNAME origin.test. echo 'IN CNAME \@' | named-rrchecker -p -o origin.test • Valid input with a literal @ character (escaped). • Output: IN CNAME \@.origin.test. echo 'IN CNAME prefix.@' | named-rrchecker -p -o origin.test • Valid input with @ used as a reference to the specifed origin. • Output: IN CNAME prefix.\@.origin.test. • @ has special meaning only if it is free-standing. echo 'IN A 192.0.2.1; comment' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid input with a trailing comment. Note the lack of white- space before the start of the comment. • Output: IN A 192.0.2.1 For multi-line examples see the next section. Multi-token records echo -e 'IN TXT two words \n' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid TXT RR with two unquoted words and trailing whitespace. • Output: IN TXT "two" "words" • Two unquoted words in the input are treated as two <charac- ter-string>s per RFC 1035 Section 3.3.14 <https://datatracker .ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1035.html#section-3.3.14>. • Trailing whitespace is omitted from the last <charac- ter-string>. echo -e 'IN TXT "two words" \n' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid TXT RR with one character-string and trailing white- space. • Output: IN TXT "two words" echo -e 'IN TXT "problematic newline\n"' | named-rrchecker -p • Invalid input - the closing " is not detected before the end of the line. echo 'IN TXT "with newline\010"' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid input with an escaped newline character inside charac- ter-string. • Output: IN TXT "with newline\010" echo -e 'IN TXT ( two\nwords )' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid multi-line input with line continuation allowed inside optional parentheses in the RDATA field. • Output: IN TXT "two" "words" echo -e 'IN TXT ( two\nwords ; misplaced comment )' | named-rrchecker -p • Invalid input - comments, starting with ";", are ignored by the parser, so the closing parenthesis should be before the semicolon. echo -e 'IN TXT ( two\nwords ; a working comment\n )' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid input - the comment is terminated with a newline. • Output: IN TXT "two" "words" echo 'IN HTTPS 1 . alpn="h2,h3"' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid HTTPS record • Output: IN HTTPS 1 . alpn="h2,h3" echo -e 'IN HTTPS ( 1 \n . \n alpn="dot")port=853' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid HTTPS record with individual sub-fields split across multiple lines using RFC 1035 Section 5.1 <https://datatracker .ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1035.html#section-5.1> parentheses syn- tax to group data that crosses a line boundary. • Note the missing whitespace between the closing parenthesis and adjacent tokens. • Output: IN HTTPS 1 . alpn="dot" port=853 Unknown type handling echo 'IN A 192.0.2.1' | named-rrchecker -u • Valid input in RFC 1035 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/ html/rfc1035.html> format. • Output in RFC 3957 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/ rfc3957.html> format: CLASS1 TYPE1 \# 4 C0000201 echo 'CLASS1 TYPE1 \# 4 C0000201' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid input in RFC 3597 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/ html/rfc3597.html> format. • Output in RFC 1035 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/ rfc1035.html> format: IN A 192.0.2.1 echo 'IN A \# 4 C0000201' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid input with class and type in RFC 1035 <https:// datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1035.html> format and rdata in RFC 3597 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3597 .html> format. • Output in RFC 1035 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/ rfc1035.html> format: IN A 192.0.2.1 echo 'IN HTTPS 1 . key3=\001\000' | named-rrchecker -p • Valid input with RFC 9460 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/ html/rfc9460.html> syntax for an unknown key3 field. Syntax \001\000 produces two octets with values 1 and 0, respec- tively. • Output: IN HTTPS 1 . port=256 • key3 matches the standardized key name port. • Octets 1 and 0 were decoded as integer values in big-endian encoding. echo 'IN HTTPS 1 . key3=\001' | named-rrchecker -p • Invalid input - the length of the value for key3 (i.e. port) does not match the known standard format for that parameter in the SVCB RRTYPE. echo 'IN HTTPS 1 . port=\001\000' | named-rrchecker -p • Invalid input - the key port, when specified using its stan- dard mnemonic name, must use standard key-specific syntax. Meta values echo 'IN AXFR' | named-rrchecker • Invalid input - AXFR is a meta type, not a genuine RRTYPE. echo 'ANY A 192.0.2.1' | named-rrchecker • Invalid input - ANY is meta class, not a true class. echo 'A 192.0.2.1' | named-rrchecker • Invalid input - the class field is missing, so the parser would try and fail to interpret the RRTYPE A as the class. RETURN CODES 0 The whole input was parsed as one syntactically valid resource record. 1 The input is not a syntactically valid resource record, or the given type is not supported, or either/both class and type are meta-values, which should not appear in zone files. SEE ALSO RFC 1034 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1034.html>, RFC 1035 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1035.html>, RFC 3957 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3957.html>, named(8) <# std-iscman-named>. Author Internet Systems Consortium Copyright 2026, Internet Systems Consortium 9.20.23 2026-05-08 NAMED-RRCHECKER(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXAMPLES | RETURN CODES | SEE ALSO | Author | Copyright
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