rndc: connect failed: connection refused

After starting named with the command /etc/init.d/named start you get an OK but the named server is not running. 

The problem could be that named tries to write to the file /var/run/named.pid . On most Linux/UNIX systems the user named is not allowed to write to that file. Instead the user named should write to /var/run/named/named.pid

Solution:

Open /etc/named.conf and add pid-file "/var/run/named/named.pid" to the "options" section.

If you run rndc-confgen you should add the pid-file section yourself. 

# Use with the following in named.conf, adjusting the allow list as needed:

options {

 pid-file "/var/run/named/named.pid";

}

key "rndc-key" {

      algorithm hmac-md5;

      secret "DTKqPmkyorw5dFYCyz6Fiw==";

};

controls {

      inet 127.0.0.1 port 953

              allow { 127.0.0.1; } keys { "rndc-key"; };

};

# End of named.conf