How to reload/restart DNS nameserver

Introduction

The DNS nameserver service manages the DNS zone file on a cPanel server. Reloading or restarting can refresh zone files. cPanel will automatically perform these actions in the API when you make changes but if you wanted to reload or restart manually this is possible without rebooting the whole server.

Procedure

If using BIND you can reload all zones with the command:

/usr/sbin/rndc reload

You can also reload a specific zone with the command:

/usr/sbin/rndc reload $zonename

If you want to restart BIND use the following command:

/scripts/restartsrv_named

If using PowerDNS you can reload  all zones with the command:

/usr/bin/pdns_control reload

You can reload a specific zone with the command:

/usr/bin/pdns_control  bind-reload-now $domainname

If you want to restart PowerDNS use the following command:

/scripts/restartsrv_powerdns 

Note: If you reload all zones or the individual you don't need to restart the servers as the reload is parsing the current or latest records into memory.