Hornet

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A fast, comprehensive Rust library for parsing, writing, and validating BIND9 named.conf configuration files and DNS zone files.

Features

Performance

Hornet is built on winnow parser combinators and processes DNS config files at memory-bandwidth speeds. Benchmarks measured with Criterion.rs on Apple M-series / macOS:

named.conf parsing

Zone file parsing

Zone file throughput stays in the 85–134 MiB/s band across four orders of magnitude of input, demonstrating the linear-time behavior of the parser. See the Benchmarks reference for the full table including write and validation timings.

Installation

Library

[dependencies]
hornet-bind9 = "0.1"

CLI

cargo install hornet-bind9

Quick start

Parse a named.conf

use hornet_bind9::parse_named_conf;

let input = r#"
options {
    directory "/var/cache/bind";
    recursion yes;
    allow-query { any; };
};

zone "example.com" {
    type primary;
    file "/etc/bind/zones/example.com.db";
};
"#;

let conf = parse_named_conf(input)?;
println!("{} statement(s)", conf.statements.len());

Parse a zone file

use hornet_bind9::parse_zone_file;

let zone_text = r#"
$ORIGIN example.com.
$TTL 1h
@ IN SOA ns1 admin (2024010101 1d 2h 4w 5m)
@ IN NS ns1.example.com.
@ IN A  93.184.216.34
"#;

let zone = parse_zone_file(zone_text)?;
for record in zone.records() {
    println!("{}: {}", record.name.as_ref().map(|n| n.as_str()).unwrap_or("(blank)"), record.rdata.rtype());
}

Validate

use hornet_bind9::{parse_named_conf, validate_named_conf, Severity};

let conf = parse_named_conf(input)?;
let diags = validate_named_conf(&conf);

for d in &diags {
    match d.severity {
        Severity::Error   => eprintln!("error: {}", d.message),
        Severity::Warning => eprintln!("warning: {}", d.message),
        Severity::Info    => println!("info: {}", d.message),
    }
}

Write / format

use hornet_bind9::{parse_named_conf, write_named_conf};
use hornet_bind9::writer::WriteOptions;

let conf = parse_named_conf(input)?;
let opts = WriteOptions {
    indent: 4,
    modern_keywords: true,  // master -> primary, slave -> secondary
    ..Default::default()
};
let formatted = write_named_conf(&conf, &opts);
println!("{formatted}");

CLI

Usage: hornet <COMMAND>

Commands:
  parse       Parse a named.conf and print formatted output  [alias: p]
  zone        Parse a zone file and print formatted output   [alias: z]
  check       Validate a named.conf, print diagnostics       [alias: c]
  check-zone  Validate a zone file
  fmt         Reformat a named.conf in-place
  convert     Convert legacy keywords (master→primary, etc.)
  help        Print help

Examples

# Parse and pretty-print
hornet parse /etc/bind/named.conf

# Validate (exits 1 on errors/warnings)
hornet check /etc/bind/named.conf

# Format in-place
hornet fmt /etc/bind/named.conf

# Check only — don't write (useful in CI)
hornet fmt --check /etc/bind/named.conf

# Migrate legacy keywords
hornet convert --in-place /etc/bind/named.conf

# Validate a zone file
hornet check-zone /etc/bind/zones/example.com.db

Supported BIND9 constructs

named.conf statements

• options { … }; — full option block including listen-on, forwarders, allow-* ACLs, dnssec-validation, rate-limit, response-policy, …
• zone "name" [class] { … }; — all zone types: primary/master, secondary/slave, stub, forward, hint, redirect, delegation, in-view
• view "name" [class] { … }; — with nested zones
• acl "name" { … };
• logging { channel … ; category … ; };
• controls { inet … ; };
• key "name" { algorithm; secret; };
• primaries / masters "name" { … };
• server addr { … };
• include "path";
• Unknown blocks preserved verbatim

Zone file record types

A, AAAA, NS, MX, SOA, CNAME, PTR, HINFO, TXT, SRV, CAA, SSHFP, TLSA, NAPTR, LOC, DS, DNSKEY, RRSIG, NSEC, NSEC3, NSEC3PARAM, HTTPS, SVCB, ANAME/ALIAS, TYPE<N> fallback

Zone file directives

$ORIGIN, $TTL, $INCLUDE, $GENERATE

Feature flags

Project layout

hornet/
├── src/
│   ├── ast/           # AST definitions
│   │   ├── named_conf.rs
│   │   └── zone_file.rs
│   ├── parser/        # winnow parsers
│   │   ├── common.rs
│   │   ├── named_conf.rs
│   │   └── zone_file.rs
│   ├── writer/        # Serialisers
│   │   ├── named_conf.rs
│   │   └── zone_file.rs
│   ├── validator/     # Semantic checks
│   │   └── mod.rs
│   ├── error.rs
│   ├── lib.rs
│   └── main.rs        # CLI binary (cli feature)
├── tests/
│   ├── named_conf.rs
│   └── zone_file.rs
├── .github/workflows/
├── Cargo.toml
└── README.md

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or pull request on GitHub.

When adding support for a new statement or record type:

1. Add the AST type(s) to src/ast/
2. Add a parser in src/parser/
3. Add a writer in src/writer/
4. Add validation rules in src/validator/
5. Add integration tests in tests/

License

Licensed under the MIT License.