NDC(8)                       BSD    System    Manager's    Manual
NDC(8)

NAME
     ndc - name daemon control program

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 con-
figured 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 communica-
tions.  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  inter-
face 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  discov-
ered 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).

     /quiet      Toggle quietude (see -q description above).

     /silent     Toggle silence (see -s description above).

NOTES
     If  running  in  pidfile  mode,  any  arguments to start and
restart commands
     are passed to the new named on its command line.  If running
in channel
     mode, there is no start command and the restart command just
tells the
     name server to execvp(3) itself.

AUTHOR
     Paul Vixie (Internet Software Consortium)

SEE ALSO
     named(8),

4th    Berkeley    Distribution         December     31,     1998
2