ndc documentation for a newbie

[Joe Dufresne]

Hi all -

I'm somewhat new UNIX Sys Admin and very new to BIND.  I have been
unable to find much documentation on ndc.

I've read 90% of the O'Reilly DNS and BIND book.
I've searched through the latest release from www.isc.org/products/BIND.

I've asked my local guru's.
I've checked SOME of the archives of this newsgroup.

I saw the post to this newsgroup from 3/1/00 about the man page, but
when I type "man ndc" I get the following page:

% man ndc
Reformatting page.  Wait... done
This command allows  the  system  administrator  to  control  the
operation of a name server.  If no is given, will prompt for com-
mands until it reads EOF.  Options are:  Specifies the rendezvous
point  for  the  control  channel.  The default is (a UNIX domain
socket which is also the server's default control  channel).   If
the  desired  control channel is a TCP/IP socket, then the format
of the argument is (for example, would be  TCP  port  54  on  the
local  host.)   This  option  will the client side of the control
channel to a specific address.   Servers  can  be  configured  to
reject  connections  which  do  not come from specific addresses.
The format is the same as for (see above).  For backward compati-
bility  with  older name servers, is able to use UNIX signals for
control communications.  This capability is  optional  in  modern
name  servers  and will disappear altogether at some future time.
Note that the available set is narrower when the signal interface
is  used.   A  likely  argument  would be something like Turns on
debugging output, which is  of  interest  mainly  to  developers.
Suppresses  prompts  and  result text.  Suppresses nonfatal error
announcements.  Turns on protocol and system tracing,  useful  in
installation  debugging.  Several commands are built into but the
full set of commands supported by the name server is dynamic  and
should be discovered using the command (see below).  Builtin com-
mands are:  Provides help for builtin commands.  Exit  from  com-
mand  interpreter.  Toggle tracing (see description above).  Tog-
gle debugging (see  description  above).   Toggle  quietude  (see
description  above).  Toggle silence (see description above).  If
running in mode, any arguments to and commands are passed to  the
new on its command line.  If running in mode, there is no command
and the command just tells the name server to itself.  Paul Vixie
(Internet Software Consortium)
%

The page is obviously messed up.  Any idea what I'm doing wrong?   Is
there  another source of info on ndc that I'm not aware of?

Again, go easy on me - I'm new to this!

Joe Dufresne
joe.dufresne at bestbuy.com