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REC_CONTROL(1) PowerDNS Recursor REC_CONTROL(1)

rec_control - Command line tool to control a running Recursor

rec_control [OPTION]... COMMAND [COMMAND-OPTION]...

rec_control allows the operator to query and control a running instance of the PowerDNS Recursor.

rec_control talks to the recursor via a the 'controlsocket'. Which is usually located in /var/run . The --socket-dir or the --config-dir and --config-name switches control to which process rec_control connects.

To see if the Recursor is alive, run: 

# rec_control ping


To stop the recursor by hand, run:

# rec_control quit


To dump the cache to disk, execute:

# rec_control dump-cache /tmp/the-cache


NOTE:

Before version 4.5.0, for each command that writes to a file, pdns_recursor would open the file to write to. Starting with 4.5.0, the files are opened by the rec_control command itself using the credentials and the current working directory of the user running rec_control. A single minus - can be used as a filename to write the data to the standard output stream.


--help
provide this helpful message.
--config-dir=<path>
Directory where the recursor.conf lives.
--config-name=<name>
Name of the virtual configuration.
--socket-dir=<path>
Where the controlsocket will live, please use --config-dir instead.
--socket-pid=<pid>
When running in SMP mode, pid of pdns_recursor to control.
--timeout=<num>
Number of seconds to wait for the remote PowerDNS Recursor to respond.

add-dont-throttle-names NAME [NAME...]
Add names for nameserver domains that may not be throttled.
add-dont-throttle-netmasks NETMASK [NETMASK...]
Add netmasks for nameservers that may not be throttled.
add-nta DOMAIN [REASON]
Add a Negative Trust Anchor for DOMAIN, suffixed optionally with REASON.
add-ta DOMAIN DSRECORD
Add a Trust Anchor for DOMAIN with DS record data DSRECORD. This adds the new Trust Anchor to the existing set of Trust Anchors for DOMAIN.
current-queries
Shows the currently active queries.
clear-dont-throttle-names NAME [NAME...]
Remove names that are not allowed to be throttled. If NAME is '*', remove all
clear-dont-throttle-netmasks NETMASK [NETMASK...]
Remove netmasks that are not allowed to be throttled. If NETMASK is '*', remove all
clear-nta DOMAIN...
Remove Negative Trust Anchor for one or more DOMAINs. Set domain to '*' to remove all NTA's.
clear-ta [DOMAIN]...
Remove Trust Anchor for one or more DOMAINs. Note that removing the root trust anchor is not possible.
dump-cache FILENAME
Dumps the entire cache to FILENAME. This file should not exist already, PowerDNS will refuse to overwrite it. While dumping, the recursor might not answer questions.

Typical PowerDNS Recursors run multiple threads, therefore you'll see duplicate, different entries for the same domains. The negative cache is also dumped to the same file. The per-thread positive and negative cache dumps are separated with an appropriate comment.

dump-edns FILENAME
Dumps the EDNS status to the filename mentioned. This file should not exist already, PowerDNS will refuse to overwrite it. While dumping, the recursor will not answer questions.
dump-failedservers FILENAME
Dump the contents of the failed server map to the FILENAME mentioned. This file should not exist already, PowerDNS will refuse to overwrite it otherwise. While dumping, the recursor will not answer questions.
dump-non-resolving FILENAME
Dump the contents of the map of nameserver names that did not resolve to an address. This file should not exist already, PowerDNS will refuse to overwrite it otherwise. While dumping, the recursor will not answer questions.
dump-nsspeeds FILENAME
Dumps the nameserver speed statistics to the FILENAME mentioned. This file should not exist already, PowerDNS will refuse to overwrite it. While dumping, the recursor will not answer questions. Statistics are kept per thread, and the dumps end up in the same file.
dump-rpz ZONE NAME FILE NAME
Dumps the content of the RPZ zone named ZONE NAME to the FILENAME mentioned. This file should not exist already, PowerDNS will refuse to overwrite it otherwise. While dumping, the recursor will not answer questions.
dump-throttlemap FILENAME
Dump the contents of the throttle map to the FILENAME mentioned. This file should not exist already, PowerDNS will refuse to overwrite it otherwise. While dumping, the recursor will not answer questions.
get STATISTIC [STATISTIC]...
Retrieve a statistic. For items that can be queried, see ../metrics
get-all
Retrieve all known statistics.
get-dont-throttle-names
Get the list of names that are not allowed to be throttled.
get-dont-throttle-netmasks
Get the list of netmasks that are not allowed to be throttled.
get-ntas
Get a list of the currently configured Negative Trust Anchors.
get-tas
Get a list of the currently configured Trust Anchors.
get-parameter KEY [KEY]...
Retrieves the specified configuration parameter(s).
get-qtypelist
Retrieves QType statistics. Queries from cache aren't being counted yet.
hash-password [WORK-FACTOR]
Asks for a password then returns the hashed and salted version, to use as a webserver password or API key. This command does not contact the recursor but does the hashing inside rec_control. An optional scrypt work factor can be specified, in power of two. The default is 1024.
help
Shows a list of supported commands understood by the running pdns_recursor
ping
Check if server is alive.
quit
Request shutdown of the recursor, exiting the process while letting the OS clean up resources.
quit-nicely
Request nice shutdown of the recursor. This method allows all threads to finish their current work and releases resources before exiting. This is the preferred method to stop the recursor.
reload-acls
Reloads ACLs.
reload-lua-script [FILENAME]
(Re)loads Lua script FILENAME. If FILENAME is empty, attempt to reload the currently loaded script. This replaces the script currently loaded.
reload-lua-config [FILENAME]
(Re)loads Lua configuration FILENAME. If FILENAME is empty, attempt to reload the currently loaded file. Note that FILENAME will be fully executed, any settings changed at runtime that are not modified in this file, will still be active. Reloading RPZ, especially by AXFR, can take some time; during which the recursor will not answer questions.
reload-zones
Reload authoritative and forward zones. Retains current configuration in case of errors.
set-carbon-server CARBON SERVER [CARBON OURNAME]
Set the carbon-server setting to CARBON SERVER. If CARBON OURNAME is not empty, also set the carbon-ourname setting to CARBON OURNAME.
set-dnssec-log-bogus SETTING
Set dnssec-log-bogus setting to SETTING. Set to 'on' or 'yes' to log DNSSEC validation failures and to 'no' or 'off' to disable logging these failures.
set-ecs-minimum-ttl NUM
Set ecs-minimum-ttl-override to NUM.
set-max-cache-entries NUM
Change the maximum number of entries in the DNS cache. If reduced, the cache size will start shrinking to this number as part of the normal cache purging process, which might take a while.
set-max-packetcache-entries NUM
Change the maximum number of entries in the packet cache. If reduced, the cache size will start shrinking to this number as part of the normal cache purging process, which might take a while.
set-minimum-ttl NUM
Set minimum-ttl-override to NUM.
set-event-trace-enabled NUM
Set logging of event trace messages, 0 = disabled, 1 = protobuf, 2 = log file, 3 = both.
top-queries
Shows the top-20 queries. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-pub-queries
Shows the top-20 queries grouped by public suffix list. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-largeanswer-remotes
Shows the top-20 remote hosts causing large answers. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-remotes
Shows the top-20 most active remote hosts. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-servfail-queries
Shows the top-20 queries causing servfail responses. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-bogus-queries
Shows the top-20 queries causing bogus responses. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-pub-servfail-queries
Shows the top-20 queries causing servfail responses grouped by public suffix list. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-pub-bogus-queries
Shows the top-20 queries causing bogus responses grouped by public suffix list. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-servfail-remotes
Shows the top-20 most active remote hosts causing servfail responses. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-bogus-remotes
Shows the top-20 most active remote hosts causing bogus responses. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
top-timeouts
Shows the top-20 most active downstream timeout destinations. Statistics are over the last 'stats-ringbuffer-entries' queries.
trace-regex REGEX
Emit resolution trace for matching queries. Empty regex to disable trace.

Queries matching this regular expression will generate voluminous tracing output. Be aware that matches from the packet cache will still not generate tracing. To unset the regex, pass trace-regex without a new regex.

The regular expression is matched against domain queries terminated with a dot. For example the regex 'powerdns.com$' will not match a query for 'www.powerdns.com', since the attempted match will be with 'www.powerdns.com.'.

In addition, since this is a regular expression, to exclusively match queries for 'www.powerdns.com', one should escape the dots: '^www\.powerdns\.com\.$'. Note that the single quotes prevent further interpretation of the backslashes by the shell.

Multiple matches can be chained with the | operator. For example, to match all queries for Dutch (.nl) and German (.de) domain names, use: '\.nl\.$|\.de\.$'.

unload-lua-script
Unloads Lua script if one was loaded.
version
Report running version.
wipe-cache DOMAIN [DOMAIN] [...]
Wipe entries for DOMAIN (exact name match) from the cache. This is useful if, for example, an important server has a new IP address, but the TTL has not yet expired. Multiple domain names can be passed. DOMAIN can be suffixed with a '$'. to delete the whole tree from the cache. i.e. 'powerdns.com$' will remove all cached entries under and including the powerdns.com name.

Note: this command also wipes the negative cache.

Warning: Don't just wipe "www.somedomain.com", its NS records or CNAME target may still be undesired, so wipe "somedomain.com" as well.

wipe-cache-typed qtype DOMAIN [DOMAIN] [...]
Same as wipe-cache, but only wipe records of type qtype.

pdns_recursor(1)

PowerDNS.COM BV

2001-2022, PowerDNS.COM BV
March 21, 2022
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