rndc reconfig does not work

[Carsten Strotmann]

Hello Ben,

benjamin fernandis <benjo11111 at gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
> As per my understanding, if we change anything in named.conf and then
> if we require to enable changes without service restart, we go with
> rndc reconfig.
>
> So i tried it but it does not work.
>

"rndc reconfig" does only very specific tasks as documented in the ARM:

-Reload the configuration file and load new zones, but do not reload
-existing zone files even if they have changed. This is faster than a
-full reload when there is a large number of zones because it avoids the
-need to examine the modification times of the zones files.

"rndc reload" does more (reloads the configuration file named.conf and
all zones that have changed), but takes a long time on a system with many
many zones (> 10.000). On systems with not so many zones, I prefer to
always do "rndc reload". But that is a matter of taste.

For some configuration changes (for example change of IP addresses to
listen on, change of fundamental operations, new log-file entries) the
BIND nameserver requires a full restart, esp. if BIND is running as an
non-privileged user (not "root"), as some configuration steps require
root access (like opening network sockets on port 53).

I looks like as if the change you are applying falls in the third
category, however I currently do no have the time to verify that
myself. Maybe someone with knowledge on the inner workings of BIND 9 can
comment on this.

Best regards
and a happy new year 2013!

-- Carsten