The Knot DNS server part knotd can run either in the foreground, or in the background using the -d option. When run in the foreground, it doesn't create a PID file. Other than that, there are no differences and you can control both the same way.
The tool knotc is designed as a user front-end, making it easier to control running server daemon. If you want to control the daemon directly, use SIGINT to quit the process or SIGHUP to reload configuration.
If you pass neither configuration file (-c parameter) nor configuration database (-C parameter), server will attempt to use the default configuration file stored in SYSCONFDIR/knot/knot.conf (the path can be reconfigured with --with-configdir=path).
Example of server start as a daemon:
$ knotd -d -c knot.conf
Example of server shutdown:
$ knotc -c knot.conf stop
For a complete list of actions refer to knotd -h and knotc -h or corresponding man pages.
Also, the server needs to create rundir and storage directories in order to run properly.
In the case of a huge configuration file, the configuration can be preloaded into the server's configuration database:
$ knotc import input.conf
Also the configuration database can be exported into a configuration file:
$ knotc export output.conf
It is recommended to perform these actions without server running.
Running the server as a slave is very straightforward as you usually bootstrap zones over AXFR and thus avoid any manual zone operations. In contrast to AXFR, when the incremental transfer finishes, it stores the differences in the journal file and doesn't update the zone file immediately but after the zonefile-sync period elapses.
If you just want to check the zone files before starting, you can use the knotc checkzone action:
$ knotc -c master.conf checkzone example.com
For an approximate estimation of server's memory consumption, you can use the knotc memstats action. This action prints the count of resource records, percentage of signed records and finally estimation of memory consumption for each zone, unless specified otherwise. Please note that the estimated values may differ from the actual consumption. Also, for slave servers with incoming transfers enabled, be aware that the actual memory consumption might be double or higher during transfers:
$ knotc -c master.conf memstats example.com
Knot DNS was designed to allow server reconfiguration on-the-fly without interrupting its operation. Thus it is possible to change both configuration and zone files and also add or remove zones without restarting the server. This can be done with the knotc reload action:
$ knotc -c master.conf reload
If you want to enable ixfr differences creation from changes you make to a zone file, enable ixfr-from-differences in the zone configuration and reload your server as seen above. If SOA's serial is not changed, no differences will be created.
If you want to refresh the slave zones, you can do this with the knotc refresh action:
$ knotc -c slave.conf refresh
For the zone retransfer, there is also an additional command -f.