Using RNDC to control remote access to my BIND server

[Anand Buddhdev]

Hi Greg,

You don't need to SSH into a remote server to do dynamic DNS updates!
The "nsupdate" tool can send the dynamic DNS updates directly to your
remote server over the DNS protocol.

You appear to be confused about what the various tools do, so here's a
summary:

1. ssh is used to log into a remote server, get a shell, and run
operating system commands.

2. rndc is for controlling a running BIND server. It can be used to
check the status of BIND, reload it, etc.

3. nsupdate is for modifying a zone directly (whether on the local
machine, or some remote machine) using the dynamic DNS protocol.

Having read your message, it seems that you need to use "nsupdate". You
don't need "ssh" or "rndc" for this.

Regards,
Anand

On 23/04/2021 11:50, Greg Donohoe wrote:

> Thank you for the suggestions. I am looking into those now.
> Yes we can run nsupdate again on the remote server but I would still need
> to connect to the remote server to do this.
> We were thinking of using SSH to the remote server but we want to explore
> any other option rather than SSH for the secure connection.
> I was thinking that it may be possible to use RNDC or some other tool to
> update the remote BIND server zone files (either by modifying the zone file
> that is already there or replacing the zone file with the new one I created
> locally).
> RNDC looks like it is a non starter for what I want but nsdiff may be a
> good option.