BoronDNS CLI

This guide covers the essentials. Read the full upstream guide on GitHub → For a specific release, select its tag in the repository.

Use the borondns executable to prepare configuration and run the server. Consult your installed binary's --help for its complete command surface.

Common commands

borondns --help
borondns --version
borondns --example-config
borondns --validate-config /etc/borondns-secondary/config.toml
borondns --dump-config /etc/borondns-secondary/config.toml
borondns serve --config /etc/borondns-secondary/config.toml

Validation checks configuration and referenced credentials before listeners bind. It does not test primary connectivity. Configuration dumps redact inline secrets but retain deployment metadata.

For a foreground development run, use a high DNS port and a private writable cache directory. See developer setup.

Service operation

For an installed systemd service:

sudo systemctl status borondns
journalctl -u borondns --since '10 minutes ago'

After validating a changed static configuration, apply it with sudo systemctl restart borondns and check DNS answers and readiness.

SIGTERM and SIGINT initiate graceful shutdown. SIGHUP is ignored. Allow the supervisor more time than limits.graceful_shutdown_secs (30 seconds by default) to complete shutdown.

Runtime visibility

Use health and metrics for probes and zone status. The optional observability API provides JSON snapshots. The external control-plane integration documents supported outbound-polled operations.

Configuration Reference TSIG Setup