Concise Guide to DNS and BIND, The

The key Statement

Syntax

key key_id {
  algorithm algorithm_id;
  secret secret_string;
};

Definition and Usage

The key statement defines a key ID which can be used in a server statement to associate a method of authentication with a particular name server that is more rigorous than simple IP address matching. A key ID must be created with the key statement before it can be used in a server definition or an address match list.

The algorithm_id is a string that specifies a security/authentication algorithm. secret_string is the secret to be used by the algorithm, and is treated as a base-64 encoded string. It should go without saying, but probably can't, that if you have secret_string 's in your named.conf, then it should not be readable by anyone ...