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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>3. Running PDNS on unix</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="docbook.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.75.2" /><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="PowerDNS manual" /><link rel="up" href="installing-on-unix.html" title="Chapter 2. Installing on Unix" /><link rel="prev" href="testing.html" title="2. Testing your install" /><link rel="next" href="windows.html" title="Chapter 3. Installing on Microsoft Windows" /></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">3. Running PDNS on unix</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="testing.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 2. Installing on Unix</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="windows.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="sect1" title="3. Running PDNS on unix"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="pdns-on-unix"></a>3. Running PDNS on unix</h2></div></div></div><p>
PDNS is normally controlled via a SysV-style init.d script, often located in <code class="filename">/etc/init.d</code> or
<code class="filename">/etc/rc.d/init.d</code>. This script accepts the following commands:
</p><div class="variablelist"><dl><dt><span class="term">monitor</span></dt><dd><p>
Monitor is a special way to view the daemon. It executes PDNS in the foreground with
a lot of logging turned on, which helps in determining startup problems.
Besides running in the foreground, the raw PDNS control socket is made available. All external
communication with the daemon is normally sent over this socket. While useful, the control console
is not an officially supported feature. Commands which work are: <span class="command"><strong>QUIT</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>SHOW *</strong></span>,
<span class="command"><strong>SHOW varname</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>RPING</strong></span>.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">start</span></dt><dd><p>
Start PDNS in the background. Launches the daemon but makes no special effort to determine success,
as making database connections may take a while. Use <span class="command"><strong>status</strong></span> to query success. You
can safely run <span class="command"><strong>start</strong></span> many times, it will not start additional PDNS instances.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">restart</span></dt><dd><p>
Restarts PDNS if it was running, starts it otherwise.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">status</span></dt><dd><p>
Query PDNS for status. This can be used to figure out if a launch was successful.
The status found is prefixed by the PID of the main PDNS process.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">stop</span></dt><dd><p>
Requests that PDNS stop. Again, does not confirm success. Success can be ascertained with the <span class="command"><strong>status</strong></span> command.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">dump</span></dt><dd><p>
Dumps a lot of statistics of a running PDNS daemon. It is also possible to single out specific variable by using
the <span class="command"><strong>show</strong></span> command.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">show variable</span></dt><dd><p>
Show a single statistic, as present in the output of the <span class="command"><strong>dump</strong></span>.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">mrtg</span></dt><dd><p>
See the performance monitoring <a class="xref" href="monitoring.html" title="Chapter 6. Logging & Monitoring Authoritative Server performance">Chapter 6, <i>Logging & Monitoring Authoritative Server performance</i></a>.
</p></dd></dl></div><p>
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