(re)adding local resolver.arpa zone

Havard Eidnes he at uninett.no
Thu Oct 16 17:06:23 UTC 2025


> I have been perusing the unbound.conf(5) man page and have the
> following remarks:
>
> 1) It is somewhat unclear whether "auth-zone:" should be listed
>    under another "clause", i.e. indented, or whether it should be
>    on the outermost level in unbound.conf.  My current attempt
>    has it at the outermost level, as shown above.
>
> 2) The manual page appears to make a distinction between what's
>    called a "clause" (outermost level?), such as "server:", and
>    what's referred to as "options" (to be found under a specific
>    "clause"(?)).  However, the wording on this in general and
>    wrt. "auth-zone:" could be more unambigious and explicit.
>
> 3) The various options listed under the "server:" clause (and
>    other clauses) are not alphabetically sorted, which makes
>    finding a given option quickly quite difficult, given the size
>    of the man page.  Yes, I can search, but then the context of
>    "under which clause am I now looking" gets lost.
>
> Given some clarification from the maintainers, I can probably
> engage in crafting a reshuffling of the unbound.conf content and
> to add some words of clarification.

Uh, I meant the unbound.conf(5) man page, not the example config
file, if that wasn't obvious.  In addition to sorting the options
under each clause, as an example, I think I would suggest to replace

       There must be whitespace between keywords.  Attribute keywords end with
       a colon ':'.  An attribute is followed by a value,  or  its  containing
       attributes in which case it is referred to as a clause.  Clauses can be
       repeated throughout the file (or included files)  to  group  attributes
       under the same clause.

with, probably something along the lines of...

       The configuration file is logically divided into "sections"
       where each section is introduced by a "section clause".

       The recognized section clauses are:

       server:	      Most of the configuration of the recursive DNS
       		      name server function is found in this section.

       auth-zone:     Configuration of local authoritative zones.

       cachedb:	      Configuration of the optional "cache DB"
		      feature to e.g. use redis for this function.

       dnscrypt:      Configuration of the optional dnscrypt
		      feature.

       dnstap:	      Configuration of the optional dnstap feature
		      to "mirror out" a copy of the DNS queries and
		      responses.

       dynlib:	      Configuration of the optional feature to load
		      dynamic custom shared libraries into unbound.

       forward-zone:  Configuration for selective query forwarding
		      of recursive requests where the answer is not
		      in the local cache.

       python:	      Configuration for the optional python script
		      module.

       remote-control: Configuration of the facility used by
                      unbound-control(8).

       rpz:	      Configuration for Response Policy Zones,
		      allowing blocking or other custom actions for
		      certain lookups.

       stub-zone:     Configuration of redirection of certain parts
		      of the name space to "custom name servers",
		      e.g. for domain names not generally available
		      on the greater Internet.

       view:	      Configuration for different views of the name
		      space.  You can use e.g. access-control-tag or
		      access-control-vew options to direct certain
		      clients to certain views.  Views can be
		      combined with e.g. "rpz" to perform that
		      function for just a subset of allowed clients.

       Section clauses may occur more than once, to logically group
       options for a given feature or aspect in one visually
       cohesive group.  This may be particularly useful for the
       "server:" clause with its myriad of options.

       Whitespace indentation of option names under each section is
       insignificant, but is still recommended for visual clarity.

with a fact-check for the latter.  I beleive it to be accurate, so
deviates both from what python and the .yml file format does...

Regards,

- Håvard


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