nsd 4.3.2 Authoritative DNS name server

NSD, short for Name Server Daemon, is an authoritative name server for the Domain Name System (DNS). It aims to be a fast and RFC-compliant nameserver.

NSD uses zone information compiled via zonec into a binary database file (nsd.db). This allows fast startup of the name service daemon and allows syntax-structural errors in zone files to be flagged at compile time, before being made available to NSD service itself. However, most traditional BIND-style zone files can be directly imported into NSD without modification.

The collection of programs and processes that make up NSD are designed so that the daemon itself runs as a non-privileged user and can be easily configured to run in a chroot jail, thus making any security flaws in NSD less likely to result in system-wide compromise.