signs a zone. It generates NSEC and RRSIG records and produces a signed version of the zone. The security status of delegations from the signed zone (that is, whether the child zones are secure or not) is determined by the presence or absence of a
Specify the date and time when the generated RRSIG records become valid. This can be either an absolute or relative time. An absolute start time is indicated by a number in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS notation; 20000530144500 denotes 14:45:00 UTC on May 30th, 2000. A relative start time is indicated by +N, which is N seconds from the current time. If no
\fBstart\-time\fR
is specified, the current time minus 1 hour (to allow for clock skew) is used.
Specify the date and time when the generated RRSIG records expire. As with
\fBstart\-time\fR, an absolute time is indicated in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS notation. A time relative to the start time is indicated with +N, which is N seconds from the start time. A time relative to the current time is indicated with now+N. If no
\fBend\-time\fR
is specified, 30 days from the start time is used as a default.
When a previously signed zone is passed as input, records may be resigned. The
\fBinterval\fR
option specifies the cycle interval as an offset from the current time (in seconds). If a RRSIG record expires after the cycle interval, it is retained. Otherwise, it is considered to be expiring soon, and it will be replaced.
.sp
The default cycle interval is one quarter of the difference between the signature end and start times. So if neither
\fBend\-time\fR
or
\fBstart\-time\fR
are specified,
\fBdnssec\-signzone\fR
generates signatures that are valid for 30 days, with a cycle interval of 7.5 days. Therefore, if any existing RRSIG records are due to expire in less than 7.5 days, they would be replaced.
The format of the input zone file. Possible formats are
\fB"text"\fR
(default) and
\fB"raw"\fR. This option is primarily intended to be used for dynamic signed zones so that the dumped zone file in a non\-text format containing updates can be signed directly. The use of this option does not make much sense for non\-dynamic zones.
.RE
.PP
\-j \fIjitter\fR
.RS4
When signing a zone with a fixed signature lifetime, all RRSIG records issued at the time of signing expires simultaneously. If the zone is incrementally signed, i.e. a previously signed zone is passed as input to the signer, all expired signatures has to be regenerated at about the same time. The
\fBjitter\fR
option specifies a jitter window that will be used to randomize the signature expire time, thus spreading incremental signature regeneration over time.
.sp
Signature lifetime jitter also to some extent benefits validators and servers by spreading out cache expiration, i.e. if large numbers of RRSIGs don't expire at the same time from all caches there will be less congestion than if all validators need to refetch at mostly the same time.
Use pseudo\-random data when signing the zone. This is faster, but less secure, than using real random data. This option may be useful when signing large zones or when the entropy source is limited.
