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ZONEMASTER-CLI(1p) User Contributed Perl Documentation ZONEMASTER-CLI(1p)

zonemaster-cli - run Zonemaster tests from the command line

    zonemaster-cli [--help | --version | --list-tests]
    zonemaster-cli [OPTIONS] --dump-profile
    zonemaster-cli [OPTIONS] DOMAINNAME

zonemaster-cli is a command-line interface to the Zonemaster test engine. It takes instructions the user provides as command line arguments, transforms them into suitable API calls to the engine, runs the test suite and prints the resulting messages. By default, the messages will be translated by the engine's translation module, with the corresponding timestamp and logging level when printed. See the available options below.

Print brief usage information and exit. (run `man zonemaster-cli` for the full manual page)
Print version information and exit.

The printed version numbers are the versions of this program as well as the ones from the underlying Zonemaster test engine.

Print all test cases listed in the test modules, then exit.
Print the effective profile used in JSON format, then exit.

Limit the testing suite to run only the specified tests. Can be specified multiple times. (default: all test cases)

This can be the name of a testing module, in which case all test cases from that module will be run, or the name of a module followed by a slash and the name of a test case (test case identifier) in that module, or the name of the test case. This option is case-insensitive.

Specify the minimum level of a message to be printed. (default: NOTICE)

Messages with this level (or higher) will be printed. The levels are, from highest to lowest: CRITICAL, ERROR, WARNING, NOTICE, INFO, DEBUG, DEBUG2 and DEBUG3. The lowest three levels (DEBUG) add a significant amount of messages to be shown. They reveal some of the internal workings of the test engine, and are probably not useful for most users.

Specify the minimum severity level after which the testing suite is terminated. (default: the empty string)

When set to the empty string, testing is allowed to complete normally no matter what messages are emitted.

The levels are, from highest to lowest: CRITICAL, ERROR, WARNING, NOTICE, INFO, DEBUG, DEBUG2 and DEBUG3.

--[no-]progress
Print an activity indicator ("spinner"). (default: enabled if the process' standard output is a TTY)

Useful to know that something is happening during a run.

--[no-]ipv4, --[no-]ipv6
Enable or disable queries over IPv4 or IPv6. (default: both enabled)
Set IPv4 or IPv6 source address for DNS queries.

Setting an address not correctly configured on a local network interface fails silently.

Override the Zonemaster Engine default profile data with values from the given profile JSON file.

--[no-]json
Print results as JSON instead of human language. (default: disabled)
--[no-]json-stream
Stream the results as JSON. (default: disabled)

Useful to follow the progress in a machine-readable way.

--[no-]raw
Print messages as raw dumps (message identifiers) instead of translating them to human language.
Specify which locale to be used by the translation system. (default: system locale or English)

If not given, the translation system itself will look at environment variables to try and guess. If the requested translation does not exist, it will fall back to the local locale, and if that does not exist either, to English.

--[no-]time
Print the timestamp for each message. (default: enabled)
--[no-]show-level
Print the severity level for each message. (default: enabled)
--[no-]show-module
Print the name of the module which produced the message. (default: disabled)
--[no-]show-testcase
Print the name of the test case (test case identifier) which produced the message. (default: disabled)

--[no-]count
Print a summary, at the end of a run, of the numbers of messages for each severity level that were logged during the run. (default: disabled)
--[no-]nstimes
Print a summary, at the end of a run, of the times (in milliseconds) the zone's name servers took to answer. (default: disabled)
--[no-]elapsed
Print elapsed time (in seconds) at end of a run. (default: disabled)

Provide information about a nameserver, for undelegated tests.

The argument must be either: (i) a domain name and an IP address, separated by a single slash character (/), or (ii) only a domain name, in which case a A and AAAA records lookup for that name is done in the live global DNS tree (unless overridden by --hints) and from which the results of that lookup will be used.

This switch can be given multiple times. As long as any of these switches are present, their aggregated content will be used as the entirety of the parent-side delegation information.

Provide a DS record for undelegated testing (that is, a test where the delegating nameserver information is given via --ns switches).

The four pieces of data (keytag, algorithm, type, digest) should be in the same format they would have in a zone file.

Name of a root hints file to override the defaults.

Write the contents of the accumulated DNS packet cache to a file with the given name after the testing suite has finished running.
Prime the DNS packet cache with the contents from the file with the given name before starting the testing suite.

The format of the file should be from one produced by the --save switch.

Deprecated: Simply remove it from your usage. It is ignored.
--[no-]json-translate
Deprecated since v2023.1, use --no-raw instead.

For streaming JSON output, include the translated message of the tag.

These options are provided for compatibility with older scripts. The first two are aliases for "--help". The rest are aliases for their namesakes spelled with dash "-" instead of underscore "_".

-?
--[no-]json_stream
--[no-]json_translate
--[no-]show_level
--[no-]show_module
--[no-]show_testcase

    zonemaster-cli zonemaster.net
    zonemaster-cli --test=delegation --level=info --no-time zonemaster.net
    zonemaster-cli --test=delegation01 --level=debug zonemaster.net
    zonemaster-cli --list-tests

The testing and result analysis performed by Zonemaster Engine is always guided by a profile. Zonemaster Engine has a default profile with sensible defaults. Zonemaster CLI allows users to override the default profile data with values from a profile JSON file with the "--profile" option. For details on profiles and how they are represented in files, see Zonemaster::Engine::Profile.

If there is a readable file /etc/zonemaster/cli.args (Linux style), each line in that file will be prepended as an argument on the command line. If no /etc/zonemaster/cli.args is found (or is not readable) but /usr/local/etc/zonemaster/cli.args (FreeBSD style) is found and readable then that file will be used instead. Only one global file is loaded.

If there is a readable file .zonemaster/cli.args in the user's home directory, it will be used in the same way even when a global file has been loaded. Any argument in user's cli.args will override the same argument in the global config file.

For example, if one would like to by default run with the log level set to DEBUG and with translation to human-readable messages turned off, one could put this in the config file:

   --raw
   --level=DEBUG

Only one argument per line. If the argument has a value there must be a "=" between argument and value. A line starting with "#" is a comment. Comments cannot be added on lines with arguments.

Any arguments actually given on the command line will override what is in any of the loaded config files.

More complete documentation on Zonemaster and its tests can be found on <https://doc.zonemaster.net>.

Calle Dybedahl <calle@init.se> and others from the Zonemaster project

2025-03-21 perl v5.40.1