Zone Files; Zone File Directives - Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual

Chapter 17. Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND)
• // — When placed at the beginning of a line, that line is ignored by named.
• # — When placed at the beginning of a line, that line is ignored by named.
• /* and */ — When text is enclosed in these tags, the block of text is ignored by named.

17.3. Zone Files

Zone files contain information about a namespace and are stored in the named working directory (/
var/named/) by default. Each zone file is named according to the file option data in the zone
statement, usually in a way that relates to the domain in question and identifies the file as containing
zone data, such as example.com.zone.
Note
If you have installed the bind-chroot package, the BIND service will run in the /var/
named/chroot environment. All configuration files will be moved there. As such, you can
find the zone files in /var/named/chroot/var/named.
Each zone file may contain directives and resource records. Directives tell the nameserver to perform
tasks or apply special settings to the zone. Resource records define the parameters of the zone and
assign identities to individual hosts. Directives are optional, but resource records are required to
provide name service to a zone.
All directives and resource records should be entered on individual lines.
Comments can be placed after semicolon characters (;) in zone files.

17.3.1. Zone File Directives

Directives begin with the dollar sign character ($) followed by the name of the directive. They usually
appear at the top of the zone file.
The following are commonly used directives:
$INCLUDE
Configures named to include another zone file in this zone file at the place where the directive
appears. This allows additional zone settings to be stored apart from the main zone file.
$ORIGIN
Appends the domain name to unqualified records, such as those with the hostname and nothing
more.
For example, a zone file may contain the following line:
$ORIGIN example.com.
Any names used in resource records that do not end in a trailing period (.) are appended with
example.com.
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