Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 592143
BIND defaults to "_default" as a directory instead of "/var/named"
Last modified: 2013-04-30 19:46:02 EDT
Description of problem: bind does not default to /var/named when no directory is specified, instead defaulting to _default Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): bind-9.3.6-4.P1.el5_4.2 How reproducible: Everytime Steps to Reproduce: 1. Edit a valid named.conf file 2. comment out the directory line in the options section 3. start bind and it will fail Actual results: [akula@jasonlawer ~]$ sudo /etc/init.d/named start [sudo] password for akula: Starting named: Error in named configuration: zone localdomain/IN: loading master file localdomain.zone: file not found _default/localdomain./IN: file not found zone localhost/IN: loading master file localhost.zone: file not found _default/localhost./IN: file not found zone 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa/IN: loading master file named.local: file not found _default/0.0.127.in-addr.arpa./IN: file not found zone 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa/IN: loading master file named.ip6.local: file not found _default/0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa./IN: file not found zone 255.in-addr.arpa/IN: loading master file named.broadcast: file not found _default/255.in-addr.arpa./IN: file not found zone 0.in-addr.arpa/IN: loading master file named.zero: file not found _default/0.in-addr.arpa./IN: file not found [FAILED] Bind fails to start due to files not being found Expected results: Bind defaults to /var/named and runs Additional info: Was a client issue, but worked around.
This is a valid and expected behavior. Check /usr/share/doc/bind-9.3.6/arm/Bv9ARM.pdf (BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual), section 6.2.16, description of the "directory" directive, please: ... directory: The working directory of the server. Any non-absolute pathnames in the configuration file will be taken as relative to this directory. The default location for most server output files (e.g. named.run) is this directory. If a directory is not specified, the working directory defaults to `.', the directory from which the server was started. The directory specified should be an absolute path. ... Closing as notabug.