Tribblix: manual page: named-checkzone.1

NAMED-CHECKZONE(1) BIND 9 NAMED-CHECKZONE(1)

NAME

named-checkzone - zone file validity checking or converting tool

SYNOPSIS

named-checkzone [-d] [-h] [-j] [-q] [-v] [-c class] [-f format] [-F
format] [-J filename] [-i mode] [-k mode] [-m mode] [-M mode] [-n
mode] [-l ttl] [-L serial] [-o filename] [-r mode] [-s style] [-S
mode] [-t directory] [-T mode] [-w directory] [-D] [-W mode]
{zonename} {filename}

DESCRIPTION

named-checkzone checks the syntax and integrity of a zone file. It
performs the same checks as named does when loading a zone. This
makes named-checkzone useful for checking zone files before
configuring them into a name server.

OPTIONS

-d This option enables debugging.

-h This option prints the usage summary and exits.

-q This option sets quiet mode, which only sets an exit code to
indicate successful or failed completion.

-v This option prints the version of the named-checkzone program
and exits.

-j When loading a zone file, this option tells named to read the
journal if it exists. The journal file name is assumed to be
the zone file name with the string .jnl appended.

-J filename
When loading the zone file, this option tells named to read
the journal from the given file, if it exists. This implies
-j.

-c class
This option specifies the class of the zone. If not specified,
IN is assumed.

-i mode
This option performs post-load zone integrity checks. Possible
modes are full (the default), full-sibling, local,
local-sibling, and none.

Mode full checks that MX records refer to A or AAAA records
(both in-zone and out-of-zone hostnames). Mode local only
checks MX records which refer to in-zone hostnames.

Mode full checks that SRV records refer to A or AAAA records
(both in-zone and out-of-zone hostnames). Mode local only
checks SRV records which refer to in-zone hostnames.

Mode full checks that delegation NS records refer to A or AAAA
records (both in-zone and out-of-zone hostnames). It also
checks that glue address records in the zone match those
advertised by the child. Mode local only checks NS records
which refer to in-zone hostnames or verifies that some
required glue exists, i.e., when the name server is in a child
zone.

Modes full-sibling and local-sibling disable sibling glue
checks, but are otherwise the same as full and local,
respectively.

Mode none disables the checks.

-f format
This option specifies the format of the zone file. Possible
formats are text (the default), and raw.

-F format
This option specifies the format of the output file specified.
For named-checkzone, this does not have any effect unless it
dumps the zone contents.

Possible formats are text (the default), which is the standard
textual representation of the zone, and raw and raw=N, which
store the zone in a binary format for rapid loading by named.
raw=N specifies the format version of the raw zone file: if N
is 0, the raw file can be read by any version of named; if N
is 1, the file can only be read by release 9.9.0 or higher.
The default is 1.

-k mode
This option performs check-names checks with the specified
failure mode. Possible modes are fail, warn (the default),
and ignore.

-l ttl This option sets a maximum permissible TTL for the input file.
Any record with a TTL higher than this value causes the zone
to be rejected. This is similar to using the max-zone-ttl
option in named.conf.

-L serial
When compiling a zone to raw format, this option sets the
"source serial" value in the header to the specified serial
number. This is expected to be used primarily for testing
purposes.

-m mode
This option specifies whether MX records should be checked to
see if they are addresses. Possible modes are fail, warn (the
default), and ignore.

-M mode
This option checks whether a MX record refers to a CNAME.
Possible modes are fail, warn (the default), and ignore.

-n mode
This option specifies whether NS records should be checked to
see if they are addresses. Possible modes are fail, warn (the
default), and ignore.

-o filename
This option writes the zone output to filename. If filename is
-, then the zone output is written to standard output.

-r mode
This option checks for records that are treated as different
by DNSSEC but are semantically equal in plain DNS. Possible
modes are fail, warn (the default), and ignore.

-s style
This option specifies the style of the dumped zone file.
Possible styles are full (the default) and relative. The full
format is most suitable for processing automatically by a
separate script. The relative format is more human-readable
and is thus suitable for editing by hand. This does not have
any effect unless it dumps the zone contents. It also does not
have any meaning if the output format is not text.

-S mode
This option checks whether an SRV record refers to a CNAME.
Possible modes are fail, warn (the default), and ignore.

-t directory
This option tells named to chroot to directory, so that
include directives in the configuration file are processed as
if run by a similarly chrooted named.

-T mode
This option checks whether Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
records exist and issues a warning if an SPF-formatted TXT
record is not also present. Possible modes are warn (the
default) and ignore.

-w directory
This option instructs named to chdir to directory, so that
relative filenames in master file $INCLUDE directives work.
This is similar to the directory clause in named.conf.

-D This option dumps the zone file in canonical format.

-W mode
This option specifies whether to check for non-terminal
wildcards. Non-terminal wildcards are almost always the result
of a failure to understand the wildcard matching algorithm
(RFC 4592). Possible modes are warn (the default) and ignore.

zonename
This indicates the domain name of the zone being checked.

filename
This is the name of the zone file.

RETURN VALUES

named-checkzone returns an exit status of 1 if errors were detected
and 0 otherwise.

AUTHOR

Internet Systems Consortium

COPYRIGHT

2025, Internet Systems Consortium

9.18.34 2025-02-11 NAMED-CHECKZONE(1)