BIND 9 rndc configuration

Before installing the Men & Mice DNS Server Controller, first determine what version of BIND name server you have. For BIND 9, make sure that rndc is explicitly configured in named.conf, rather than relying on the implied configuration using the rndc.key configuration file. If you are not sure how to do this, take the following steps:

1. Determine whether you need to do anything. Look through your named.conf file and any included files for a statement block starting with the token controls. The block should look something like this

controls {
	inet 127.0.0.1 port 953
		allow { 127.0.0.1; } keys { "rndc-key"; };
};

If you do not find one, or if it looks significantly different (especially if there is a unix substatement instead of an inet substatement), you must (re)configure rndc.

2. Create an rndc.conf file using the tool rndc-confgen which came with BIND 9:

rndc-confgen > /etc/rndc.conf

This creates an rndc.conf that also contains, in comments, two statement blocks that must be copied into named.conf.

3. Copy the lower half of the new rndc.conf to the beginning of your name server's named.conf file and remove the comment character (#) from the beginning of each of the 8 lines of configuration (the key and controls statements).