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NAME

       rbldnsd - DNS daemon suitable for running DNS-based blocklists

SYNOPSIS

       rbldnsd options zone:dataset...

DESCRIPTION

       rbldnsd  is  a  small  DNS-protocol  daemon which is designed to handle
       queries  to  DNS-based  IP-listing  or  NAME-listing  services.    Such
       services  are  a  simple way to share/publish a list of IP addresses or
       (domain) names which are "listed" for for some reason, for  example  in
       order  to  be able to refuse a service to a client which is "listed" in
       some blocklist.

       rbldnsd is not a general-purpose nameserver.  It will answer to  A  and
       TXT (and SOA and NS if such RRs are specified) queries, and has limited
       ability to answer to some other types of queries.

       rbldnsd tries to handle data from two different perspectives:  given  a
       set  (or several) of "listed entries" (e.g. IP address ranges or domain
       names), it builds and serves a DNS zone.  Note  the  two  are  not  the
       same:  list  of spammer’s IPs is NOT a DNS zone, but may be represented
       and used as such, provided that some additional  information  necessary
       to  build  complete  DNS zone (e.g. NS and SOA records, maybe A records
       necessary for http to work) is available.  In this context, rbldnsd  is
       very  different  from other general-purpose nameservers such as BIND or
       NSD: rbldnsd operates with datasets (sets of entries - IP addresses  or
       domain  names, logically grouped together), while other general-purpose
       nameservers operates with zones.  The way how rbldnsd operates  may  be
       somewhat confusing to BIND experts.

       For   rbldnsd,   a   building   block   is  a  dataset:  e.g.,  set  of
       insecure/abuseable hosts (IP addresses), set  of  network  ranges  that
       belongs  to  various  spam  operations  (IP  ranges), domain names that
       belong to spammers (RHSBL) and  so  on.   Usually,  different  kind  of
       information is placed into separate file, for easy maintenance.  From a
       number of such datasets, rbldnsd constructs a number of  DNS  zones  as
       specified  on  command  line.  A single dataset may be used for several
       zones, and a single zone may be constructed from several datasets.

       rbldnsd will answer queries to DNS zones specified on the command  line
       as  a  set of zone specifications.  Each zone specification consists of
       zone basename, dataset type and a comma-separated list  of  files  that
       forms a given dataset: zone:type:file,file,...

       Several  zones  may  be specified in command line, so that rbldnsd will
       answer queries to any of them.  Also, a single zone  may  be  specified
       several times with different datasets, so it is possible to form a zone
       from a combination of several different dataset.  The same dataset  may
       be reused for several zones too (and in this case, it will be read into
       memory only once).

       There are several dataset  formats  available,  each  is  suitable  and
       optimized  (in  terms  of memory, speed and ease of use) for a specific
       task.  Available dataset  types  may  be  grouped  into  the  following
       categories:

              lists of IP addresses.  When a query is done to a zone with such
              data, query is interpreted as an IP address in  a  reverse  form
              (similar  to  in-addr.arpa  zone).   If  the address is found in
              dataset data, rbldnsd will return A and TXT records specified in
              data for that IP.  This is a classical IP-based blocklist.

              lists  of  domain  names.   Similar to list of IP addresses, but
              with generic domain names instead of  IPs  (wildcards  allowed).
              This  type  of  data  may  be  used  to form a blocklist of e.g.
              sender domain names.

              generic list of various types of records, as an auxilary data to
              form   a   complete  nameserver.   This  format  is  similar  to
              bind-style datafiles, but very simplified.  One may  specify  A,
              TXT, NS and MX records here.

              combined set, different datasets from the list above combined in
              the single (set of) source files, for easy maintenance.

              acl, or Access Control List.  This is  a  pseudo  dataset,  that
              works  by  overweriting  query  results  based  on the requestor
              (peer) IP address.

OPTIONS

       The following options may be specified:

       -u user[:group]
              rbldnsd will change its userid  to  the  specified  user,  which
              defaults  to  rbldns, and group, which by default is the primary
              group of a user. rbldnsd will refuse to run as  the  root  user,
              since this is insecure.

       -r rootdir
              rbldnsd  will chroot to rootdir if specified.  Data files should
              be available inside rootdir.

       -w workdir
              rbldnsd will change its  working  directory  to  workdir  (after
              chrooting  to  rootdir  if -r option is also specified).  May be
              used to shorten filename paths.

       -b address/port
              This option is required.  rbldnsd will bind to specified address
              and  port (port defaults to port 53, domain).  Either numeric IP
              address or a hostname may be specified, and either  port  number
              or  service name is accepted.  It is possible to specify several
              addresses to  listen  on  this  way,  by  repeating  -b  option.
              Additionally,  if  there  are  several  addresses  listed  for a
              hostname, rbldnsd will listen on all of them.  Note that rbldnsd
              will  work  slightly  faster  if  only  one listening address is
              specified.  Note the delimiter between host and port is a  slash
              (/), not a colon, to be able to correctly handle IPv6 addresses.

       -4     Use IPv4 listening socket/transport, do not attempt to use  IPv6
              (ignored if rbldnsd was built without IPv6 support).

       -6     Use  IPv6 listening socket/transport, do not attempt to use IPv4
              (this option will be reported as error if IPv6 support  was  not
              compiled in).

       -t defttl:minttl:maxttl
              Set default reply time-to-live (TTL) value to be defttl, and set
              constraints for TTL to minttl and maxttl.  Default applies  when
              there’s  no  TTL  defined  in  a given scope (in data file), and
              constraints are applied when such value provided in  data.   Any
              of  the  values  may  be  omitted,  including trailing colon (:)
              characters, e.g. "-t 30" set default TTL to be 30  secound,  and
              "-t ::120"  or  "-t ::2m" sets maximum allowed TTL to 2 minutes.
              All 3  values  are  in  time  units,  with  optional  suffix:  s
              (secounds,  default),  m  (minutes),  h  (hours),  d (days) or w
              (weeks).   Zero  minttl  or  maxttl   means   no   corresponding
              constraint will be enforced.  Default defttl is 35m.

       -c check
              Set interval between checking for zone file changes to be check,
              default is 1m (one minute).  rbldnsd will check zone file’s last
              modification  time  every  so often, and if it detects a change,
              zone will be automatically reloaded.  Setting this  value  to  0
              disables  automatic  zone  change detection.  This procedure may
              also be triggered by sending a SIGHUP  signal  to  rbldnsd  (see
              SIGNALS section below).

       -e     Allow   non-network   addresses  to  be  used  in  CIDR  ranges.
              Normally, rbldnsd rejects addresses such as 127.2.3.4/24,  where
              prefix  is  not  within the network mask derived from bit number
              (in this case, correct form is 127.2.3.0/24, note  the  trailing
              zero  in prefix).  This is done in order to catch possible typos
              in zones (rbldnsd will warn about a problem and will ignore such
              entry).   This  option disables checking whether the CIDR prefix
              fits within the network mask.

       -q     Quick  and  quiet  start.    Normally,   rbldnsd   does   socket
              initialization and zone load in foreground, writing progress and
              statistic to standard output, and aborts in case of any  errors.
              With this flag, nothing will be printed and first zone load will
              be done in background (unless -n option is also given), and zone
              load errors will be non-fatal.

       -p pidfile
              Write  rbldnsd’s  pid  to  the  specified pidfile, so it will be
              easily findable.  This  file  gets  written  before  entering  a
              chroot  jail  (if specified) and before changing userid, so it’s
              ok to specify e.g. /var/run/rbldnsd.pid here.

       -l logfile
              Specifies a file to which log all requests made.  This  file  is
              created  after  entering  a  chroot  jail  and  becoming a user.
              Logfiles may be quite large, esp. on busy  sites  (rbldnsd  will
              log every recognized request if this option is specified).  This
              option  is  mainly  intended  for  debugging   purposes.    Upon
              receiption  of  SIGHUP  signal, rbldnsd reopens its logfile.  If
              logfile prefixed with a plus  sign  (+),  logging  will  not  be
              buffered  (i.e.  each line will be flushed to disk); by default,
              logging is buffered to reduce system  load.   Specify  a  single
              hyphen   (-)   as   a   filename   to  log  to  standard  output
              (filedescriptor 1), either buffered by default, or line-buffered
              if  specified  as  ‘+-’  (standard output will not be "reopened"
              upon receiving SIGHUP  signal,  but  will  be  flushed  in  case
              logging is buffered).

       -s statsfile
              Specifies  a  file  where  rbldnsd  will write a line with short
              statistic summary of queries made per  zone,  every  check  (-c)
              interval.  Format of each line is:
                timestamp zone:qtot:qok:qnxd:bin:bout zone:...
              where timestamp is unix time (secounds since epoch), zone is the
              name of the base zone, qtot  is  the  total  number  of  queries
              received,  qok  -  number  of positive replies, qnxd - number of
              NXDOMAIN replies, bin is the total number  of  bytes  read  from
              network (excluding IP/UDP overhead and dropped packets), bout is
              the total number of bytes written to network.  Ther are as  many
              such  tuples  as  there are zones, and one extra, total typle at
              the end, with zone being "*", like:
                1234 bl1.ex:10:5:4:311:432 bl2.ex:24:13:7:248:375 *:98:35:12:820:987
              Note the total values may be larger than  the  sum  of  per-zone
              values,   due   to  queries  made  against  unlisted  zones,  or
              bad/broken packets.

              Rbldnsd will write  bare  timestamp  to  statsfile  when  it  is
              starting  up, shutting down or when statistic counters are being
              reset after receiving SIGUSR2 signal (see  below),  to  indicate
              the points where the counters are starting back from zero.

              By   default,   rbldnsd  writes  absolute  counter  values  into
              statsfile (number of  packets  (bytes)  since  startup  or  last
              reset).   statsfile may be prefixed with plus sign (+), in which
              case rbldnsd will write delta values, that is, number of packets
              or bytes since last write, or number of packets (bytes) per unit
              of time ("incremental" mode, hence the "+" sign).

       -n     Do not become a daemon.  Normally, rbldnsd will fork and  go  to
              the  background  after  successful  initialization.  This option
              disables this behaviour.

       -f     Request rbldnsd to  continue  processing  requests  during  data
              reloads.  Rbldnsd forks a child process to handle requests while
              parent reloads the data.  This ensures  smooth  operations,  but
              requires  more  memory,  since  two  copies  of data is keept in
              memory during reload process.

       -d     Dump all zones to stdout in BIND format and exit.  This  may  be
              suitable to convert easily editable rbldnsd-style data into BIND
              zone.  rbldnsd dumps all zones as one stream, so one may want to
              specify  only one zone with -d.  Zone file will have appropriate
              $ORIGIN tags.  Note that data generated may be really  huge  (as
              BIND format isn’t appropriate for this sort of things), and some
              entries may not be really the same in BIND as in rbldnsd  (e.g.,
              IP  netblocks  of  large  size  will  be represented as wildcard
              entries - 10.0.0.0/8 will become *.10; excluded entries will  be
              represented  by  a CNAME to ‘excluded’ name, so such name should
              not be present in a data set).  In this mode, rbldnsd ignores -r
              (root directory) option.

       -v     Do   not   show   exact   version  information  in  response  to
              version.bind CH TXT queries (by default rbldnsd responds to such
              queries  since version 0.98).  With single -v, rbldnsd will only
              return "rbldnsd" to the  caller,  without  the  version  number.
              Second -v disables providing any information in response to such
              requests, i.e. rbldnsd will return REFUSE code.

       -C     Disable automatic on-the-fly uncompression of data files if this
              feature is compiled in (see below).

       -A

       -a     Controls  "laziness" of rbldnsd when constructing replies.  With
              -a specified, rbldnsd does not add AUTH section  (containing  NS
              records)  to replies unless explicitly asked for NS records.  It
              is equivalent to BIND9 "minimal-answers" configuration  setting.
              While  with  -A  specified,  rbldnsd  will  always  fill in AUTH
              section, increasing size of replies  dramatically  but  allowing
              (caching)  resolver  clients  to  react  faster  to  changes  in
              nameserver lists.  Currently (as of 0.996 version), non-lazy (as
              with  -A)  mode  is  the  default,  but it will change in future
              release.

       -x extension
              Load the given extension  file  (a  dynamically-linked  library,
              usually  with  ".so"  suffix).   This  allows  to  gather custom
              statistics or perform other custom tasks.  See separate document
              for  details  about building and using extensions.  This feature
              is not available on  all  platforms,  and  can  be  disabled  at
              compile time.

       -X extarg
              Pass  the  given  argument, extarg, to the extension loaded with
              -x.

DATASET TYPES AND FORMATS

       Dataset files are text files which are interpreted  depending  on  type
       specified  in  command  line.  Empty lines and lines starting with hash
       character (#) or semicolon (;) are ignored, except for a  special  case
       outlined below in section titled "Special Entries".

       A   (comma-separated)  list  of  files  in  dataset  specification  (in
       type:file,file,...) is interpreted as  if  all  files  where  logically
       combined into one single file.

       When   compiled   with   zlib   support,   rbldnsd   is  able  to  read
       gzip-compressed data files.  So, every file  in  dataset  specification
       can  be  compressed  with  gzip(1),  and  rbldnsd will read such a file
       decompressing it  on-the-fly.   This  feature  may  be  turned  off  by
       specifying -C option.

       rbldnsd  is designed to service a DNSBL, where each entry have single A
       record and optional TXT record assotiated with it.  rbldnsd  allows  to
       specify A value and TXT template either for each entry individually, or
       to use default A value and TXT template pair for a  group  of  entries.
       See  section  "Resulting A values and TXT templates" below for a way to
       specify them.

   Special Entries
       If a line starts with a dollar sign ($), hash character  and  a  dollar
       sign  (#$),  semicolon  and dollar sign (;#) or colon and a dollar sign
       (:$), it is interpreted in a special way, regardless  of  dataset  type
       (this is one exception where a line starting with hash character is not
       ignored - to be able to use zone files for both rbldnsd and  for  DJB’s
       rbldns).   The   following  keywords,  following  a  dollar  sign,  are
       recognized:

       $SOA ttl origindn persondn serial refresh retry expire minttl
              Specifies SOA (Start Of Authority) record for  all  zones  using
              this  dataset.   Only  first SOA record is interpreted.  This is
              the only way to specify SOA - by default, rbldnsd will  not  add
              any  SOA  record  into  answers,  and  will  REFUSE to answer to
              certain queries (notably, SOA query to zone’s base domain name).
              It  is  recommended, but not mandatory to specify SOA record for
              every zone.  If no SOA is given, negative replies  will  not  be
              cacheable  by caching nameservers.  Only one, first $SOA line is
              recognized  in  every  dataset  (all   subsequent   $SOA   lines
              encountered  in  the  same  dataset are silently ignored).  When
              constructing a zone, SOA will be taken from first dataset  where
              $SOA  line  is  found, in an order as specified in command line,
              subsequent $SOA lines, if any, are ignored.  This way,  one  may
              overwrite $SOA found in 3rd party data by prepending small local
              file to the dataset in question, listing  it  before  any  other
              files.

              If  serial  value  specified  is  zero, timestamp of most recent
              modified file will be substituted as serial.

              If ttl field is zero, default ttl (-t option or last $TTL value,
              see below) will be used.

              All  time  fields  (ttl,  refresh, retry, expire, minttl) may be
              specified in time units.  See -t option for details.

       $NS ttl nameserverdn nameserverdn...
              Specifies NS (Name Server) records  for  all  zones  using  this
              dataset.   Only  first  $NS line in a dataset is recognized, all
              subsequent lines are silently ignored.  When constructing a zone
              from several datasets, rbldnsd uses nameservers from $NS line in
              only first dataset where $NS  line  is  given,  in  command-line
              order,  just like for $SOA record.  Only first 32 namservers are
              recognized.  Individual nameserver(s) may  be  prefixed  with  a
              minus  sign  (-),  which  means  this  single nameserver will be
              ignored by rbldnsd.  This is useful to temporary comment out one
              nameserver  entry  without removing it from the list.  If ttl is
              zero, default ttl will be used.  The list of  NS  records,  just
              like $SOA value, are taken from the first data file in a dataset
              where the $NS line is found, subsequent $NS lines, if  any,  are
              ignored.

       $TTL time-to-live
              Specifies  TTL  (time-to-live)  value for all records in current
              dataset.  See also -t option.  $TTL special overrides  -t  value
              on a per-dataset basis.

       $TIMESTAMP dstamp [expires]
              (experimental) Specifies the data timestamp dstamp when the data
              has been generated, and optionally when  it  will  expire.   The
              timestamps  are in form yyyy:mm:dd[:hh[:mi[:ss]]], where yyyy is
              the year like 2005, mm is the month number (01..12), dd  is  the
              month  day  number  (01..31), hh is hour (00..23), mi and ss are
              minutes and secounds (00.59); hours, minutes  and  secounds  are
              optional and defaults to 0; the delimiters (either colon or dash
              may be used) are optional too, but are allowed for  readability.
              Also,  single  zero (0) or dash (-) may be used as dstamp and/or
              expires, indicating the value is not given.  expires may also be
              specified  as  +rel, where rel is a time specification (probably
              with suffix like s, m, h, d) as an offset  to  dstamp.   rbldnsd
              compares  dstamp  with current timestamp and refuses to load the
              file if dstamp specifies time in the future.  And if expires  is
              specified, rbldnsd will refuse to service requests for that data
              if current time is greather than the value specified in  expires
              field.

              Note  that rbldnsd will check the data expiry time every time it
              checks for data file updates (when receiving  SIGHUP  signal  or
              every  -c interval).  If automatic data reload timer (-c option)
              is disabled, zones will not be exipired automatically.

       $MAXRANGE4 range-size
              Specifies maximum size of  IPv4  range  allowed  for  IPv4-based
              datasets.  If an entry covers more IP addresses than range-size,
              it will be ignored (and a warning will be  logged).   range-size
              may  be  specified as a number of hosts, like 256, or as network
              prefix lenght, like /24 (the two are the same):
                $MAXRANGE4 /24
                $MAXRANGE4 256
              This constraint is active for a dataset it is specified in,  and
              can  be  owerwritten  (by  subsequent  $MAXRANGE statement) by a
              smaller value, but can not be increased.

       $n text
              (n is a single digit).  Specifies a  substitution  variable  for
              use  as  $n  placeholders (the $n entries are ignored in generic
              daaset).  See section "Resulting A  values  and  TXT  templates"
              below for description and usage examples.

       $= text
              Set  the  base  template  for  all  individual TXT records.  See
              section "Resulting A values and TXT templates"  below  for  more
              information.

   ip4set Dataset
       A  set  of IP addresses or CIDR address ranges, together with A and TXT
       resulting values.  IP addresses are specified one per line,  by  an  IP
       address prefix (initial octets), complete IP address, CIDR range, or IP
       prefix range (two IP prefixes or  complete  addresses  delimited  by  a
       dash, inclusive).  Examples, to specify 127.0.0.0/24:
         127.0.0.0/24
         127.0.0
         127/24
         127-127.0.0
         127.0.0.0-127.0.0.255
         127.0.0.1-255
       to specify 127.16.0.0-127.31.255.255:
         127.16.0.0-127.31.255.255
         127.16.0-127.31.255
         127.16-127.31
         127.16-31
         127.16.0.0/12
         127.16.0/12
         127.16/12
       Note  that  in  prefix  range, last boundary is completed with all-ones
       (255), not all-zeros line with first boundary and a prefix  alone.   In
       prefix  ranges,  if  last boundary is only one octet (127.16-31), it is
       treated as "suffix", as value of last  specified  octet  of  the  first
       boundary  prefix  (127.16.0-31  is treated as 127.16.0.0-127.16.31.255,
       i.e.  127.16.0.0/19).

       After an IP address range, A and TXT values for a given  entry  may  be
       specified.   If none given, default values in current scope (see below)
       applies.  If a value starts with a colon, it is interpreted as  a  pair
       of A record and TXT template, delimited by colon (:127.0.0.2:This entry
       is listed).  If a value does not start with a colon, it is  interpreted
       as  TXT  template only, with A record defaulting to the default A value
       in current scope.

       IP address range may  be  followed  by  a  comment  char  (either  hash
       character (#) or semicolon (;)), e.g.:
         127/8 ; loopback network
       In  this  case  all  characters  up to the end of line are ignored, and
       default A and TXT values will be used for this IP range.

       Every IP address that fits within any of specified ranges is  "listed",
       and rbldnsd will respond to reverse queries against it within specified
       zone with positive results.  In contrast, if an entry  starts  with  an
       exclamation  sign  (!),  this is an exclusion entry, i.e. corresponding
       address range is excluded from being listed (and  any  value  for  this
       record  is  ignored).   This  may be used to specify large range except
       some individual addresses, in a compact form.

       If a line starts with a colon (:), this line specifies  the  default  A
       value and TXT template to return (see below) for all subsequent entries
       up to end of current file.  If no default entry specified, and no value
       specified  for  a  given  record,  rbldnsd  will  return  127.0.0.2 for
       matching A queries and no record for  matching  TXT  queries.   If  TXT
       record  template is specified and contains occurences of of dollar sign
       ($), every such occurence is replaced with an IP address  in  question,
       so  singe  TXT  template  may be used to e.g. refer to a webpage for an
       additional information for a specific IP address.

   ip4trie Dataset
       Set of IP4 CIDR ranges with corresponding (A, TXT) values.  Similar  to
       ip4set,  but  uses  different internal representation (implemented as a
       patricia trie), accepts CIDR ranges only (not a.b.c.d-e.f.g.h),  allows
       to  specify  only  one value per CIDR range, and returns only one, most
       close matching, entry on queries.  Exclusions are supported too.   This
       dataset  is not memory-efficient to store many single IP addresses, but
       it is ok to use it to store many possible wide CIDR ranges.

   ip4tset Dataset
       "trivial" ip4set: a set of single IP addresses (one per line), with the
       same  A+TXT  template.  This dataset type is more efficient than ip4set
       (in both memory usage and access times), but have  obvious  limitation.
       It  is  intended  for DNSBLs like DSBL.org, ORDB.org and similar, where
       each entry uses the same default A+TXT  template.   This  dataset  uses
       only  half  a  memory  for  the  same  list of IP addresses compared to
       ip4set.

   dnset Dataset
       Set of (possible wildcarded) domain names with  associated  A  and  TXT
       values.   Similar to ip4set, but instead of IP addresses, data consists
       of domain names (not in reverse  form).   One  domain  name  per  line,
       possible  starting  with  wildcard (either with star-dot (*.) or just a
       dot).  Entry starting with  exclamation  sign  is  exclusion.   Default
       value for all subsequent lines may be specified by a line starting with
       a colon.

       Wildcards are interpreted as follows:

       example.com
              only example.com domain is listed, not subdomains thereof.   Not
              a wildcard entry.

       *.example.com
              all  subdomains  of  example.com are listed, but not example.com
              itself.

       .example.com
              all subdomains of example.com and example.com itself are listed.
              This  is  a  shortcut: to list a domain name itself and all it’s
              subdomains, one may either specify two  lines  (example.com  and
              *.example.com), or one line (.example.com).

       This  dataset  type  may  be  used instead of ip4set, provided all CIDR
       ranges are expanded and reversed (but in this case, TXT  template  will
       be expanded differently).

   generic Dataset
       Generic  type, simplified bind-style format.  Every record should be on
       one  line  (line  continuations  are  not  supported),  and  should  be
       specified  completely  (i.e.  all  domain  names  in  values  should be
       fully-qualified, entry name may not  be  omitted).   No  wildcards  are
       accepted.   Only  A, TXT, and MX records are recognized.  TTL value may
       be specified before record type.  Examples:

               # bl.ex.com
               # specify some values for current zone
               $NS 0 ns1.ex.com ns2.ex.com
               # record with TTL
               www 3000 A 127.0.0.1
               about TXT "ex.com combined blocklist"

   combined Dataset
       This is a special dataset that stores no data by itself but acts like a
       container  for  several  other  datasets of any type except of combined
       type itself.  The data file contains an optional common section,  where
       various specials are recognized like $NS, $SOA, $TTL (see above), and a
       series of sections, each of which  defines  one  (nested)  dataset  and
       several  subzones  of  the  base zone, for which this dataset should be
       consulted.  New (nested) dataset starts with a line
         $DATASET type[:name] subzone subzone...
       and all subsequent lines up to the end  of  current  file  or  to  next
       $DATASET  line  are interpreted as a part of dataset of type type, with
       optional name (name is used for logging purposes only,  and  the  whole
       ":name"  (without  quotes  or square brackets) part is optional).  Note
       that combined datasets cannot be nested.  Every subzone will always  be
       relative  to  the base zone name specified on command line.  If subzone
       specified as single character "@", dataset will  be  connected  to  the
       base zone itself.

       This  dataset type aims to simplify subzone maintenance, in order to be
       able to include several subzones in one file for  easy  data  transfer,
       atomic  operations  and to be able to modify list of subzones on remote
       secondary nameservers.

       Example of a complete dataset that contains subzone  ‘proxies’  with  a
       list  of  open  proxies,  subzone  ‘relays’ with a list of open relays,
       subzone ‘multihop’ with output IPs of multihop  open  relays,  and  the
       base zone itself includes proxies and relays but not multihops:
         # common section
         $NS 1w ns1.ex.com ns2.ex.com
         $SOA 1w ns1.ex.com admin.ex.com 0 2h 2h 1w 1h
         # list of open proxies,
         # in ‘proxies’ subzone and in base zone
         $DATASET ip4set:proxy proxies @
         :2:Open proxy, see http://bl.ex.com/proxy/$
         127.0.0.2
         127.0.0.10
         # list of open relays,
         # in ‘relays’ subzone and in base zone
         $DATASET ip4set:relay relays @
         :3:Open relay, see http://bl.ex.com/relay/$
         127.0.0.2
         127.0.2.10
         # list of optputs of multistage relays,
         # in ‘multihop’ subzone only
         $DATASET ip4set:multihop-relay multihop
         :4:Multihop open relay, see http://bl.ex.com/relay/$
         127.0.0.2
         127.0.9.12
         # for the base zone and all subzones,
         # include several additional records
         $DATASET generic:common proxies relays multihop @
         @ A 127.0.0.8
         www A 127.0.0.8
         @ MX 10 mx.ex.com
         # the above results in having the following records
         # (provided that the base zone specified is bl.ex.com):
         #  proxies.bl.ex.com A 127.0.0.8
         #  www.proxies.bl.ex.com 127.0.0.8
         #  relays.bl.ex.com A 127.0.0.8
         #  www.relays.bl.ex.com 127.0.0.8
         #  multihop.bl.ex.com A 127.0.0.8
         #  www.multihop.bl.ex.com 127.0.0.8
         #  bl.ex.com A 127.0.0.8
         #  www.bl.ex.com 127.0.0.8

       Note that $NS and $SOA values applies to the base zone only, regardless
       of  the  placement  in  the  file.   Unlike  the  $TTL  values  and  $n
       substitutions,  which  may  be  both  global  and  local  for  a  given
       (sub-)dataset.

   Resulting A values and TXT templates
       In all zone file types except generic, A values and TXT  templates  are
       specified as following:
         :127.0.0.2:Blacklisted: http://example.com/bl?$
       If  a  line starts with a colon, it specifies default A and TXT for all
       subsequent entries in this dataset.  Similar format is used to  specify
       values  for  individual  records, with the A value (enclosed by colons)
       being optional:
         127.0.0.2 :127.0.0.2:Blacklisted: http://example.com/bl?$
       or, without specific A value:
         127.0.0.2 Blacklisted: http://example.com/bl?$

       Two parts of a line, delimited by second colon,  specifies  A  and  TXT
       record  values.   Both  are optional.  By default (either if no default
       line specified, or no IP address within that line), rbldnsd will return
       127.0.0.2  as  A record.  127.0.0 prefix for A value may be omitted, so
       the above example may be simplified to:
         :2:Blacklisted: http://example.com/bl?$
       There is no default TXT value, so rbldnsd will not return anything  for
       TXT queries it TXT isn’t specified.

       When  A  value  is  specified  for  a  given entry, but TXT template is
       omitted, there  may  be  two  cases  interpreted  differently,  namely,
       whenever  there’s a second semicolon (:) after the A value.  If there’s
       no second semicolon, default TXT value for this scope will be used.  In
       contrast,  when  second  semicolon  is present, no TXT template will be
       generated at all.  All possible cases are  outlined  in  the  following
       example:

         # default A value and TXT template
         :127.0.0.2:IP address $ is listed
         # 127.0.0.4 will use default A and TXT
         127.0.0.4
         # 127.0.0.5 will use specific A and default TXT
         127.0.0.5 :5
         # 127.0.0.6 will use specific a and no TXT
         127.0.0.6 :6:
         # 127.0.0.7 will use default A and specific TXT
         127.0.0.7 IP address $ running an open relay

       In  a  TXT  template, references to substitution variables are replaced
       with values of that variables.  In particular, single dollar  sign  ($)
       is  replaced  by a listed entry (an IP address in question for IP-based
       datasets and the domain  name  for  domain-based  datasets).   $n-style
       constructs,  where  n is a single digit, are replaced by a substitution
       variable $n defined for this dataset  in  current  scope  (see  section
       "Special Entries" above).  To specify a dollar sign as-is, use $$.

       For example, the following lines:
         $1 See http://www.example.com/bl
         $2 for details
         127.0.0.2  $1/spammer/$ $2
         127.0.0.3  $1/relay/$ $2
         127.0.0.4  This spammer wants some $$$$.  $1/$
       will result in the following text to be generated:
         See http://www.example.com/bl/spammer/127.0.0.2 for details
         See http://www.example.com/bl/relay/127.0.0.3 for details
         This spammer wants some $$.  See http://www.example.com/bl/127.0.0.4

       If  the "base template" ($= variable) is defined, this template is used
       for expansion, instead of the one specified for an entry being queried.
       Inside  the  base  template,  $= construct is substituted with the text
       given for individual entries. In order to stop usage of  base  template
       $= for a single record, start it with = (which will be omitted from the
       resulting TXT value).  For example,
         $0 See http://www.example.com/bl?$= ($) for details
         127.0.0.2    r123
         127.0.0.3
         127.0.0.4    =See other blocklists for details about $
       produces the following TXT records:
         See http://www.example.com/bl?r123 (127.0.0.2) for details
         See http://www.example.com/bl?127.0.0.3 (127.0.0.3) for details
         See other blocklists for details about 127.0.0.4

   acl Dataset
       This is not a real dataset, while the syntax and usage is the  same  as
       with  other  datasets.   Instead  of defining which records exists in a
       given zone and which does not, acl dataset specifies which client hosts
       (peers)  are  allowed to query the given zone.  The dataset specifies a
       set  of  IPv4  address  ranges  (currently,  IPv6  addresses  are   not
       supported)  in  a  form  of  CIDRs (with the syntax exactly the same as
       understood by ip4trie dataset), together with action specifiers.   When
       a  query  is  made  from an IP address listed (not for the IP address),
       specified action changes rules used to construct the  reply.   Possible
       actions and their meanings are:

       :ignore
              ignore  all  queries  from  this IP address altogether.  rbldnsd
              acts like there was no query  received  at  all.   This  is  the
              default action.

       :refuse
              refuse all queries from the IP in question.  rbldnsd will always
              return REFUSED DNS response code.

       :empty pretend there’s no data in all  other  datasets  for  the  given
              zone.   This  means that all the clients in question will always
              receive reply from rbldnsd telling that the requested IP address
              or  domain  name  is not listed in a given DNSBL.  rbldnsd still
              replies to metadata queries (SOA and  NS  records,  and  to  all
              queries  satisfied by generic dataset if specified for the given
              zone) as usual.

       :pass  process the request as  usual.   This  may  be  used  to  add  a
              "whitelisting"  entry  for  a  network/host  bloked  by  another
              (larger) ACL entry.

       a_txt_template
              usual A+TXT template as used by other datasets.  This means that
              rbldnsd  will reply to any valid DNSBL query with "it is listed"
              answer, so that the client in question will see every IP address
              or  domain  name is listed in a given DNSBL.  TXT record used in
              the reply  is  taken  from  the  acl  dataset  instead  of  real
              datasets.   Again,  just  like  with  empty  case,  rbldnsd will
              continue  replying  to  metadata  queries   (including   generic
              datasets if any) as usual.

       Only  one  ACL dataset can be specified for a given zone, and each zone
       must have at least one non-acl dataset.  It is also possible to specify
       one  global  ACL  dataset,  by specifying empty zone name (which is not
       allowed for other dataset types), like
         rbldnsd ... :acl:filename...
       In this case the ACL defined in filename  applies  to  all  zones.   If
       there  are  both global ACL and local zone-specific ACL specified, both
       will be consulted and actions taken in the order specified  above,  ie,
       if  either ACL returns ignore for this IP, the request will be ignored,
       else if either ACL returns refuse, the query will be  refused,  and  so
       on.   If  both ACLs specifies "always listed" A+TXT template, the reply
       will contain A+TXT from global ACL.

       For this dataset type, only a few $-style specials are recognized.   In
       particular,  $SOA  and  $NS  keywords  are  not  allowed.  When rbldnsd
       performs $ substitution in the TXT template returned from ACL  dataset,
       it  will  use client IP address to substitute for a single $ character,
       instead of the IP address or domain name found in the original query.

SIGNALS

       Rbldnsd handles the following signals:

       SIGHUP recheck zone files and reload any outdated ones.  This  is  done
              automatically  if enabled, see -c option.  Additionally, rbldnsd
              will reopen logfile upon  receiving  SIGHUP,  if  specified  (-l
              option).

       SIGTERM, SIGINT
              Terminate process.

       SIGUSR1
              Log  current  statistic  counters into syslog.  Rbldnsd collects
              how many packets it handled, how many bytes was received,  sent,
              how  many  OK requests/replies (and how many answer records) was
              received/sent, how many NXDOMAIN answers was sent, and how  many
              errors/refusals/etc was sent, in a period of time.

       SIGUSR2
              The same as SIGUSR1, but reset all counters and start new sample
              period.

NOTES

       Some unsorted usage notes follows.

   Generating and transferring data files
       When creating a data file for rbldnsd (and for anything else, it  is  a
       general advise), it is a good idea to create the data in temporary file
       and rename the temp file when all is done.  Never try to write  to  the
       main  file directly, it is possible that at the same time, rbldnsd will
       try to read it and will get incomplete data as the  result.   The  same
       applies  to  copying  data  using  cp(1) utility and similar (including
       scp(1)), that performs copying over existing data.  Even if you’re sure
       noone  is  reading  the  data  while  you’re  copying or generating it,
       imagine what will happen if you  will  not  be  able  to  complete  the
       process for whatever reason (interrupt, filesystem full, endless number
       of other reasons...).  In most  cases  is  better  to  keep  older  but
       correct data instead of leaving incomplete/corrupt data in place.

       Right:
         scp remote:data target.tmp && mv target.tmp target
       Wrong:
         scp remote:data target
       Right:
         ./generate.pl > target.tmp && mv target.tmp target
       Wrong:
         ./generate.pl > target

       From  this  point  of  view,  rsync(1)  command seems to be safe, as it
       always creates temporary file and renames it to  the  destination  only
       when  all  is  ok  (but  note  the  --partial option, which is good for
       downloading something but may  be  wrong  to  transfer  data  files  --
       usually  you  don’t  want  partial  files  to be loaded).  In contrast,
       scp(1) command is not safe, as it performs  direct  copying.   You  may
       still use scp(1) in a safe manner, as shown in the example above.

       Also try to eliminate a case when two (or more) processes performs data
       copying/generation at the same time to the same destination.  When your
       data is generated by a cron job, use file locking (create separate lock
       file (which should never be removed) and flock/fcntl  it  in  exclusive
       mode  without  waiting,  exiting if lock fails) before attempting to do
       other file manipulation.

   Absolute vs relative domain names
       All keys specified in dataset files are always  relative  to  the  zone
       base  DN.   In contrast, all the values (NS and SOA records, MX records
       in  generic  dataset)  are  absolute.   This  is  different  from  BIND
       behaviour, where trailing dot indicates whenever this is an absolute or
       relative DN.  Trailing dots in domain names are ignored by rbldnsd.

   Aggregating datasets
       Several zones may be served by  rbldnsd,  every  zone  may  consist  of
       several  datasets.   There  are  numerous  ways to combine several data
       files into several zones.  For example, suppose  you  have  a  list  of
       dialup  ranges  in  file  named  ‘dialups’,  and a list of spammer’s ip
       addresses in file named ‘spammers’, and want  to  serve  3  zones  with
       rbldnsd:  dialups.bl.ex.com,  spam.bl.ex.com  and  bl.ex.com which is a
       combination of the two.  There are two ways to do this:

        rbldnsd options... \
          dialups.bl.ex.com:ip4set:dialups \
          spam.bl.ex.com:ip4set:spammers \
          bl.ex.com:ip4set:dialups,spammers

       or:

        rbldnsd options... \
          dialups.bl.ex.com:ip4set:dialups \
          spam.bl.ex.com:ip4set:spammers \
          bl.ex.com:ip4set:dialups \
          bl.ex.com:ip4set:spammers

       (note you should specify combined bl.ex.com zone after all its subzones
       in a command line, or else subzones will not be consulted at all).

       In  the  first  form,  there will be 3 independent data sets, and every
       record will be stored 2  times  in  memory,  but  only  one  search  in
       internal  data  structures  will  be  needed  to  resolve  queries  for
       aggregate bl.ex.com.  In second form, there will be only 2  data  sets,
       every  record  will be stored only once (both datasets will be reused),
       but 2 searches will be performed by rbldnsd to answer  queries  against
       aggregate  zone (but difference in speed is almost unnoticeable).  Note
       that when aggregating several data files into one dataset, an exclusion
       entry  in  one file becomes exclusion entry in the whole dataset (which
       may be a problem when aggregating dialups, where exclusions are common,
       with open relays/proxies, where exclusions are rare if at all used).

       Similar  effect  may  be  achieved  by  using  combined  dataset  type,
       sometimes more  easily.   combined  dataset  results  in  every  nested
       dataset to be used independantly, like in second form above.

       combined  dataset  requires  rbldnsd to be the authoritative nameserver
       for the whole base zone.  Most important, one may specify  SOA  and  NS
       records  for  the base zone only.  So, some DNSBLs which does not use a
       common subzone for the data, cannot use this dataset.  An example being
       DSBL.org  DNSBL,  where  each  of  list.dsbl.org, multihop.dsbl.org and
       unconfirmed.dsbl.org  zones  are  separate,  independant   zones   with
       different  set of nameservers.  But for DSBL.org, where each dataset is
       really independant and used only once (there’s no (sub)zone that is  as
       a  combinations  of other zones), combined dataset isn’t necessary.  In
       contrast, SORBS.net zones, where several subzones used and main zone is
       a combination of several subzones, combined dataset is a way to go.

   All authoritative nameservers should be set up similarily
       When  you  have  several  nameservers  for your zone, set them all in a
       similar way.  Namely, if one is set up using combined dataset, all  the
       rest  should  be  too,  or  else DNS meta-data will be broken.  This is
       because metadata (SOA and NS) records  returned  by  nameservers  using
       combined  and other datasets will have different origin.  With combined
       dataset, rbldnsd return NS and SOA records for the base zone,  not  for
       any  subzone  defined inside the dataset.  Given the above example with
       dialups.bl.ex.com, spammers.bl.ex.com and  aggregate  bl.ex.com  zones,
       and two nameservers, first is set up in any ways described above (using
       individual datasets for every of the 3 zones), and second is set up for
       the  whole  bl.ex.com  zone  using combined dataset.  In this case, for
       queries against dialups.bl.ex.com,  first  nameserver  will  return  NS
       records like
         dialups.bl.ex.com. IN NS a.ns.ex.com.
       while second will always use base zone, and NS records will look like
         bl.ex.com. IN NS a.ns.ex.com.
       All  authoritative nameservers for a zone must have consistent metadata
       records.  The only way to achieve this is to use similar  configuration
       (combined  or  not)  on  all nameservers.  Have this in mind when using
       other software for a nameserver.

   Generic dataset usage
       generic  dataset  type  is  very  rudimentary.   It’s  purpose  is   to
       complement  all  the  other  type  to form complete nameserver that may
       answer to A, TXT and MX queries.  This is useful  mostly  to  define  A
       records  for HTTP access (relays.bl.example.com A, www.bl.example.com A
       just in case), and maybe descriptive texts as a TXT record.

       Since rbldnsd only searches one, most closely  matching  (sub)zone  for
       every  request,  one  cannot  specify a single e.g.  generic dataset in
       form
         proxies      TXT list of open proxies
         www.proxies  A 127.0.0.8
         relays       TXT list of open relays
         www.relays   A 127.0.0.9
       for several (sub)zones, each of which are represented  as  a  zone  too
       (either  in  command  line  or  as combined dataset).  Instead, several
       generic datasets should be specified, separate one for every (sub)zone.
       If the data for every subzone is the same, the same, single dataset may
       be used, but it should be specified for every zone it should  apply  to
       (see combined dataset usage example above).

BUGS

       Most  of  the  bugs  outlined  in  this section aren’t really bugs, but
       present due to non-standartized and thus unknown expected behaviour  of
       a  nameserver  that  serves a DNSBL zone.  rbldnsd matches BIND runtime
       behaviour where appropriate, but not always.

       rbldnsd lowercases some domain names (the ones that  are  lookup  keys,
       e.g.  in  ‘generic’  and  ‘dnset’  datasets)  when loading, to speed up
       lookup operations.  This isn’t a problem in most cases.

       There is no TCP mode.  If a resource record does not fit in UDP  packet
       (512  bytes), it will be silently ignored.  For most usages, this isn’t
       a problem, because there should be only a few RRs  in  an  answer,  and
       because  one  record  is  usually sufficient to decide whenever a given
       entry is "listed" or not.  rbldnsd isn’t  a  full-featured  nameserver,
       after all.

       rbldnsd  will  not  always  return  a list of nameserver records in the
       AUTHORITY section of every positive answer: NS records will be provided
       (if  given)  only  if there’s a room for them in single UDP packet.  If
       records does not fit, AUTHORITY section will be empty.

       rbldnsd does not allow  AXFR  operations.   For  DNSBLs,  AXFR  is  the
       stupidiest  yet  common  thing  to  do  -  use rsync for zone transfers
       instead.  This isn’t a bug in rbldnsd itself, but in common practice of
       using  AXFR and the like to transfer huge zones in a format which isn’t
       suitable for such a task.  Perhaps in the future, if there will be some
       real demand, I’ll implement AXFR "server" support (so that rbldnsd will
       be able to act as master for BIND nameservers, but not  as  secondary),
       but the note remains: use rsync.

       rbldnsd  truncates  all TXT records to be at most 255 bytes.  DNS specs
       allows longer TXTs, but long TXTs is something that should  be  avoided
       as  much  as  possible  -  TXT record is used as SMTP rejection string.
       Note that DNS UDP packet is limited to 512 bytes.  rbldnsd will  log  a
       warning when such truncation occurs.

VERSION

       This manpage corresponds to rbldnsd version 0.996a.

AUTHOR

       The rbldnsd daemon written by Michael Tokarev <mjt@corpit.ru>, based on
       ideas by Dan Bernstein and his djbdns package.

LICENCE

       GPL.

                                   Jul 2006                         rbldnsd(8)