Finding a syntax error in a zone data file

Find the log messages from the most recent restart or reload of the name server, reloading again if necessary. Then look for a message indicating the line of the zone data file that contains the error. For example:

Jun 25 16:15:13 ns1 named[53941]: starting BIND 9.2.1

Jun 25 16:15:13 ns1 named[53941]: using 1 CPU

Jun 25 16:15:13 ns1 named[53941]: loading configuration from '/etc/named.conf'

Jun 25 16:15:13 ns1 named[53941]: listening on IPv4 interface fxp0, 192.168.0.1#53

Jun 25 16:15:13 ns1 named[53941]: listening on IPv4 interface lo0, 127.0.0.1#53

Jun 25 16:15:13 ns1 named[53941]: command channel listening on 0.0.0.0#953

Jun 25 16:15:13 ns1 named[53941]: dns_rdata_fromtext: db.foo.example:7: near eol: 

unexpected end of input

Jun 25 16:15:13 ns1 named[53941]: zone foo.example/IN: loading master file db.foo.

example: unexpected end of input

Jun 25 16:15:13 ns1 named[53941]: running

And, of course, you can start your BIND 9 name server with -g to force it to run in the foreground and print errors to stderr.

If you'd rather not start a new named process, you can use the BIND 9 named-checkzone program. Like named-checkconf, named-checkzone is built with the same routines that named uses. To run it, specify the domain name of the zone and the name of the zone data file as arguments:

# named-checkzone foo.example db.foo.example

dns_rdata_fromtext: db.foo.example:7: near eol: unexpected end of input

zone foo.example/IN: loading master file db.foo.example: unexpected end of input