ndc.8

SYNOPSIS

     ndc [-c channel] [-l localsock] [-p pidfile] [-d] [-q] [-s] [-t]
         [command]

DESCRIPTION

     This command allows the system administrator to control the operation of
     a name server.  If no command is given, ndc will prompt for commands un­
     til it reads EOF.

     Options are:

     -c channel  Specifies the rendezvous point for the control channel.  The
                 default is /var/run/ndc (a UNIX domain socket which is also
                 the server's default control channel).  If the desired con­
                 trol channel is a TCP/IP socket, then the format of the
                 channel argument is ipaddr/port (for example, 127.0.0.1/54
                 would be TCP port 54 on the local host.)

     -l localsock
                 This option will bind(2) the client side of the control chan­
                 nel to a specific address.  Servers can be configured to re­
                 ject connections which do not come from specific addresses.
                 The format is the same as for channel (see above).

     -p pidfile  For backward compatibility with older name servers, ndc is
                 able to use UNIX signals for control communications.  This
                 capability is optional in modern name servers and will disap­
                 pear altogether at some future time.  Note that the available
                 command set is narrower when the signal interface is used.  A
                 likely pidfile argument would be something like
                 /var/run/named.pid.

     -d          Turns on debugging output, which is of interest mainly to de­
                 velopers.

     -q          Suppresses prompts and result text.

     -s          Suppresses nonfatal error announcements.

     -t          Turns on protocol and system tracing, useful in installation
                 debugging.

COMMANDS

     Several commands are built into ndc, but the full set of commands sup­
     ported by the name server is dynamic and should be discovered using the
     help command (see below).  Builtin commands are:

     /help       Provides help for builtin commands.

     /exit       Exit from ndc command interpreter.

     /trace      Toggle tracing (see --t description above).

     /debug      Toggle debugging (see -d description above).
     Paul Vixie (Internet Software Consortium)

SEE ALSO

     named(8),

4th Berkeley Distribution      December 31, 1998                             2